I wish I could talk to you.

by Thenumber1superspecialguy

Summary:

“I'm worried… about Jax..” Pomni wrung her hands, pinching the ends of her gloves.

“Jax? Did he..? Did he threaten you?” Ragatha felt her heart drop, despite her talk with kinger she still couldn't help but blame herself for leaving Pomni with Jax, her hand wrapped the wooden arm of her rocking chair.

“What.? No! No no.. I'm worried for him, I mean..” she shuffled on ragatha's bed, “ I've never met someone before they abstracted but…” she could only make herself make eye contact for a second at a time before looking back at her hands, or the bed or anything else.

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Suprising literally everyone, Jax makes the first move to make up with Pomni. (Post episode 6)

Notes:

I'm writing this as a little treat for myself but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Chapter 1: Throwing and Hitting (and maybe crying but don't tell anyone)

Summary:

I was abt to write something here but just read the chapter title.

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“I'm worried… about Jax..” Pomni wrung her hands, pinching the ends of her gloves.

 

“Jax? Did he..? Did he threaten you?” Ragatha felt her heart drop, despite her talk with kinger she still couldn't help but blame herself for leaving Pomni with Jax, her hand wrapped the wooden arm of her rocking chair.

 

“What.? No! No no.. I'm worried for him, I mean..” she shuffled on ragatha's bed, “I've never met someone before they abstracted but…” she could only make herself make eye contact for a second at a time before looking back at her hands, or the bed or anything else. “it was… well it kinda started after we got Zooble out, we were celebrating and… well he started saying all this stuff… and … I'm sorry I don't know how to explain it.” she'd started tearing up part way through, remembering the argument made her so angry and confused and all these other things all over again.

 

“Take your time.” Ragatha leant back, picking her knitting back up, “it's ok, just… just take all the time you need.”

 

She took a breath and blinked away the tears, “I mean… it was utter bullsh@#£.. I think.. the whole adventure we were getting along fine, talking and stuff, but he just suddenly… went off about how we were never friends and that he didn't care, insisting that I shoot him.. we fought.. or, no. I fought him, but I… he… IT’S BULLSH%@#.” Her voice cracked, she wanted to throw something or hit something but there was nothing nearby that was throwable or hittable so she threw herself off the bed and hit the floor face first, “I don't understaaaaaand… and now he's avoiding me and acting super weird..” her voice muffled into the carpet at ragatha's feet

 

Ragatha was startled by Pomni, but slid out of the chair and sat with crossed legs by her side, “And.. you think he's in danger of abstraction?” she continued her knitting.

 

“Yes..? I don't know..” she tilted her head towards Ragatha, but soon turned back into the carpet, screaming and bashing the floor with her fists, which just ended up making little ‘bmp bmp bmp’ noises. Eventually, she just lay defeated in a starfish position. “… what do I do, Ragatha?”

 

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Jax was throwing and hitting things. In his room, just about anything and everything was being thrown or hit, at some point he just started methodically going along his shelf and tossing everything behind him into a pile, which he then kicked in all directions.

 

In all the kicking, he stubbed his toe on the leg of his bed, “AAUgHHHhhhnnnnnⁿⁿⁿ” he grabbed his foot and hopped, slipping over one of the many things on the floor and landing on his back. Laying spread out over his stuff, lots of it probably irreversibly broken… 

 

He stared at his stupid ceiling but his anger refused to quell. He reached into his big stupid pocket and pulled out the stupid picture he took with Pomni in the stupid hallway at the start of the stupid adventure… they look so close.

 

He put his hands on either side of it, intending to tear it in two, maybe in 4 even. But his hands wouldn't. He growled to himself and crawled to a stand, marching to his trash can and throwing it inside, it gently fluttered down unsatisfyingly and sat perfectly atop all his other garbage. He kicked it for good measure then leapt onto his bed.

 

He mumbled to himself, “she thinks I care, I don't care, never did, it was funny, the whole thing was soooo funny she just didn't get the joke… and I won't explain the joke because then it's not funny anymore…” he grabbed his bed side lamp and threw it against the wall, it smashed, leaving the room in darkness. He rolled over onto his face, completely tensed from head to toe, which, surely, would be conducive to a good night's sleep.

 

…

 

It's not.

 

Jax's ears stood up and pivoted at the sound of Pomni's door opening and closing.

 

Why couldn't she just pull the stupid trigger, it would've been that easy, make clear that the not caring about eachother was mutual and then things could go back to normal… but now everything is weird and it's all her fault… yes, all her fault… if I.. if…

 

“GHRRAAHH” Jax threw his pillow, which, by some luck hit the light switch. He stomped over to the trash can, pulled the photo back out and took it to his desk, which had been wiped clear of all his stationary, “ughhh f#£=k my lifeeeee.” He went over to the spread of stuff on the floor and picked up a pen.

 

He somewhat angrily scribbled two words on the back, then somehow also angrily sneaked out of his room, careful to make no sound, slipped the photo under Pomni's door then retreated to his bed, now sans pillow.

 

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She was still awake, Ragatha had helped but she just kept replaying the argument over and over in her head, it was such bulls%÷$…

 

She could've sworn she heard Jax open his door, she huffed. How dare he occupy a space within 50 feet of her while she was this mad at him…

 

There was the smallest sound of thick paper scaping against the floor at her door, then nothing more. She was frozen slightly, she clicked on her lamp and approached her door apprehensively. It was the photo… he'd refused to let her see it after he took it, tucking it away in his pocket, jerk… why was he giving it to her? Surely if he didn't care so much he'd rip it in two… maybe even 4..

 

Holding it in both her hands, like if she dropped it, it'd glitch out of existence, she took it to her bed where she could see it better. They look so close in this..

 

She huffed and went to put it face down on her bedside table… but there was something written on the back.

 

The handwriting was reminiscent of an angry toddler, it looked like it was scrawled with the pen held in a clenched fist. But it definitely said…

 

“I’M SORRY”

 

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Notes:

The last time I wrote a fanfiction was when I was like 14 and on wattpad (wait where are you going come back) and I honestly really enjoyed writing this. If you spot any spelling errors lmk I will fix it.

Also I didn't know what to do for the title so I just hit shuffle on Spotify, thanks Ricky Montgomery, acctually I think it fits well too.

Chapter 2: 7 Minutes in Truth or Musical Twister!

Summary:

Jax will soon have to face the truth, with Caines most complicated adventure yet!

Notes:

I fell off with this one💯🔥 I had fun making it tho and that's all that counts:3

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Jax had only just managed to knock himself out and suddenly he was awake again. He always woke up at the exact same time every morning, he'd just assumed everyone else did too but never asked. It was probably a Caine thing or a circus thing, something about day and night cycles blah blah blah. It'd never stopped him from going back to sleep before but after hours of tossing and turning, he was just about sick of his bed.

 

Upon opening his door and seeing Pomni standing oh-so politely at the wall opposite, he felt his face react before he could and stretch into an panicked grimace before he quickly reset to neutral. If he had a stomach, it probably would've flipped hard enough to qualify for Nationals. What the hell is she waiting for?

 

He put up a confidence front as he desperately ignored her and strolled toward the main tent.

 

“..Jax?” Pomni lifted herself off the wall and attempted to catch up with her comparatively much shorter legs, “Jax, please don't ignore me..” 

 

He kept his pace to assure he stayed just ahead of her, “Ignore you? How was I meant to know we were in a conversation, you didn't even say good morning.”

 

She huffed, “Fine, good morning, now can we talk please?”

 

“About what? I think enough was said yesterday, you should get it by now.” He feigned ignorance.

 

“About the photo.”

 

He slowed to a stop, he knew she was going to do this, he should've just pretended he head headphones in or something. If he had anything genuine to say to her, it was definitely not going to be where anyone else could hear him. He turned to her with the most uncaring voice he could muster, “I don't know what you're talking about… photo? What photo? You sound crazy, just leave me alone if you're going to be weird.” 

 

He turned after a second and strolled away, Pomni so desperately wished she had something hard to chuck at his stupid head, but even if she did she knew that would solve nothing. God, he's so full of bulls&#@.

 

She clenched her fists and kept walking. Ragatha did say she should leave him be till he'd cooled off, but how was she meant to know when that'd be when he's so fu£♤€ng fake all the time. Why'd he even apologise…

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

At breakfast, Jax and Pomni could do no more than prod at their low poly waffles before Caine appeared, blowing up the breakfast table with a snap of his finger.

 

“Right.” He said with a severe lack of his regular gusto, “it's time for an adventure, let's see…” the cast still sat bewildered at their chairs, kinger still held his fork with ravenous intent.

 

Caine tapped his bottom-left-second-premolar in thought, “hmm, well you're all at chairs so… musical chairs?”

 

Zooble scoffed, “what, like the kids party game?”

 

Caine furrowed his incisors, “YES, EXACTLY LIKE A KIDS PARTY GAME. Today's adventure is 7 minutes in truth or musical twister!” Caine snapped his fingers and trap doors opened beneath all the cast members.

 

“But wHaT DOES THAT MEANNNNNNNNnnnnn" Zoobles voice echoed and faded.

 

They landed soon after with various painful thuds and groans, the map layed out before them seemed to resemble a twister mat, but they could only just see the end of it as it streched toward the horizon under a cloudless blue sky. The colours seemed to mostly consist of red, blue, yellow and green, but unlike a familiar twister mat the colours were all in a random order. Looking at all the spots, Jax felt a bit uneasy.

 

“So my digital kittens, this is how this game is going to work, this here is my amazing digital twister mat, and when my 7 minute timer begins, you must cross it, starting from wherever you want, however, you may only touch the specified colour, red, yellow, green and blue, with the specified limb, right hand, left hand, right foot left foot. every 3.25 seconds you will be given a new colour and limb to use, if the next colour and limb has been called out before you move, you may no longer make the previous move, however you may stay still for as long as you like. If you touch the incorrect colour with the incorrect limb, even if it's an accident, you must tell the truth for the rest of the game and will be moved backwards directly to the most previous legal spot. You may at any point touch any colour that is not red, yellow, green or blue with any limb, but be warned! Each colour comes with its own consequence!”

 

Most of the cast had started to zone out.

 

“Touching a purple circle will move everyone else back to the most previous legal spot, touching a magenta spot will switch everyone's places randomly, touching a pink spot will make you slippery! Touching a [#2D4B6A] spot will give you bad luck, touching touching a forest green spot will make you think of the beauty of mother nature, touching a sunset orange spot will remove one of your limbs, touching a periwinkle spot will make the next 10 moves right hand moves, touching the burnt sienna spot will move you forward to the next pink spot, touching a slightly different shade of red spot will make bubble-" Caine continued to list all the different spots and their underwhelming uses, by now everyone was paying no attention, even me, the author.

 

Looking out, they could pick out afew of the colours apart from the crowd, there did seems to be a good number of them but they were definitely less common.

 

“-and if you fail to cross within 7 minutes, you go to heaven! Unless your name contains the 26th letter of the alphabet, then you go to hell. ANY QUESTIONS?” Caine looked at the cast expectantly, Bubble spun around in the air behind him.

 

“Wait WHAT.” Zooble reeled after processing the last part.

 

“Yes! I do!” Kinger raised his hand, “I don't have feet.”

 

“That's a statement not a question.” Caine responded bluntly.

 

“Oh! May I please have feet?” Kinger asked very politely.

 

“Why, of course!” Caine snapped his fingers and two wooden pegs appeared beneath kinger, both having 3 little toes.

 

“Ohhh wowwww, they're wonderful!” Kinger admired his feet, going into his own little world as he walked about aimlessly.

 

“Any more questions?” Caine looked out at the cast, who all looked equally bewildered.

 

“Uh, the adventure name says this is musical Twister, how is this musical exactly?” Gangle adjusted her happy mask.

 

“AND WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE GOING TO HELL???”

 

“Great question Gangle! Thats because Bubble will be singing the whole time!” he motioned towards bubble, who seems to be warming up his singing voice, “So no more questions? OK GREAT! We can start,” Caine waved his arms wildly, “find where you'd like to start, your 7 minutes begins in 10, 9,8..” everyone scrambled to the starting line there was no way of telling if any particular way was the best way, it seemed like it was 99% luck 1% trying not to fall on their a#$es.

 

“..2,1 go!”

 

A voice echoed from the sky “Right Foot, Red.” And everyone hurried to make their first move. Bubble began to sing the most annoying, grating song ever heard.

 

The only thing Jax remembered about the special colours is he can touch them whenever he wants, so he just started skipping across with his long legs, quickly getting ahead of everyone else as they followed the called moves.

 

Pomni thought she understood the basics of the game, though she only remembered one or two of the special colours rules, so she just carefully moved across the board, she honestly began to enjoy herself.

 

Jax nonchalantly stepped on a purple spot, which of course as everyone remembers, teleports all other players back to the most previous legal spot, this was most jarring since the last called out move was left hand yellow, so most the cast found themselves suddenly in a perfect one hand stand. The exception to this was Gangle, who had just passed a Pink square before this, she was placed on it and immediately slipped over, shattering her comedy mask and landing on the floor.

 

“Uh oh! Looks like Gangle chose the truth! That means she has to answer everything truthfully for the rest of the adventure!” Caine announced.

 

Jax laughed and yelled over at her, “HEY GANGLE, TELL US ABOUT THE ANIME FIG-" he cut himself off after stepping on a burnt sienna spot, which as we all know, took him forward to the next pink spot. He slipped backwards, catching himself on a sunset orange space with his left arm, which as everyone definitely remembers, removes one of your limbs. ‘Pop' was the only sound as his whole right arm vanished.

 

“OH COME ON!!” he yelled at no one in particular as he stood up with his left foot on green.

 

“Ah, that darned [#2D4B6A] spot. Never underestimate bad luck Jax!” Caine floated by. Jax didn't know what colour that was but assumed he must've stepped on it at some point.

 

“Right Foot, Blue.” 

 

Ahead of him, the only special spots jax could see were pink, which he was now vehemently against, and grey, which he hadn't seen yet. He carelessly continued onto it, “GAH AO!” is the only noise he could make as he felt something zap him.

 

“Jax! What'd you think would happen? Did you not remember that the grey ones shock you?!” Caine berated him. 

 

Jax landed onto a blue square. Guess he had to follow the rules for now, what a pain..

 

Caine zoomed over to Zagatha, “Uh oh! Looks like you stepped on a Royal blue spot!”

 

“Wait what? But it looks exactly the same?!?? What does it do???” She panicked, still streched back with her right hand still on a yellow spot.

 

“Well, Zagatha, if you were paying any attention to the rules, you'd know that it makes your name start with the letter Z. Which as I'm sure you know means that if you run out of time, you go to hell.” he spoke matter-of-factly, crossing his arms.

 

“WHAT?!” she panicked, but continued moving as the moves were called.

 

A sort of puzzle was coming together in pomni's head, she saw just ahead of her a periwinkle spot, this one she remembered would make the next 10 moves called all right hand moves… was she this evil? Jax didn't have a right hand anymore so unless he wanted to get shocked and/or slip he'd be stuck… then again, it would also have everyone else including herself jumping on their hands… ah what the hell, it was all for fun anyways. She leapt onto the periwinkle spot, surprisingly, Caine said nothing, but true to his word,

 

“Right Hand, Red.”

 

She looked over at Jax briefly, watching him huff about the chosen move. She sprung into a hand stand.

 

“Right Hand, Green.”

 

She began to regret her decision, hopping with an arm was a lot harder than she thought.

 

“Right Hand, Green.”

 

Kinger made a “Ngyehhh.” Sound as his non existent arm failed to hold him up. He thudded onto the mat.

 

“Kinger speaks the truth!”

 

“Right hand, Blue.”

 

Pomni had started looking for a special spot to stand on, she started to feel dizzy from being upside down and watching Jax stand there like a lost puppy waiting to be able to move wasn't as funny as she thought.

 

“Right Hand, Blue.”

 

Gangle hopped to a blue spot, but somehow failed to see that it was Royal blue. Caine let her know of her name change, “Zangle, do you not know your colours?” Zangle sighed and stood up right on the spot.

 

By the next right hand, everyone had given up on moving anywhere.

 

Zooble yelled, “Hey, Caine, is your randomiser broken?! What the hell is with this??”

 

“Oh yes! That, don't worry, there's only 5 more left.” Everyone sighed, even Pomni who definitely regretted this.

 

Finally, “Left Leg, Yellow.” Everyone was moving again, but time was getting short and they were only half way through.

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

Through a stroke of luck, or maybe genius, Kinger had made it to the end first, while everyone else was 20 or so spots away. Bubble was on his 3rd time through his song, it didn't get any better.

 

“30 seconds left!” Caine waved his arms, “No more hanging around!”

 

Jax went for it, with his method he leapt across special spots with no regard for what they did, he attempted to use a pink spot, for his final, jump, he figured that if he had enough momentum then he could use it to fly over the finish line.

 

That was not the case.

 

As soon as his foot put the tiniest amount of weight onto it, he fell flat on his back.

 

“Jax has sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!” 

 

“HEY JAX,” Zooble yelled over the mat.

 

“WHAT?!” he yelled back

 

They had been waiting for this, “ARE YOU A VIRGIN?”

 

“YES- WHAT-" his shock was extremely present on his face ,”YOU- YOU.. YOU CAN'T..”

 

Pomni had no idea what kind of face to make, Zagatha covered her mouth, “ZOOBLE?! That wasnt nice!!”

 

“What? It's deserved. You can't say that he did nothing wrong.” They crossed their arms.

 

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” Time was up, everyone on the board had no time to react before the mat folded up and everyone fell into nothing.

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

“Jax and Pomni, since you did not make it to the other side but you names don't contain the 26th letter of the alphabet, you are in heaven!” Caine explained.

 

They looked around, it was certainly nice, sure. Green grass, trees, babbling brookes, all that jazz, but there was something off.

 

“Uhh, so when do we go back to the Circus?” Pomni wrung her hands.

 

“Whenever I'm bored with Zangle, Zooble and Zagatha I guess, bye!” He popped out of existence.

 

The adventure isn't over yet then… meaning Jax still has to tell the truth… Pomni watched as he face planted into the grass and rolled into an embarrassed ball.

 

Okay…

Notes:

It's not the greatest thing I've ever made, but stick with me ok, I needed to set up the next chapter (in the most complicated way, it was necessary trust)
Also this website confuses me, how do I get a profile picture...

Chapter 3: Definitely 100% the Truth

Summary:

Pomni and Jax chat, that's the whole thing.

Notes:

I wrote the last 2 chapters late at night but for this one I had to stop myself from writing it immediately after I posted the last one.

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This adventure sucked. Not only was he still missing an arm, this was the most devastatingly embarrassed Jax had ever been. And on top of it all, he was stuck with Pomni in this weird ‘heaven’ map.

 

Pomni was having a crisis. While she just wanted Jax to tell her the truth about how he felt, it would be wrong to take advantage of his circumstance… he would probably never forgive her if she just went over to him and forced it out of him…

 

She watched him for a moment, he lay on his side, tearing out the grass with his knees tucked to his chest. She steadied herself and carefully approached.

 

“…Jax?” Pomni knelt down on the grass a few feet away from his head.

 

“Go away.” his ears pinned back at the sound of her voice, he tore at the grass more aggressively.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“I'm fine, just peachy.” “I am so unbelievably embarrassed.” He scoffed, then froze, “…That's not what I wanted to say‐ IS THE STUPID TRUTH THING STILL ACTIVE?!” he jolted upward, sitting with his legs out. His pupils were the tiniest little squares.

 

“Don't worry, I’m… I'm not gonna force anything out of you… I don't think that would be fair..” she crossed her legs, smoothing her hand across the lush grass. Neither of them could shake the weird feeling about this place, but with that aside, it was pretty nice.

 

His face softened, when he looked at her. She threw her gaze back to the grass.

 

“It's.. not that odd, by the way.” 

 

His face contorted into confusion, “huh? What's not odd?”

 

She fidgeted with a blade of grass, “Well, I mean, some people are just late bloomers, it's perfectly OK to not have ha-”

 

“NO NO SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT THAT.” he cut her off, his face clearly blazing red.

 

Pomni put her hands up in surrender, “OK OK sorry, I won't…” she wanted to at least pretend that he looked threatening to her, since his ego was kinda dying a horrible death, but a tiny smile slipped out still.

 

He went to cross his arms, but with only one it didn't have the same effect.

 

“For the record, it's voluntary, I'm not some incel desperate for sex.” He mumbled, “Nobody I met ever interested me.” “I was too scared to be vulnerable with anyone like that- WHAT” he growled and yanked more grass and dirt out of the floor and threw it, “what I was TRYING TO SAY was that I didn't have any interest in anyone.” He paused, is that a loophole?

 

“Hm, sure, I'll take your word for it…” she wanted to talk to him so badly right now, she tugged at the pompom on her chest and looked out at the treeline, racking her brain for a conversation starter that wouldn't make him say something he didn't want to.

 

“So uhhh, what's your… favourite colour?” Pomni streched her legs out, unconsciously mirroring his pose.

 

He giggled deviously, “I'm gonna say hot pink.” He had absolutely found a loop hole.

 

“Hot pink? Really?” She eyed him, “Uh not that it's a bad choice but… I mean it's just not what I expected.”

 

The idea that Pomni had any thoughts about him besides what he'd presented to her caught him off guard, “Why, what did you expect?”

 

“Pfft, I don't know, maybe red, or green? But you also seem like the type to pick an extremely specific shade and know it by it's proper name and its RGB values..” she giggled.

 

“That's silly… who would do that…” he would.

 

She rocked back and forth, looking up at the sky with its perfectly fluffy clouds.

 

“Hmmm, are you a cat person or a dog person?” She tapped her chin.

 

“Rabbit.” He said smugly, grinning at her.

 

She giggled, “No, no, I mean which do you prefer.” He knew that of course.

 

“I'm going to say.. dog.” He loopholed, she was confused at the way he laughed, like there was a joke she wasn't in on.

 

“Okayyy… favourite movie?” She squinted at him, beginning to get suspicious, she wasn't sure of what she should be suspicious of but she was anyways.

 

“I'm going to say.. The Emoji Movie.” He couldn't hold himself together and broke down laughing, rolling onto his side.

 

“NO IT IS NOT?? THERE IS ACCTUALLY NO WAY.” she stood up just to kick him in the shins, violence felt like the correct answer to his response. Through the kicks he continued laughing.

 

“I CAN’T LIE, REMEMBER???” he attempted to kick back but mostly missed, so it just looked like more flailing about.

 

“NO, That literally CANNOT be your full, genuine, honest answer. I know you've done something, you keep starting your answers the same way.” She lightly batted at him while he attempted to sit back up, still laughing.

 

He grabbed one of her offending arms, then quickly let go and brushed her away, “fine.. saying something like ‘I'm going to say I love putting milk in my Pepsi’ is a paradox, it must break the filter or something, since I don't acctually love putting milk in my Pepsi, it would be a lie on its own. But saying I'm going to say that is the truth, and if I didn't say what I intended to, then it would be a lie. Right?” Jax gestured throughout his explanation, but it was clear that he'd intended there to be one more hand involved.

 

“Ohhhh yeah that's smart!” Pomni grinned, she'd just now realised that they were getting along again… but that didn't mean there was nothing to resolve.

 

“Yeah, I'm a genius.” “I'm pretty insecure about my intelligence… oh what the hell…” he frowned.

 

Pomni giggled, she only found it funny because she could tell exactly what he intended to say, and hearing something like that while he had his confident posture and smug tone of voice was… definitely amusing, “sorry, sorry I shouldn't laugh..”

 

He just rolled his eyes and huffed at her in response.

 

“So… what's your actual favourite colour then?” She leaned towards him, tilting her head in his direction.

 

“Ah well… I'm partial to a sacremento green… 0,86,63.” He turned his head away.

 

“I KNEW IT!” She fist pumped furiously, “so are you also not a dog person?”

 

“They're alright, I do prefer cats though.” He almost went to lean back on his arms for a moment before remembering.

 

“I see, I see…. And Guywhoputthephotoundermydoorat2aminthemorningsayswhat.” She blurted as fast as she could.

 

“Huh?”

 

“D@£MIT” she slammed her fists into the dirt.

 

“Ohhh, hehe. Yeah… I only did it because…” he thought about his next words very carefully, and sighed, “I'm going to say that I only did it because you looked all stupid and sad, and I thought it would fool you into thinking I was acctually sorry.”

 

“That trick doesn't work on me anymore, bucko, besides, that explanation doesn't even make sense.” She shoved him lightly.

 

He looked away “… I'm going to say I don't care about you…”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

Notes:

I can't lie, I shriek like a monkey every time I get a new comment on this (I love attention :3) so I just wanted to say thank you for all the kind words so far, it really means a lot to me.

Chapter 4: He Cares an Unspecified Amount

Summary:

Idek man, Ragatha is in this one tho!

Notes:

At first I LOLed😆 then I serioused💀

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

“… I'm going to say I don't care about you…”

 

She scoffed, despite knowing it was a lie, it still kinda stung to hear it from him again. Pomni gave him an unimpressed glare, “…Lying A#@…” she grumbled.

 

“Hey, you don't know, it could be the truth…” he shut his eyes and tilted his head up, a move he knew made him look nonchalant.

 

“No, come on now, if it's the truth I want to hear you say it with your full chest.” Oops, yeah, there it was. That kinda came out of her before she had a chance to even think, she was not over their fight, and she knew no amount of playful banter would help.

 

“I…” if he said he didn't care about her, he had no idea what would come out of his mouth. Well… he had some ideas and one of them was not ready to grace his tounge. So the truth it was. 

 

“I care about you… okay? I care… an unspecified amount.” Jax caught himself about to say he cared ‘a little’ and didn't want to know what that might turn into. He let himself fall back onto the grass, his arm stretching outward.

 

She took a deep, grounding breath and copied, lying next to him, “Jax… I'm going to talk, and you don't have to say anything.”

 

“Okay…”

 

“I'm… still upset over what you said to me, it hurt. A lot. Even if it was all bullsh@#%. I want to know why you did that… I want you to tell me, but I don't want it to be now, I want to hear you say it when your words aren't being twisted into something you didn't mean to say. I want you to tell me whatever the f#^% is wrong with you and mean it.” Her words held no venom, her tone was even and she spoke clearly. She shut her eyes and breathed easy.

 

There was a silence that clung to the air as he thought.

 

“Yeah… alright… I will try.” Truthfully, he didn't entirely know the answer, but now he had to figure it out… or Pomni would be sad…

 

“Pomni?”

 

She sighed, “Yeah, Jax?”

 

“…I’m sorry.”

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

Caine snapped his finger and everyone was back in the main tent.

 

“ALRIGHT ITS OVER NOW. I hope you all had fun or whatever, I'm going to eat a fruit salad…” Caine's arms were crossed as he furiously zoomed away from the group, likely going to sulk.

 

“Woah,” Pomni readjusted to her surroundings, “so what happened in hell?”

 

Ragatha (formerly Zagatha) sighed and waved a hand loosely in a gesture that probably meant something, “ah.. well Caine was dressed up as some sort of imp, or maybe he was meant to be Satan..? Either way, he got upset when we weren't screaming enough… anddd well he got into a bit of a tizzy… it wasn't a fun time for anyone…” she rubbed her arm awkwardly.

 

“Yeah, I'd give hell a bad review.” Zooble (still Zooble) rolled his eyes.

 

“Anyways… how was heaven? Was it nice?” Gangle (formerly Zangle) had gotten her happy mask fixed, she bumped her little ribbon hands together.

 

“I'm gonna say it was stupid and I didn't like it or have fun…” Jax crossed his arms and put on a fake a&@ frown.

 

Pomni almost laughed that Jax was still using his loophole, did he not realise he could lie again? “Uhh I mean it was pretty nice, grass and trees and a stream… but it had a bit of an uncanny valley vibe going on. Maybe because there were no animals? I'm not sure..”

 

Ragatha paused, looking thoughtful, “you know… that does sound familiar… I think I remember a map like that before, maybe it was reused? Wow… that would've been a long time ago, before either you or Jax… Do you… remember that kinger? I remember you complained there were no bugs..” 

 

Kinger was gazing longingly at where his legs were just a minute ago, “… huh?” His head snapped up, “Oh yes! Wait… maybe… no. Sorry Ragatha, I thought you said breakfast.” He smiled with his eyes, remembering his waffles… or were they pancakes? Or was it fries, or was he just thinking about fries because they look like his legs… he missed his legs… oh how they used to walk…

 

“I see…” Ragatha should've expected that.

 

Everyone started splitting up to do their own nonsense, this adventure ended up being significantly shorter than usual so they had a bit of time on their hands before bed.

 

While he wished he could talk to Pomni, he had some thinking to do. He spared her a glance and a small wave before sauntering off back to his room.

 

Yeah, she didn't think he'd wanna have that conversation he promised that soon… he'd better not try and worm out of it though…

 

“Heyyy Pomni.” Ragatha swayed a little from side to side as she approached, “so… do you need to… I don't know… talk again? It's fine if not! I was just thinking you know… about Jax and stuff…” She was clearly trying her best to not come off as pushy or forceful.

 

“Acctually… yeah that would be nice.” She didn't exactly know what she'd be saying. Hopefully a lot less ranting and dumping her feelings than last time, but talking with Ragatha again sounded good, “Your room?”

 

“Sure.” she beamed.

 

♤◇♤●●●♤◇♤

 

Ragatha was knitting a scarf, or maybe a slimmer than average blanket? She'd never really knitted before the circus but since her room was filled with yarn and needles she ended up picking up the pass time. Learning knitting from almost scratch with no instructions took a while, some of her work was more similar to crochet, but in the 15 odd years here she'd gotten quite good. Usually she'd just think or sometimes sing to herself when she knitted, but it was acctually way better talking to someone, letting her hands fall into the repetitive motions as she chatted.

 

“So, how was the time in ‘heaven'?” She leaned back in her rocking chair, making it tilt back and forth the smallest bit, “I know you said it was OK, but was Jax… you know?”

 

“Hm? Oh yeah,” Pomni was getting comfortable in her spot on the end of Ragatha's bed, this time surrounded by pillows and blankets like a little nest, “It was acctually pretty good, we did talk.. I didn't want to force him to answer any big questions though… that truth filter is weird, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT,” Her eyes went bright, her expression in a strange place between anger and amusement, “THAT BULLS¥/##ING B@#£%RD FOUND A WAY TO LIE ANYWAYS.. it was kinda funny though…” she tucked her face into the blanked and smiled to herself.

 

Ragatha huffed and shook her head, “Only Jax… But he wasn't mean to you? You didn't fight?”

 

“Uh no… wait yes, we did kinda fight, but it was like a play fight… kinda… I kicked him a lot… I think I won.” She rested her chin on a pillow that she hugged tightly.

 

Ragatha had a strange look, “… Play fighting? I mean I guess as long as it was all in good fun…” she gave a bit of a pained smile, “I'm… glad you're getting along with him. If I'm to be honest, I thought he was too far gone for friendships.. I should never have just given up on him…” she went quiet, watching her needles.

 

“You know what… I think he's gonna be ok… not soon but at some point..”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

Jax held his palms flat to the wall, staring at the paint. So far, this was not working but it was his only plan.

 

“C'mon… what's wrong with me?” He asked like the wall had an answer and would be willing to tell him even if it did.

 

He growled and spun around to look at his room, still a mess from last night. He couldn't live like this.

 

He shuffled out a space on the floor for him to sit and started reorganising his semi-broken stuff into piles, which was fun, but the idea of putting it all back wasn't as appealing.

 

He remembered when he was a child, he often frequented the school counsellor for his various strange behaviours. Once, they tried to make him play with stupid puppets to express his feelings, things did not end well for that poor puppet…

 

Maybe he did need a counsellor to talk to… but there were no counsellors here. He supposed he should just start making puppets.

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

Notes:

Haters will say I over use ellipses, truthers know that pauses are cool.

Guys if only there was a counsellor for jax to talk to who would help him through his feelings, God only if there was anyone who was capable of this... I just don't know... hmmmmmmm

ALSO TY FOR 200 KUDOS I was so focused on comments that I didn't notice, that's crazy.

Chapter 5: A CREATURE? In my circus? More likely than you might think.

Summary:

*top gear intro music *
TONIGHT,
JAX gets FREAKY,
The CREATURE may APPEAR,
And KINGER bonds with his SON

Notes:

Me after I shoot Jax with my autism beam.

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

“Hi Jax, it's me, Pomni.” Jax put on a high pitch voice that sounded nothing like Pomni, moving the hand inside the Pomni puppet so that her mouth opens and closes.

 

It wasn't amazing. However, despite the fact there were messy and obvious seams, and a little bit of hot glue residue, it was very obviously meant to be Pomni. It was pretty cute. He had only bothered making her one and figured it would be enough.

 

Jax had ‘borrowed’ supplies from Ragatha's room as soon as she and Pomni went to girl talk elsewhere. But as payment, he didn't leave any Centipedes! so was it really stealing?

 

“Hi Pomni, how are you?” He reverted back to his regular voice.

 

“I'm okay I guess, Ragatha is sooooo annoying, I'd much rather talk to youuuu~.”

 

“Oh, you flatter me too much, PomPom” He faked a coy look and put his free hand to his cheek.

 

“No it's true! You're soooo cool and handsome and funny. I wish I could talk to you all the time~.”

 

“Well you can't, because I'm too busy counselling myself to be normal, sorry.”

 

“Oh wow! Jax, you're getting therapy? That's so sexy of you haha, we should kiss~.”

 

He feigned a shocked look and flung the Pompuppet across the room, it hit the wall and sunk to the floor, lifeless, “PERVERT!” He crossed his arms, “… This isn't helping at all, what was I thinking. Stupid puppets…” 

 

“Are you talking about me?” He put the high voice back on.

 

“What? Noooo, of course not, I would never… am I going insane? I gotta get out of my room.” 

 

“Without me?”

 

“SHUSH.”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

What a waste of time that was, he always knew his counsellor knew nothing. Playing with stupid dolls doesn't reveal any pushed down feelings.. none at all. He would keep Pompuppet though..

 

He wondered aimlessly across the grounds, kicking randomly generated stones that had the misfortune of spawning in his path. The simulated breeze made his ears sway in a way that annoyed him, so he pinned his ears back to his head.

 

He took his stop by the lake, dropping to a sit.

 

The water moved and rippled across the edges, it was pretty realistic. He remembered when Caine updated it to be like this, before then it was just a still png of water copied over the surface, you could walk right in and to the bottom since there was no water physics, you could breathe even. When it got updated, Caine started insising that they drown themselves in the digital lake. Not with any malice, he was just proud that you could do that now.

 

Jax had never drowned himself in the digital lake, none of the cast had, to Caines dismay. He had no idea if there was anything down there, maybe it was still just sand, maybe there was some hidden Easter egg. Or maybe if you went down too far you'd slip past the water and into The Void.

 

Maybe he'd be brave enough to find out if Pomni went with him. Not that he was scared or anything…

 

On some levels, he knew the surface of what was wrong with him, things that might be the cause, but the idea of having to face the whole thing felt overwhelming. 

 

He threw a rock, it sunk with a satisfying ‘plunk’ and rippled the surface.

 

♤◇♤●●●♤◇♤

 

The night cycle had begun once again, and Jax had made no progress in his self help scheme. He was instead now procrastinating by reorganising his stuff back onto their various shelves and spaces, Pompuppet got her own special place on his bedside table where the lamp used to be. Everyone else was probably asleep by now, he should be too but… he didn't want to.

 

He heard hurried shuffling outside his door, Caine and bubble didn't shuffle so it was either a cast member or something absolutely horrifying that Caine decided to let run around at night.

 

Just incase it was the second option, Jax slowly peeked out of his room, looking both ways. It was dark, but he saw a bulbous swaying silhouette exiting the dorms. What the f£%@kkkkkk…

 

Well, a giant horrifying night creature experience was better than thinking about his feelings, so he grabbed a torch off of his shelf and swiftly snuck after it. Keeping his light off for now as to not alert it to him.

 

Looking over the balcony, he spotted it again, it must be over double or maybe triple his own height, it didn't seem to have legs but it's body was giant, round, lumpy and though it was nearly entirely engulfed in shadow, the little variations in shade made it seem like its patterning was multicoloured rectangles. Mostly pastels, judging from the way the smallest amount of moonlight still caught on it.

 

Jax chased down the stairs, keeping a close eye on its body language (which it didn't seem to be fluent in) to see if it had any idea he was there. It continued shuffling at speed across the tent floor, it's balance sometimes lost and it veered to one side, bouncing off walls but making no sound.

 

Getting closer, he saw that the whatever it was did acctually have a leg, just one stumpy leg under the giant mass of a body that glided across the floor.

 

If this was Caine’s doing, Jax didn't get it. What was the point of it? He continued following covertly, maybe there would be answers wherever it was going.

 

It all came to a stop when the creature fell, there was something in its way that tripped it up as it fell forward and spattered across the floor with a big ‘poffff’, it's round form reducing to small piles that slid outward from the crash, now was a better time than any to turn on his flashlight.

 

Illuminated by the flickering yellow beam of his semi-smashed-up light, he saw… pillows? Guiding his light to the centre of the crash sight there was a bigger figure, that spun to face the direction of the light.

 

“Oh! Hi Jax!”

 

“KINGER?! What the heck are you doing? And with all these pillows, I thought you were some monster, man..” Jax redirected his light to the floor, as to not blind Kinger.

 

“I found all these pillows so I'm making expansions to the fort! do you want to help?” Kinger turned and started gathering pillows back up, Jax could see the fort from here, it would only be a little bit longer to carry them.

 

“No… but okay.” He tucked his flashlight into his pocket and started helping regather the pillows.

 

Once they'd all been relocated to the construction site, Jax set up his light to illuminate the area.

 

“So.. do you have any plans?” Jax held his hands on his hips.

 

“…Maybe a bathroom?” Kinger did previously know what he wanted, but it seemed to have slipped his mind.

 

“Eww," Jax chuckled, “how about we just make a second room and you can decide what it's for later?”

 

Kinger nodded and grabbed a pillow.

 

Jax watched as he placed the pillows, he did it in a very certain way that seemed to solidify them together, “Hey, how do you do that?” He attempted to copy.

 

“Oh.. I don't know…” 

 

The flashlight flickered and died, “D@#mit, hold on.” He grabbed it, clicked the button a few times, took the batteries out and put them back in, clicked it again, flicked the bulb, smacked it and hit it on the side of a cube. And clicked it a few more times. It didn't turn on.

 

“D@#m s$☆+ty flashlight…” Jax growled, neglecting to wonder if it was his fault for using it as a weapon against his other various items last night.

 

“It's ok, Jax, once your eyes adjust to the dark it'll be like you never needed it at all.” Kinger just continued lodging pillows together.

 

He was right, soon enough, Jax could see just fine. 

 

Shoving the pillows together didn't seem to work for Jax, he couldn't tell exactly what Kinger was doing no matter how closely he watched. He got more and more aggressive with his attempts until he snapped and threw the pillow away.

 

“Hey now, don't get angry, it's ok. Let me show you,” He shuffled over to Jax's far less developed side of the fort, grabbing the discarded pillow from the floor.

 

“It takes some practice, but what you have to do is this. You find the angle where the polygons can intersect,” he rotated and smoothed the pillow against the foundation, “and once you feel it give way you- ha! Snap it into place.” He let go and the pillow stood up right seemingly on its own.

 

“OK OK let me try,” Jax hastily snatched a new pillow from the pile, attempting to follow Kingers instructions, amazed to find that it acctually worked, “woah.. cool..”

 

Kinger smiled with his eyes, “It is, isn't it?” He hummed happily and shuffled back over to his side, “So what's got you up at night, Jax?”

 

“Nothing, just this… Nothing..” He successfully added another pillow to his wall.

 

Kinger tiled his head past his own wall to get a good look at Jax, “OK…” his expression showed some worry.

 

“I had a fight with Pomni the other day… after the gun adventure… I said some stuff.. I didn't mean. I really hurt her.” He avoided eye contact, electing to focus on the pillows.

 

“I see.. and you want to make up with her?” Kinger asked, gently as to not make him feel threatened. He knew Jax could be fragile like that.

 

“I kinda already did, I think.. but she wants to know why I did it, why I freaked out on her for no reason… and I kinda know… but also kinda don't know.”

 

“Well, what do you know?”

 

“I know I was…” He caught himself almost admitting to being scared, “She said we were friends, and I don't want friends.” He lied.

 

“You don't want friends? Why not?”

 

“Because if she goes and abstracts on me it'll be just like…” He choked on the name.

 

“…I understand… But I would think being her friend is the best way to assure that doesn't happen, right?”

 

“Maybe for you and Ragatha and the others but not me.”

 

“You're not some kind of curse, Jax. And you aren't cursed. Feelings like that end up as a vicious cycle if you don't make the moves to break them. She wants to be your friend. And I think you want to be her friend too. The worst thing you can do is make her think she's not wanted or cared about.”

 

He took a bit to chew on what he said “… Wait, when did you get like… un-crazy??”

 

“Hm? Oh! Well… the dark always makes me feel a bit.. sharper.” He smiled the way he does.

 

Jax looked around, all the bright and saturated eye burn of the circus now dimmed and calm, “… yeah, I get that.”

 

Through all their talking they had finished the fort extension, just about having enough pillows.

 

“So,” Jax looked proudly over their work, “ what are you going to do with it? Home gym? Office? Indoor swimming pool?”

 

Kinger laughed, “I'll think on it, you should get to bed though.. maybe me too.”

 

“Yeah, sleep sounds good…” he turned to walk away but turned back to him, “Thanks, Kinger.”

 

“It's no problem, Jax.”

 

♤◇♤●●●♤◇♤

Notes:

I hope you guys found the start as funny as I did cuz I was shiggling at 2am when I thought abt it and had to make a note that just read "wow jax, you got therapy? That's so sexy of you haha, what if we kissed?" When I woke up, and i just had to figure that out.

I'm sorry if I don't reply to all your comments, but every single one makes my day, ty so much :]

Chapter 6: RESOL and YKNITS (sitting in a tree, G.N.I.S.S.I.K)

Summary:

Caine introduces a new challenge game and the patooties are cuties.

Notes:

Hihi, sorry this one is a bit later, honestly I didn't really know exactly what to do but I freaking got it now fr.

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

“GOOD MORNING MY LITTLE SUGAR HONEY ICED TEAS!” Caine popped into existence above the breakfast table, everyone picked their plates up, just incase.

 

Zooble was the first to process this, “Wait what the f@#! did you just call us?!”

 

Caine's fragile good mood was shattered, “OH WHAT NOW?! You're the one who said I shouldn't say Ladies and Gentlemen, but nothing else I say is ever any good!!” he crossed his arms and scowled at them.

 

“Yeah but.. you know what nevermind, that one is perfect, say it every day.” Zooble tried to sound earnest and not laugh, Jax couldn't help a little evil giggle slipping out.

 

There were sparkles in Caine’s eyes as his expression lit up, “Really? Y-You mean it? It's good??”

 

“Oh yeahh,” Jax spoke up, initially sounding sarcastic but then reeling it back for the bit, “Make it the standard, don't change a thing.” He and Zooble glanced at eachother with uncharacteristical comradery.

 

Ragatha leaned towards Pomni and whispered, “…I don't get it…”

 

“I'll explain it later…” She whispered back.

 

“SO MY LITTLE SUGAR HONEY ICED TEAS,” He giggled with glee, “What would you all say to another TEAM adventure today?” His voice echoed ethereally at ‘team'.

 

“Uh, sure,” Gangle smiled weakly, “The last one was pretty fun acctually.”

 

Ragatha grumbled something about something or other but didn't want to speak up against it.

 

“OK GREAT BECAUSE I WOULD'VE DONE IT ANYWAYS!” Caine waved his arms around with jolly gusto.

 

He went to snap his finger but Zooble stopped him, “HEY- can we uh, finish our food this time?” Everyone gave approval to this request.

 

“UGH! FINE, you get 15 minutes.” He rolled his eyes and zoomed over to the stage.

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

The Cast stood upon a high platform looking out on the Adventure, it was some sort of stadium. The seats went up well above their eye level and so steep it gave them a bit of vertigo. NPC's filled every seat, cheering and waving, but from where they were it was just a constant humm and the colours moved like grass in the wind.

 

Looking down, or rather forward, there was a grid of walls that streched probably at least a mile in a 3×… Pomni quickly tried to count but she only got to 23 before it was too far to tell.

 

Across any surface you could think of, there were banners that cheered 1 of 3 teams, coloured blue, green and red, so presumably it would be 2 per team again.

 

“ALRIGHT! Today's adventure is called: Team Challenge Grid!” Caine stood by what looked like a giant gumball machine containing the team colours.

 

“Wow, very imaginative.” Zooble quipped.

 

Caine growled, “YOU'RE VERY IMAGINATIVE! Anyways, in this game, you will be on a team with one other person, and you will have to work together to solve puzzles and complete challenges, moving from one room to the next! And the first team to make it to the finish line wins!”

 

Having 3 competition adventures in a row was making the whole thing get a bit old, Ragatha missed role-playing adventures. And seeing how long the course was made them already sick of puzzles.

 

“And what's with the big balls?” Jax pointed.

 

“Well spotted, Jax!” Not really, it's huge, “THIS is how we will be deciding teams! Why don't you go first?”

 

He shrugged and approached the machine, turning the knob that clicked a few times before- ‘BAM' a red ball the size of like a really, really, really big small ball shot out at break neck speed. It hit Jax directly in the face and left him lying on the floor with a halo of cartoon birds spinning above his head as it rolled off the platform, probably going to give the same treatment to an unsuspecting NPC in the crowd.

 

“Whoopsie, I should've tested that.. JAX IS ON TEAM RED! Who wants to go next?”

 

“Ughnnhhhhh…” Jax groaned and rolled over. With a ‘pop' his outfit was changed to a red polo shirt with one white horizontal stripe, along with matching shorts, sports sneakers that were suitably big for his massive feet and a baseball cap that was red on the front and white on the back, his ears sticking out the top. He lay there in a familiar looking death pose and continued making various pained noises.

 

“Oh! I will!” Kinger was unbothered, shuffling his way up to the machine and twisting the knob, then also getting nailed in the face with a Blue ball. Falling next to Jax in a shockingly similar position, his own outfit was changed to something alike Jax's but in blue, it seemed he'd also been given his legs back, but now they were in sneakers.

 

“KINGER IS ON THE BLUE TEAM!” 

 

Ragatha approached tactically, standing at one side as she twisted the knob, what looked like a green ball as it blurred past them came out and she was then put in her uniform as well.

 

“RAGATHA IS ON GREEN!”

 

Gangle watched to see if anyone else was stepping forward and sighed, knowing she now couldn't be on a team with Zooble again was a bit disheartening, but at least the chance to not have a nightmare today was a solid 66.666%. Following Ragathas lead, she twisted it and took a deep breath before the last click, a green ball flew out to her relief so she went to stand with Ragatha.

 

“GANGLE IS FOR THE GREENS!”

 

“You can go first, Pomni,” Zooble urged, please let her get red, please please please please-, “I don't mind.”

 

“Oh, thank you.” She stepped forward, to her dismay, she didn't even need to step to the side as the dispenser was quite a ways above her head. The knob clicked once, twice, thrice, quice and whatever the version of that for five is. A Blue ball shot out.

 

“F%#@KKKKK NOOOOO WHYYYYYYY.” Zooble fell to their knees.

 

“POMNI IS ON THE BLUE TEAM!”

 

“Ughnnn what's going on..?” Jax lifted his head at the yelling.

 

“CAINE PLEASE LET ME SWAP WITH POMNI. I PROMISE I'LL COMPLAIN LIKE WAY LESS IF YOU DO.” They bargained.

 

“Yeah, I don't mind swapping with Zooble.” Pomni holds her hands together hopefully.

 

“Sorry Zooble, but if I let you do that then I may as well let everyone pick their own teams, besides, we don't even know what team you're going to be on yet! Give the knob a spin and we'll find out!” Caine shut him down, resigning them to the gumball machine which very clearly just had one red ball in it.

 

“Well now I'm going to complain extra.” They scowled, stomping up to the machine, turning the knob and allowing it to knock her head clean off with a red ball, landing on the floor behind them.

 

“ZOOBLE IS ON THE RED TEAM!” Caine announced, seeming somewhat shocked.

 

Pomni carefully approached the concussed Jax, crouching by his head, “You okay? Lost any memories?” She smiled, trying to make light.

 

“Ughnnn, none of the important ones,” he slowly sat up, the birdies began to dissipate but his head still spun, “Gh.. why are you blue?” He pointed at her clothes.

 

“Blue team, why are you red?” She asked in turn for no reason.

 

He squinted at her, confused, “… I'm purple…” which got a laugh out of her.

 

She stood up and offered him a hand, he instead grabbed her by the head, getting up that way instead and pushing her down in the process.

 

“Heyyy!” She batted at his legs in complaint, but he didn’t react, just swayed there and blinked one eye at a time.

 

“Hey Caine, wait wait wait.” Zooble prepared to bargain once again, “I kinda have… like other stuff to do today? Could you make the course a bit shorter?”

 

“SHORTER?!?! WHAT, IS 50 CHALLENGES AND PUZZLES TOO MANY FOR YOU??” Caine seethed with rage, his arms shaking.

 

Everyone kinda nods and there's a little chorus of “yes..” “yup.” “Uh huh.” “FIFTY?!”

 

He growled and muttered to himself, “Urghhh, players never want to do 8 hour adventures nowadays…” he crossed his arms and thought for a second, “Fine,” he snapped his fingers and the course dragged itself closer together, Pomni was able to easily count 10 rooms. It looked less impressive now but they all sighed in relief.

 

Caine snapped his fingers and moved each team to their own starting points. Separate rooms with thick glass walls split them up while they were to wait for the game to start.

 

♤♧♤●●●♤♧♤

 

Pomni heard the smallest little tapping sounds and turned to see Jax frantically bashing on the glass. His eyes lit up when she looked at him and he waved.

 

She shuffled over to him, “Hey, what's up?”

 

His face twisted and he said, “———” yeah she couldn't tell what he said, the glass was too thick and the fact his teeth don’t part doesn’t make lip reading easy. 

 

She breathed on the glass, fogging it, and wrote with her finger, ‘IH'.

 

He grinned, then did the same, but instead, he drew what looked like a very simplified version of her, with an arrow pointed at it saying ‘RESOL' since he clearly didn't realise he had to write backwards.

 

Once she figured it out she frowned and pouted, then made a new patch of condensation. She drew a little Jax and labelled it ‘YKNITS' and drew 3 stink lines above him, then stuck her tounge out at him. He pretended to look absolutely furious at this, slamming his fists against the wall.

 

“Oh my God can you stop flirting with her? It's annoying and weird.” Zooble shouted over at him. 

 

He jolted and turned back to look at them, the smallest bit of red creeping to his face, “I'M NOT FLIRTING- I'm.. I'm antagonising her! Getting in her head, y’know?” He slipped back into a calm demeanor.

 

Zooble looked at the writing on the wall, “…Sure…”

 

When he looked back, Pomni had smushed her face against the glass and was staring at him with giant eyes, he absolutely lost his mind laughing.

 

♤♧♤●●●♤♧♤

Notes:

That's all for now, I would do more but it's late and I need my sleeps :]

Before I get called out and stoned to death, yes, the adventure is based off of (copied) Grid Runners from MCC.

Also sorry, this one is a bit of a nothing burger but I'm sowing seeds I promise, things are gonna shake or whatever.

Also also, I may not update tomorrow since I have work I need to focus on, if I do post it'll be a late one, if not it'll be the day after.

TY FOR 300 KUDOS, WE ON THE ROAD TO A MILLION FR and as always ty for all the nice comments:]

Chapter 7: The Fast and the Mildly Peeved

Summary:

The Team Challenge Grid adventure begins, who will bungle and who will ace? And who will have emotional issues? (everyone)

Notes:

Chapeter 4(7) u♡

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

“3! 2! 1! GO GO GO!”

 

The shutters shot open with a ‘kshUK’ and the three teams entered the first room. It was the exact same room for each of them, copied down to the smallest detail, the walls were solid and had wallpapers of a desert in sunset.

 

They found themselves in a scene made to look like a miniature wild west town with NPCs wandering around, a saloon to the right, an arms shop to the left and at the end was a bank. A paper on a string dangled from the sky.

 

—

 

Jax rushed ahead of Zooble and plucked it into his hands, reading it aloud, “Rob the Bank…? Okay!” He threw the paper to the floor and sprinted into the Arms store, followed by Zooble who picked the paper back up and read it again just in case.

 

—

 

“So the first challenge is just western themed crime?” Pomni turned to Kinger, who had already wandered off.

 

—

 

“How are we meant to do that?” Gangle bunched up her team hat in her hands.

 

“Well… we have a Saloon… an Arms shop and the bank… hmm, well I'd imagine the first thing we'd need to do is get a gun but we have no money… so maybe we can get money at the Saloon? We should start there.” She led the charge.

 

Entering the Saloon, they saw it was trashed, tables turned over, glass shattered on the floor various puddles of who knows what. There were no customers but still an unbothered bartender NPC wiped the same spot on the counter repeatedly and another NPC with a spittoon on it's head played ragtime on the piano with extreme enthusiasm.

 

Ragatha approached the counter, sitting on the stool prepared to role-play the hell out of this challenge, “Howdy, my dear bartender, say, what would it take for you to spare us enough money to buy weapons for... self defence?”

 

“Well well,” it began, “I reckon I'd be happy to lend some cash if you'd clean up my here establishment?”

 

“Of course!” She turned to Gangle, “C’mon, we can do this in good time I think. I bet the others haven't even figured this out yet.” She grinned.

 

—

 

Jax’s face dropped, entering the arms store, he saw there was nothing but NPC arms hanging on every wall, a red NPC with a cowboy hat sat behind the counter, “What the hell is this??”

 

“This is literally exactly what I was expecting, nothing surprises me anymore.” Zooble deadpanned, looking around the store.

 

Jax marched up to the counter, “Hey, dude, you sell any Guns?”

 

“No-” Dissapearing Guy disappeared, dropping something behind the counter that make a ‘CLK’ noise.

 

“Oh,” Jax peered over the counter, spotting the revolver, “Oh! Well that was easy.” He reached over and grabbed it, showing it to Zooble.

 

“I'm surprised I didn't recognise him… maybe it's because the hat fits in?” Zooble turned to leave again as Jax ran back out the door.

 

“Speak for yourself, I totally knew it was him.” He lied.

 

“Oh shut up no you didn't.” They scowled.

 

“Yeah? well you look like a Target Employee.” Jax pointed at their red shirt.

 

“SO THE F@#% DO YOU!” They pointed back.

 

“Nuh uh.” He skipped ahead up the steps of the bank.

 

“F@$! YOU MEAN ‘NUH UH’?? YES YOU DO.” 

 

“Alright, HANDS IN THE AIR, WE’RE ROBBING THIS PLACE.” He stuck up the bank teller NPC, who flailed it's arms in the air and then threw money at them, to which the shutter door behind the counter shot open and a little success jingle played.

 

Jax valued the counter, knocking the NPC to the floor, and rushed through the door. He frowned when the gun in his hand disappeared with a ‘pop’.

 

—

 

“Ohhhh I've always wanted one of those!” Kinger peeked into the arms store, looking at all the arms.

 

Pomni caught up behind to see what he was looking at, “Arms? Oh, I get it, very funny Caine..” she sighed, “well if there's no guns… we can just pretend?” She tentatively made finger guns with her hands.

 

“Yes! Great idea Pomni!” Kinger put his hands together in a formation that was definitely not a gun, “Let's go!” He rushed ahead toward the bank before Pomni could even attempt to correct him.

 

“WE HAVE GUNS!” She crashed through the swinging door of the bank, holding her finger guns up in a threatening manner, “GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY!”

 

“YEAH!” Kinger stood by the window, wiggling his hands in the beam of light that shone through it, which is when Pomni realised he had made a shadow puppet of a rabbit.

 

“O-OH UH, YEAH!” She repeated, caught off guard.

 

The teller did the same panic emote, and threw money at them, opening the shutter and playing the tune.

 

“It worked! Great job Pomni!” Kinger gleamed.

 

—

 

“Ha, okay!” Ragatha's breath was laboured but the place looked spotless, “Good job Gangle! We did great!”

 

“I'll say!” The bartender took off his hat in awe, “Well, you young misses take this and stay safe, okay?” He slapped a fat wad of cash onto the counter.

 

“We will, thank you sir!” Gangle took the money and they rushed out and toward the Arms store.

 

“There's no way the others did that any faster than we did,” She beamed at Gangle, “We’re doing so well!”

 

…

 

“WHAT?! ARMS???” Ragatha was in utter disbelief, “WHY ARE YOU SELLING ARMS?? SELL GUNS!!!” She shook the shopkeeper by the shoulders.

 

“…I think it's a joke about the shop being called the ARMS store…” Gangle explained sheepishly.

 

The shopkeeper attempted to calm Ragatha down, “He-” But he disappeared.

 

She heard the clatter of the revolver and leaned over the counter, “Oh you are KIDDING me!” She grabbed it and showed to to Gangle, “So.. so we didn't have to do ANY of that?!”

 

Ragatha marched into the bank with a revolver and the purest rage she's felt in a while, “GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY!” she yelled, waving the gun around haphazardly.

 

Gangle threw the brick of cash at the teller and it began the panic emote, throwing the money which then of course opened the shutter door at the back.

 

—

 

The next room was a puzzle. From what Pomni could tell, they needed to connect an electric circuit from the start to the door at the end to presumably open it. However, it's route was incredibly convoluted, with several paths and dead ends, going to different layers, across the walls, through the air.

 

She then noticed the next slip of paper dangling right above her head, she had to jump but she could just about snatch it. 

 

“Connect the circut… okay… how though?” She gave the slip to Kinger, who started folding it.

 

She could see at some points, the wire would break and have an empty spot, braced by metal. On the wall by the entrance, she spotted once such instance, but it instead contained small metal cylinder with directional arrows on it

 

“Hey, Kinger, could you get that for me?” She pointed, as it was too high for her to reach.

 

“It's a butterfly!” He gave her the piece of paper, which, to his credit, did seem to be well folded into an origami butterfly.

 

“Oh, thanks!” She put it away carefully, “But could you get that for me?” She repeated and pointed again.

 

“Oh! Oh yeah.” He easily plucked it out and the lights went dim, which didn't even make any sense, since the room had no lights and it was open to the sky.

 

“Well, I suppose that sort of helps… Kinger, I think we should find all of these in the room and then when we know how many we get, we can find which route to make the current go?”

 

“Sounds good to me!” He began to dart around randomly, meanwhile, Pomni slowly scanned the room from left to right and top to bottom.

 

“Say, Pomni?” Kinger started, grabbing a cylinder he'd just found.

 

“Hm?”

 

“How are things with Jax?” He shuffled back to the rooms entrance, placing it back with the first one.

 

Her heart did a little jump, she clearly wasn't anticipating the question by the look on her face, “The- It's good? It's okay, I think? W-why..?” She sputtered.

 

“Not sure, just felt like the thing to ask. But that's good. I think he likes you a lot.” It was clear that though kinger was less erratic, he still wasn't entirely there.

 

Pomni chose to disregard that last part, “H-hey Kinger, do you think that if we got you some sunglasses, they'd work the same as a dark room?” She redirected the conversation as she plucked another cylinder.

 

“Hmm, maybe! I might look a little silly though.”

 

Pomni chuckled at the idea of Kinger with shades, sitting lopsided to reach his eyes.

 

After looking all over, it seemed they had six cylinders to work with. Before placing any of them, Pomni wanted to find the best route. So she followed the wires, counting how many they'd need to make it to the end, starting again if it was too many or if it met a dead end and she quickly found the solution.

 

After placing the cylinders, the shutter to the next room shot open and played the little serotonin-inducing victory tune once more.

 

—

 

Onto the fifth room, Zooble had realised that despite the odd sarcastic comment or childish retort, Jax had done nothing wrong today. Which was mildly concerning. They had gone into this prepared for Jax to make this a living nightmare for them but every possible opportunity for some mean spirited prank or bit was missed entirely. Thinking about it, she thought it's been like this ever since the weird party game adventure when they…

 

Had they seriously broken Jax by outing him as a virgin?

 

Despite everything, despite how he totally deserved it not even being a fraction of the karma he was owed… they felt kinda bad.

 

“Hey, Jax?” They were currently digging holes on a ‘beach' since they needed to find a treasure to complete the room.

 

“What, did you find it?” He craned his neck to see where Zooble was digging.

 

“No, I was just thinking…”

 

“Wow, that's a first, congratulations!” He cut in to the pause in their sentence to quip.

 

“Oh my God, shut up. I was thinking about the last adventure and I wanted to say that I'm sorry. It was childish of me to ask that. Besides, there's nothing wrong with-”

 

“NOO NANANANANA NUH UH DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT THAT SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” He dropped his shovel to the floor to cover his ears.

 

Zooble couldn't help but laugh, “Oh my God you're such a baby, it's really not a big deal.”

 

“Ughhh why are you being like this,” He grabbed the shovel again and started digging aggressively, “you're meant to be the grumpy one.”

 

“The huh? The f@#% is that meant to mean?” They slowed their pace.

 

“Y'know, like Gangle is the sad one, Kingers the crazy one, Ragathas the cheerful one and Pomni is… y'know?” He didn't look up.

 

“What? Are we a f@%$ing boy band? That's so dumb. Were you gonna say Pomni is the cute one?” They teased.

 

The tease worked, his face flushed a little, “NO?! It's our Archetypes!”

 

“Archetypes? Dude, we are full real human people with full real human emotions. F#@! that.” They scoffed, “That's so stupid. You didn’t even say which one you are.”

 

“I'm…” he paused, “I don't know…”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“I'm the hot one.” He flexed, to no avail, his arms were still noodles.

 

“Ew.”

 

—

 

In room 9, Ragatha and Gangle were split into 2 rooms separated by sound proof glass.

 

On Ragatha's side was a needlessly large keyboard and screen. She'd been given a slip of paper that just said ‘enter the code’.

 

On Gangle's side, to her delight, was a hoard of art supplies and a big paper pad. The slip she'd been given read ‘convey the message’. Written on the wall, out of sight from Ragatha, was the word ‘Caine'.

 

It had been 10 minutes now of Ragatha desperately trying to charade to Gangle. Trying to get her to just show the picture even if it wasn't done yet. She had resorted to firmly pressing her face against the glass, trying to get a peek at the page. Every now and then she would gently sob.

 

A while later, Gangle finally proudly presented the work. It was beautiful, but she could've just written the word.

 

Ragatha tried to smile but just grimaced, spun around to the keyboard and smashed the code in, to which the door opened.

 

Room 10 was a final dash to the end, no puzzle, no challenge . They bounded along, closing in on the finish line. Ragatha was crying.

 

“AND GREEN TEAM HAVE FINISHED!”

 

…

 

“IN LAST PLACE!” The crowd roared anyways.

 

The red and blue teams sat up off the floor, where they'd resigned themselves to wait.

 

“Finally.” Jax groaned, “Let's go home now please.”

 

Caine snapped his finger, holding Gangle's drawing in his other hand.

 

The teams stood on podiums, where Caine awarded them all medals. Bronze for Ragatha and Gangle, Silver for Jax and Zooble and Gold for Pomni and Kinger.

 

“Well,” Caine began, “I think today we learned that Brains beats Brawns, and Creativity is certainly also there!” He swung his arm across his chest. “Let's go home!”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

The adventure was surprisingly fun, but it was nice to be back with free time. And they got to keep their medals too.

 

“Hey, Pomni,” Jax caught up with a stride as she wandered back to the hallway, “UH… good job winning and stuff?” He grinned, shoving his silver medal in his pocket, seeing that she'd already put hers away.

 

“Thanks… is that all?” She eyed him with a smile.

 

“You wanna hang out?” He leaned down to her level.

 

“That's what I thought…” she paused, as if considering the proposal carefully, “Yes.” 

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

Notes:

Sorry this took a bit longer than I thought, and before you ask, no, the work I said I needed to do is not done even though it'll take like 3 hours total.

It's occurred to me that I've focused a lot on jax's issued (cuz there are so many, that guy is fucked up fr) but I don't wanna put a jax centric tag cuz I no wanna.

I don't usually like writing the adventures cuz I think everyone will find them boring but this one was fun (even tho I skipped ⅔ of it shh)

Hope you enjoyed, as always ty for the nice comments :]

Chapter 8: Jax, Stop it. Breathe out.

Summary:

Jax spills his guts to Pomni, and then they don't kiss, or maybe they do. Haha jk.

Notes:

I always make a pre chapter note before writing, this time it was "Self indulgent fluff time!" And nothing more.

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

As soon as Pomni opened the door to her room, Jax invited himself in and took a seat on the floor, not bothering to look around.

 

“… You could at least pretend you haven't been in my room before…” She looked thoroughly unimpressed at him, but followed him inside.

 

“Whaattttt? I was curious..” He folded his arms behind his head as he layed back, though he did now throw some glances around. It had changed since he'd last snooped, all the toys that were scattered around before, that made the room seem more like that of a child than an adult woman, were now piled in one corner. Figures that she would've done that eventually, in fact he's just surprised she hadn't thrown them all out entirely… he had a thought and laughed to himself, the idea of her needing to stand on the letter blocks to reach shelves.

 

“What's so funny?” She lobbed a pillow at his face with a grin. Also bringing her other blankets and pillows onto the floor where he was, setting up some sort of low budget pillow fort for them.

 

Jax squinted at her and his grin widened, “Nuffin’.” He went to put the pillow under his head before remembering, “OH! You wanna see something cool?” He sat upright.

 

“Uh, okay? Sure.” She looked a little confused, filtering through possibilities in her head of what he could possibly be about to do with a pillow that was cool. It would be a lie to say the image of him smothering her to ‘death’ with it didn't come up, among many other things of course.

 

He took one of the other pillows strewn about and placed it in between them, now turned to face her, “It's this thing Kinger taught me, check it out.” He did as he remembered, lining up the polygons then clipping them together, letting go to show them now attached.

 

“So that's how he makes his fortress so… impenetrable…” She poked at the upright pillow, fascinated, before pausing, “Wait you've been hanging out with Kinger? Like.. on purpose? By your own free will?”

 

His chest tightened, for some reason he felt like he was in trouble, or got caught doing something, “Uh, on accident but yeah, I helped him build the extension on the fort.”

 

“That's… really nice…” She looked at him in a way that made him feel funny.

 

“Uh… nuh uh… it was for entirely selfish reasons, because I was, uh, bored and couldn't sleep. That's why.” He avoided looking her in the eyes again.

 

“This was at night, as in like… in the dark?” The realisation brewed slowly.

 

“Uh, duh? Night is dark, keep up Pomni, Jeez.” He feigned a nonchalant persona, crossing his arms.

 

“Did you, uhm, talk about anything?” She was desperately curious but tried to not let it show. Even still, she leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand.

 

“None of your business, frankly, it's not like it was about you..” He lied.

 

“Okay okay, keep your secrets…” She smiled, “But you know… you did promise me a talk? Is uh, now that time?”

 

Jax breathed in, drawing it out as long as he could, so that maybe it would give him a little more time before he had to do this. And he had to do it, he wanted to even, it's why he asked to hang out with her to begin with… mostly.

 

“Jax, stop it. Breathe out.” She deadpanned, swatting his knee.

 

And he did so, but still desperately looked around for some sort of magic distraction spell, “Th-the pillows,” he said quietly, almost weakly, “…It's cool…” he pointed out.

 

“Jax.”

 

“Fineeeeeeeeeeeee!!” He unfused the pillow amalgam, taking one behind his head as he fell to the floor, spreading his long legs out either side of Pomni.

 

He looked right up at the ceiling, this wasn't something he thought he could manage looking at her while saying, “I was freaked out. When I realised we were friends I got scared and… tried to self destruct. Because… I can't handle loosing someone again. I needed you to kill me, and show you didn't care so that I wouldn't have to either..” He was quite honestly terrified at the things coming out of his mouth, even though he knew they must be said. He shook, feeling a wash of exposure over his whole being.

 

Pomni stayed quiet, but placed a re-affirming hand to his leg, to which he visibly jolted but made no attempt to move from it.

 

“And also… I'm starting to think…” he chuckled, first time for everything, “I'm starting to think the whole Archetypes thing I told you about is bulls#%& I made up to avoid my feelings.”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“Well God, could you put it bluntly??” He slipped back into sarcasm, leaning upward to look at her again for the first time and frowning.

 

“Oh!” She covered her mouth with both hands, “Sorry…”

 

He hated the loss of contact, but didn't know what to do about it. Throw a fit maybe? No.

 

“Well, whatever, it's true.” He huffed, “well?” Well what? What did he want? A treat? A pat on the head?

 

“Thank you…” She looked at him earnestly and he had to avoid eye contact again, “And for the record, I care, and I'm not gonna stop caring.”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

The conversation had soon recovered from the horrid amount of honesty and they were back to dumb sh#%.

 

They were both lying flat on the floor, tossing a pillow to the other with less than ideal accuracy.

 

“So,” Jax's thoughts were forming as he was speaking, just to have something to talk about, “Who do you think would win in a fight between Zooble and Ragatha?”

 

“Wait, in what context? Why are they fighting?” The pillow hit her in the face, but it's not like that hadn't happened 20 times already.

 

“Does it matter?” He squinted, catching the pillow again once it came his way.

 

“I mean, yeah, if Caine put them in a ring and told them to fight, I think Ragatha would give in so neither of them had to throw a punch, but like if it was super personal… like if they like, seriously wanted the other gone… hmmmm, I don't know…” She missed the catch again and got a face full of pillow.

 

“I think Zooble would win.” He settled his judgement, taking a second and then nodding to himself.

 

“Well… what if Ragatha like, ripped his arms off?” Pomni threw the pillow.

 

“Oh yeah… OK but, what if Zooble ripped Ragatha's arms off though?” He caught it and tossed it back.

 

“… do we need to go and ask them to fight?” She smiled at him, though he couldn't see.

 

He laughed, “maybe.”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

It had been hours, it was probably closing in on midnight by now and they'd done nothing but talk, not about anything substantial but it was nice anyways.

 

Pomni was caught off guard when Jax stood up and streched.

 

“Oh, are you leaving?” She couldn't hide the tint of sadness in her voice.

 

“Uh, yeah, it's late…” Truthfully, he'd realised how long he'd been there and had the feeling that he was overstaying his welcome nagging at him for a while now.

 

“Oh… Yeah, okay…” from where Jax was standing, she looked like a kicked puppy, a puppy that he kicked. His heart twisted.

 

“I mean, what, did you want to have a sleepover?” He laughed, but God, did he want to have a sleepover.

 

She fidgeted, “I mean, it's possible…”

 

Jax could not have sat back down faster if he fell, “Okay.” His pupils dilated and he had a tiny smile as he stared at her expectantly.

 

She almost laughed, but she stood up and walked to her closet, digging out spare pillows and blankets and throwing them all into a pile behind her.

 

“Whaaatttt? You had those the whole time? I thought we were sharing that pillow out of necessity?” He joked, still following her every movement with his eyes.

 

She chuckled, but once she closed the closet door, she started arranging all the blankets and pillows into a big comfy pit on the floor. As soon as Jax saw her vision, he jumped into helping her.

 

…

 

It was glorious, it had more than enough space for them both to sleep and not have to have challenging thoughts about their proximity, they couldn't help but steal a crisp high five from eachother.

 

Jax was first to flop down, face first. Pomni found herself a spot outside of his gravitational field, surrounding herself with an inner circle of pillows and securing them with a blanket. She was thoroughly comfortable.

 

“Do you want a blanket? I don't know if you noticed but there's quite a few..” she smiled into the pillow she hugged to her chest.

 

Grabbing two of them with a needlessly determined fist, Jax rolled himself up until he realised he couldn't move anymore, “oh no..” he wriggled. Pomni couldn't help but laugh.

 

“Hey, stop that,” he laughed too, “this is serious.” It wasn't. He continued writhing around before he gave up, lying defeated on his side in his cocoon. “Whatever, jokes on you, this means you have be the one to turn the light off.”

 

“What, are you ready to sleep now?” She was kind of looking forward to talking more...

 

“Well, I can't do much else anymore… not since the accident…” he looked at the blankets that entombed him, “besides, I need my beauty rest, being this hot doesn't come easy.” He grinned.

 

She sighed with a smile, gently leaving her arrangements as to not disturb them, “yeah, okay.” And turned the light off.

 

With some shuffling sounds, he presumed she had made her way back to the nest successfully, “Goodnight, PomPom.”

 

“Night, Jax.”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

Notes:

Obligatory sleepover!

Okay so I wrote this all at night because I spent my whole day drawing bits from this fic, mostly the outfits from last chapter, and I wanna show them but I don't particularly want to put images in the fic or do a separate chapter since I think it breaks the flow personally, but if you guys were interested I could make a tumblr blog and post some of my sketches from this fic there? Lmk in comments pls.

I swear I had something else to say but I forgot so hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 9: They go in The Pit.

Summary:

The Mud chapter💪👍

Notes:

You get mud (also I made a tumblr, I'll link it at the end)

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

It must've been that time in the morning again, since both Jax and Pomni had their eyes shoot open against their will. The unusual arrangement disoriented them before they could remember the sleepover.

 

It seemed, at some point in the night, they had both gravitated towards the middle of the nest. They thought they were back to back, but the sheer amount of blankets made it difficult to tell where anything was. Jax was still tightly wrapped in the blanket that held him prisoner, but now his arms were in a weird position too. He made an attempt to right himself to no avail.

 

Well, whatever, it was comfy. If one of them wasn't going to get up then neither was the other, so they went back to sleep with remarkable ease.

 

♤◇♧●●●♧◇♤

 

“Hey, where's Pomni?” Zooble was the first to address one of the two empty seats at the breakfast table.

 

Ragatha had noticed first but hadn't mentioned anything, was she worried? Always, and it had been ramping up the longer it took for her to show up. Now that someone else had said something, she figured she should take actions.

 

“Gosh, you're right Zooble!” She pretended she had just noticed, badly, “I’ll go and see if she's in her room!” She shot up from her seat and speed walked to the hall.

 

“Right about what..?” Zoobles voice was quiet to Ragatha, who was already basically gone.

 

Of course, Ragatha had also noticed that Jax wasn't there. But that was never usually something that got brought up, before recently it would be a relief even for him to decide to sleep in. Which, as she did about a lot of things, Ragatha felt bad.

 

She gently knocked on Pomni's door, quelling her panic to seem layed-back.

 

“What.” Responded a voice that was definitely not Pomni and was absolutely Jax.

 

Ragatha did a double take, she checked the portrait on the door, thinking she must've went to the wrong one by mistake. But no, clear as day this was Pomni's door.

 

Inside the room, Pomni and Jax were holding their breath and staring at eachother wide-eyed. It was a reflex response.

 

“Jax..?” Ragatha called through the door, “What are you doing in Pomni's room?”

 

It was just a sleepover, nothing weird or anything…

 

“…None of your business.” He yelled back before realising he made it worse.

 

Pomni scowled at him with a ‘wtf was that for?’ gesture and went to open the door. Meanwhile, Jax struggled to not look like he was trapped, which he definitely still was.

 

It was a strange sight, what Ragatha saw when the door opened, the small Jester trying her best to obscure the view of a giant fuzzy caterpillar-like beast, with purple antennae, aggresively writhing and rolling around on top of a mess of pillows.

 

“Uh…” Ragatha leaned down to talk to her quietly, “Pomni… what's… what's going on.?”

 

“…Sleepover…” She answered awkwardly.

 

“…Uh-huh…” She tilted herself to look past Pomni's head again.

 

With a few kicks and one more roll, Jax was free. He layed spread out face down back in the nest, not wanting to acknowledge the situation.

 

“Good morning, Raggy.” He muffled venomously into the plush floor.

 

“Good morning..? Uh… are you two going to come for breakfast.?”

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

Today's adventure was… Something.

 

“Why is Caine so adverse to the suggestion box…” Zooble looked over the thing before them, alongside the rest of the confused cast, “If he didn't have any ideas he could've at least said so.”

 

“Wait, did he even say what the goal was?” Gangle's was already forseeing the fate of her happy mask today.

 

“Nope.” Jax sighed, “Guess he'll just take us back when he remembers we exist.”

 

Today's adventure was ‘The Pit.’, Caine had hyped it up as a ‘free form’ adventure, which was code for some random map that they were to wonder around until the end of the day.

 

They stood at the edge of the forest line that encircled the aforementioned pit, a giant, deep, muddy quarry. It was clear that Caine just took a copy of some other map and stuck a hole in it, they could even see ⅛ of a cabin left on the other side.

 

“Well this sucks.” Pomni had nothing else to say, everyone nodded and murmured in agreement.

 

“Well..” Jax spotted a route to the bottom that was less steep, “I'm going in The Pit.” He took his first step with a visceral squelch, and by his fourth, the cuffs of his overalls were ruined already.

 

Pomni shrugged and attempted to follow his footprints, though they were a little too far apart for her. At this, everyone else besides Ragatha had resigned themselves to The Pit.

 

“Are you coming?” Gangle asked Ragatha, waiting for her at the edge of The Pit, everyone else turned back too, besides Jax, who just stopped.

 

“Ah, it's a bit uh.. muddy.” Sure, growing up on a farm made her no stranger to mud, but spending the whole day in it didn't sound awesome.

 

“So what? You're going to sit there alone for 8 hours? C'mon Raggy, come into The Pit.” Jax urged, grinning.

 

“… fine.” She took a cautious step to follow, holding her dress up slightly, “But if you push me over I swear…”

 

“That doesn't sound like something I would do.” He feigned ignorance, continuing to walk.

 

It's not that he particularly was leading the group, but that no body dared to overtake him. Jax confidently strode at the front of the cast, following a path that circled The Pit in a spiral. Everyone now focused less on not getting their legs muddy, since there really was no point, and more on keeping good footing. Though, Kingers shuffling did carve quite the path.

 

There was idle chatter between them as they decended. Despite the whole load of nothing going on, or maybe because of it, Pomni found herself really liking this one so far.

 

She used to go on hikes with her family when she was younger, and there would always inevitably be a bit like this, a muddy slope. While it was difficult trying not to slip, she found it strangely thrilling. Listening to the conversation and the tweeting birds almost felt like she was back there.

 

“By the way, Zooble.” Jax started and they tensed, ready to hear some bulls$#%, “I like your configuration today.” He gestured vaguely at the parts she'd chosen.

 

“Oh, f#%@ off.” They scowled at him, taking it as an insult.

 

“What!?” He looked at the others, “I haven't even done anything wrong!!… today… yet…”

 

“Don't try and act like you were seriously complementing me, a#!hole.” Zooble huffed and crossed his arms.

 

“Jeez, Well now I'm not anymore, you look stupid.” His expression went sour and he turned back to the path.

 

The vibe got very awkward, usually an insult from Jax was easy to recover from but this was weird.

 

Pomni reached up and placed her palm on his back, “Jax…” her tone was indiscernible but Jax's face softened.

 

“Sorry, Zooble. You don't look stupid.”

 

Sans Kinger, who was keeping an eye out for worms, the rest of the group exchanged looks, no one really understood what just happened. Not even Jax and Pomni.

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

Finally at the bottom, they found nothing but more mud, what a surprise. Still, they felt strangely triumphant. While there were more than enough slips, they were at a collective zero falls and Gangle was just pleased that her happy mask had made it this far.

 

“Well… what now? Do we go back up?” Ragatha looked for anything she could sit on, unsurprisingly, there was not.

 

Jax stared her down, then picked up a fat handful from the floor and held it with ill intent and a grin.

 

“Okay wait we can talk about this..” She held her arms up defensively.

 

“What? Oh I see, you thought… oh that's funny.” He shook his head, “No, Ragatha, this is my mud. You can't have it.” It was a truly awful sight to watch him put the wet glob of mud in his front pocket. He deemed the other's reactions to be worth the awful decision, probably.

 

Everyone just kept standing around after that, until Pomni gave up with a shrug and sat on the floor, awful.

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

Once everyone had truly abandoned the idea of going back to the circus in any form of clean, it was acctually really chill. Kinger crawled around digging for bugs and worms. Zooble and Gangle were making… well, what was originally planned to be a castle but was now an ever growing mountain that they continued to feed while Ragatha supervised by telling them where to put the mud.

 

Jax and Pomni had found a place to sit together just a small ways up, where they watched from.

 

Pomni sighed, “This is nice.”

 

Jax looked at her, perplexed, “Really? This one? The mud one? This is the nice one for you?” He laughed.

 

“It's not about the mud.” She flicked his knee, “I mean, despite that, it's just like a day out. Reminds me of stuff I did with family…”

 

He softened, pupils blowing wider and his mouth shrunk to a small smile, “Yeah. I guess I get it…” Something had changed but he didn't know what, like everyone was acting differently except for him… but he didn't hate it.

 

“So, your family sent you into The Pit as a child too, huh?” He attempted a joke.

 

“Jax, stop,” She rolled her eyes, “it's nothing to do with any pits.”

 

He didn’t relent, “I was born in The Pit.”

 

She found herself smiling, so as a retort she reeled her hand back and slapped him hard on his front pocket, causing his personal pocket mud shoot out, splatting him in the face.

 

He froze, looking down at the mess that was his entire chest now, “… My mud…” He squinted at her with his resolve set, grabbing fist fulls from the floor, “You're gonna pay for that, you know.” 

 

She knew, and grinned as he lunged at her.

 

The next thing everyone else saw was a muddy pile of Pomni and Jax rolling down the hill, laughing. Once they hit the bottom, they proceeded to continue the fight, throwing all they could hold at eachother while they slipped around trying to stand up. As soon as Jax got his footing, he was tackled back to the floor.

 

No one knew what to do, if it were a real fight they would break it up, but there was no protocol for a play fight.

 

“This is weird…” Zooble commented, as he patted another lot of mud into what they now called ‘The Mud King: Muddias' which was definitely not weird.

 

“Should we be watching this?” Gangle wanted to look away, but couldn't.

 

“Uh… No? Maybe?” Ragatha had heard from Pomni they they'd play fought before, but this seemed extreme.

 

“She's feral..” Zooble couldn't look away either. Ragatha and Gangle nodded slowly.

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

It had been a while since they could acctually see the sun from the bottom of The Pit, but the way the sky was orange now let them all know they probably didn't have much more time to kill before going back to the circus. The Mud King: Muddias was now an extreme size and Ragatha sat happily atop it while Gangle and Zooble drew on it's massive face and Pomni and Jax secretly gave it butt cheeks.

 

Soon enough, the portal back to the circus opened and they all scurried back through as if Caine would change his mind.

 

“WOW! Look at the state of you little Sugar Honey Ice Teas! Let's get you cleaned up.” Caine looked at the now mostly brown and goopy circus members, he snapped his fingers, and rather than it doing something normal like resetting them, it spawned a tidal wave that enveloped them all. But it did the job anyhow.

 

Jax approached Pomni, but took a step back when she shook the water off like a dog, “Hey, Poms.”

 

“Hm?” She rung out her hat.

 

“Is that nest thing still… there?”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

Notes:

HI HI I MADE A TUMBLR ACCOUNT GO FOLLOW AND SEND ME ASKS TEE HEE
https://www.tumblr.com/thenumber1superspecialguy
I'll be answering any asks tmmr cuz I'm posting this late:3

Hope you enjoyed the mud!

Chapter 10: The awful things she's said to me

Summary:

A famous and beloved character makes a reappearance, Jax dies and doesn't come back.

Notes:

Sorry if this is short, i dont have a word counter so i have no idea, hope you enjoy anyhow!

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

If a bit battered from the night, and Jax’s war against his soft captor, the ‘nest’ they'd made the previous day still brought a tear of joy to the eye.

 

Jax jumped to it's side and began to re-adjust it all as soon as he entered the room, but Pomni had another plan forming in her head.

 

“Wait,” She stopped him and he looked back at her, perplexed, “what if… we moved it to your room?”

 

Jax raised an eyebrow, “… Is this your way of trying to see inside my room?” A smile streched out across his face.

 

“Uh… yeah.” She gave up all means of subtlety, “So, can we?”

 

Jax thought, pursing his lips, trying to remember if it was clean enough for her, “… Yeah, okay, sure.” 

 

Pomni did a giddy little fist pump, adorable.

 

“So,” he stepped back, a limp hand on his waist, “how do you propose we do that, then?”

 

“Uhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” She assessed the problem, they could take it apart… or…, “what if we uh, pushed it? Like as one unit?”

 

He smiled, not because he had any faith in the plan, but because it would be funny to try, “You're the boss!” Jax lent down right the way to the floor, such that his body made the shape of an arch. He enveloped as much of it's width as he could in his arms and began to push.

 

When it acctually began to move, despite it's shape deforming ever so slightly, Pomni rushed to hold the door open and then realised the fatal flaw in her plan.

 

“Jax, it's not gonna fit.” She warned, watching the mass approach.

 

“That's what she said.” He managed to grunt out.

 

Pomni scoffed, she wanted to bring up that she knew for a fact that nobody had ever said that to him, but thought better of it, “Gross. I mean it though, it's too big.”

 

“That's what she-.” the nest hit the frames of the door and began to split apart, the middle section continued to slide into the hallway and Jax fell on his face.

 

“Well… it was worth a shot,” she grabbed a few pillows and a blanket off the floor and took them into the hallway, “even if we got it through the door, we'd have to start over anyways.”

 

“What the f#%£ are you doing?” Zooble poked her head out of his room, “oh, sorry Pomni, I thought I heard Jax.”

 

“That's because you did.” He emerged, smugly, with a large amount of pillows in his arms, “and! It's none of your business.”

 

They looked the situation over, “F#¥!ing good, I don't wanna know.” then retreated and slammed the door shut.

 

Pomni bounced with anticipation, waiting for Jax to open his door. He could barely see anything past what he was carrying, but just about managed to fumble the door open, chucking the load inside and going back to get more.

 

Pomni looked like she was a kid at Disney land in Jax's mostly very bland room. The walls were purple and everything was accented in yellow, but it seemed like any gimmick items that were originally there had been hidden or disposed of, besides a divan made to look like a carrot. He had shelves full of items that she guessed were from previous adventures, some of them looked a little broken..

 

“Stop being nosey and help.” He flung a pillow at her, hitting her square in the back of the head and making her drop the pillows.

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

It was even better than last time, since Jax had also found where his spare bed stuff was kept it was twice as big and cozy. The pair were thoroughly proud of themselves.

 

“It's so beautiful.” Pomni mimed wiping a tear from her eye. The way that the blankets covered the surface and the walls were a layer or two made it reminiscent of a hot tub.

 

“Yup. I'm not doing that again, it stays in here now.” He took a seat near the edge.

 

“Whattttt, who said you got full custody?” She crawled on top, careful to not disturb their work.

 

“Any sane judge would agree I'm the superior choice.” He spoke matter-of-factly, a cocky grin gracing his face.

 

She huffed, “… but all my pillows and sheets are in here…” 

 

“Darn, guess you'll just have to sleep here every night then.” He tried not to break character when he realised the depth of what he'd just said, but there was a clear shift in his expression.

 

“Maybe I will.” She smiled.

 

He managed a chuckle, but then he saw something behind Pomni, and what he saw made his blood run cold and his heart feel like it popped.

 

There, still on the nightstand where he left it, sat Pompuppet. His breath hitched.

 

Fu##%%@%%#kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

 

He looked away as fast as he could and attempted to look normal, “So uh, WAIT-" he tried to start a conversation but she'd already noticed his diverted attention and turned around.

 

It was a moment before her eyes locked on to it, “Jax…” she plucked it off the bedside table, looking it over with an unreadable expression.

 

“Ok- can explain…” he gestured defensively.

 

She raised an eyebrow at him expectantly.

 

Jax thought about the truth, and cringed, “But… I don't wanna.”

 

“Jaxxxx…?” She teased, tilting her head toward him, “What, did you miss me or something?” she giggled.

 

He flushed red, or maybe he was already red, he had no idea when his face got hot.

 

“NO! It's! Well! Uh…” fine, the truth it was, “It was this stupid thing my councillor tried to do once, where you like… talk with puppets..? It didn't work back then and it didn't work now so…” he wanted to curl up and perish right there.

 

“I'm familiar with the idea… so what, you make a cute little puppet of me and get attached?” she giggled.

 

“Pff, no? Not attached… just…” his whole head and ears were red now and Pomni absolutely noticed.

 

Pomni held it out to him, “Show me.” She urged

 

“Huh?? Show what??” He recoiled away from Pompuppet but she only reached out further.

 

She laughed, “Show me how you talk with it, come on, please? I wanna hear your impression of me.” 

 

“No. Stop it.” He attempted to shuffle away but couldn't get far, so he turned around and crawled to the opposite side.

 

When he turned back, he was met face to face with Pompuppet, mounted on Pomni's hand. Embarrassingly, as if it could get worse, he yelped from shock.

 

“Jaxxxxxx~” the puppet teased, “Don't ignore meeee~” Pomni giggled. For some reason, she put on a different voice, a cuter high pitch one.

 

He yanked Pompuppet off of her hand and threw it hard against the wall.

 

“Hey!” She got up and chased after it, “Don't be mean to her!”

 

“Mean to her? You should've heard the things she's said to me.” He crossed his arms and willed the heat in his face to die down.

 

Pomni turned to him with genuine shock, “Why? What'd she say??” She looked back at the puppet in her hands and back at him.

 

“God, Pomni, you wouldn't believe it,” he tutted, “awful, nasty things.” He'd regained enough of his composure to joke.

 

“Awww, well…” she placed the puppet back on her hand, “She would like to formally apologise…” Pompuppet was pushed against Jax's cheek, “mwah!” She giggled.

 

Jax froze, like completely. His head got very very warm, was he going to faint? God, please don't faint that's so embarrassing.

 

“Don't.. don't do that… that's weird.” He waved Pomni and Pompuppet away, but she just giggled.

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

Pomni had noticed, even though the conversation had long since moved on, and she'd tucked Pompuppet into bed, Jax kept looking over at it like it was going to do something. Maybe it was strange that he kept a puppet version of her by his bed, but she just found it endearing, especially his reaction.

 

It wasn't long till she found herself yawning, the longer adventures always wore her out much more than the high intensity ones. Her eyes half lidded and she honestly felt like she might sleep right then, sat up.

 

Seeing her yawn, Jax yawned too, “ugh, you little- those are contagious you know.” He stood up and streched, going to turn the light off. At this signal, she happily tucked herself in with a content sigh.

 

“Goodnight, Jax.” She smiled though it was too dark for him to see.

 

He slid under the blankets, “Night, Poms.”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

Notes:

So glad I made a tumblr, it's fun, go follow it if you haven't already.
https://www.tumblr.com/thenumber1superspecialguy

Chapter 11: Hey, that bump is shaped like a Rabbit

Summary:

The nest causes a completely unforseen issue...

Notes:

Not sure how I feel abt this one but I hope you enjoy!

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

 

The morning cycle came once again to tear the members of the circus from their sleep. In the centre of the nest, [controversially] named ‘Fort Jax’, the two awoke just the same as always… except…

 

Jax took a moment to readjust his mind, reminding himself why he was on the floor. The layers of blankets were so vast that if it weren't so comfortable, it would be almost like drowning. Something very prevalent stood out to him, however. There was a pressure on his chest that wrapped around his sides and sort of squeezed him in a way he honestly didn't mind at all. Wait what?

 

Pomni had no idea where the f#%@ she was, lost under the blankets. Her face was pressed up against something that felt like no pillow she knew of, but whatever it was, she was holding onto it as if her very life depended on it… and it held her back..?

Oh.

In an instant, Pomni and Jax flew apart from eachother. Jax let out an unmanly shriek with an unreasonable terror in his eyes as he speed shuffled away.

 

He pointed and spluttered, “YOU! P-PERVERT!” his face blazed.

 

“ME? PERVERT? YOU WERE HUGGING BACK!” She seemed more shocked at the accusation that she'd done it on purpose than the event itself.

 

“HUG??? THAT-THAT WASN'T A HUG! THAT WAS A VIOLATION!” his ears were pinned far back.

 

“I don't think this could more CLEARLY be an accident, calm the f#%! down.” She scowled.

 

“Acci- no nononono! Okay we were top n tail, TOP N TAIL! On OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE- THE STUPID- thing!” He couldn't bring himself to call it any of the endearing names it had been given, as it was now alike a curse to him, “So HOW did we end up the same way around? Huh?!”

 

Pomni squinted, pausing for a second to think on a memory that itched her brain, “ohhhhhhhh s#@%…”

 

“SO YOU ADMIT IT? That you- that you…” he left his words unfinished.

 

“No… I know what happened… it might acctually be my fault… sorry.” She grimaced.

 

“YEAH- YOU-!… what do you mean? What happened.?” He cocked his head.

 

“Ah so! Funny story… you fell asleep first and… well, I thought it would be funny… to put the puppet on your hand… so when you woke up…” she trailed off.

 

He picked up his other hand to his face. And though it exactly what he expected to see, Pompuppet’s little face still jumpscared him and he flung her again to the other side of the room with a yelp. And yeah, she was right, it was funny.

 

“And I guess… I must've fallen asleep before I could move back to where I was… I'm so sorry Jax…” She had a look of genuine remorse for the fact that it had upset him this much. Though she was usually not a fan of hugs, that was…

 

“I see you're leaving out the part where you ATTACHED yourself to me like some kind of… of… ATTACHING CREATURE.” Jax crossed his arms tight. His ears flopped to either side of his head, rather than the defensive position they were before.

 

“I did not do that while conscious, that was-" Pomni was cut off by a loud bashing on the door.

 

“CAN YOU SHUT THE F#@% UP AND STOP YELLING, IT'S LIKE… AN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!” Zoobles voice angrily penetrated the door.

 

“Sorry, Zooble.” Pomni called back.

 

“…Pomni? What- You know what never-f%#$ing-mind, I'm not touching that s#£÷.” And Zooble was gone again.

 

Pomni huffed in defeat, weakly stood to her feet and took a pillow and a blanket from Fort Jax for her own bed. Wrapping them up in her arms, she wordlessly went for the door.

 

“Wait-" He called, face softened, “Are you.. not coming back tonight?”

 

She slowly pivoted to look at him, big sad eyes like he hadn't just been squealing over their accidental snuggle. His hands folded politely in his lap, she wanted to laugh at the sight and the whole situation, but could only muster a deep sigh.

 

“You're impossible.” She shook her head and a fond smile slipped out, she lobbed the pile back into the nest. And then she left.

 

♤◇♤●●●♤◇♤

 

Ragatha watched Pomni stride down the hall, a fire in every step.

 

“H-hey, Pomni!” She caught up, looking back to Jax's door to make sure he wasn't following.

 

“’Morning, Ragatha.” She mumbled, her brow furrowed and her gaze focused forward.

 

“I heard yelling…” So did everyone, it wasn't quiet, “are you two okay? Do you wanna talk about it?” Ragatha ultimately found herself invested in Jax and Pomni's friendship or… whatever they were. 

 

Last night, after they all had scattered to their own devices, there had been a brief conversation between herself, Gangle, Zooble and Kinger (though he didn't contribute much) about Jax's change in behaviour. Pomni only seemed to be doing good for him, but there was the worry about if he would be doing good for Pomni.

 

“No, it's okay, he's just being stupid. He'll get over it.” She sighed, but laughed, checking to make sure Jax wasn't there, “We may have woken up too close for his comfort this morning.” It wasn't the kind of thing he'd want to be spread around, but it was just Ragatha. besides, it's not like Pomni didn't have the right to talk about whatever she wanted to, or that she cared what Jax thought… which is why she checked back a second time to make sure he wasn't near…

 

Ragatha also checked back after seeing Pomni do it, “Hold on, just to make sure I'm not reading into this wrong, you're saying you were like… what, cuddling with him?” She had an odd expression on her face, not knowing what to think about the idea of Jax like that.

 

Going out to the balcony, Gangle was stood frozen, staring at them wide eyed and open mouth. She didn't hear that, did she?

 

“…Classic Fanfiction Cliché…” she whispered to herself.

 

Pomni raised an eyebrow, not having heard her, “Huh?”

 

“NOTHING! I have to go talk to Zooble about something!” She sped off down the stairs.

 

“Uh… okay…” Pomni shook it off, going back to the conversation, “Anyways, basically, yeah… well not basically, that exactly.”

 

Ragatha sighed, “And he freaked out and yelled at you? I'm sorry, Pomni.” She frowned, thinking up solutions, “Are you gonna, uh, try make up with him? Not that I'm saying you need to that is!” She clarified, gesturing defensively.

 

“Oh, nah, it's fine, he basically invited me to come back tonight.” She gave Ragatha a reassuring smile.

 

“He huh?”

 

♤◇♧♡♡♡♧◇♤

 

It seemed today, Caine was at least able to make an adventure with some kind of direction and theme. They were to work as mechanics in an auto repair shop, and Zooble managed to negotiate for it to not be another 8 hour adventure. Instead, they had a long list of tasks that once they were completed, the adventure would end.

 

Caine had dressed them up in grey jumpsuits, tied at the waist with a white t-shirt or vest underneath for that sexy, non-OSHA-compliant flare.

 

After realising all the cars’ parts were completely nonsensical and putting wiper fluid in the gas tank of a car, who's NPC thanked him and drove away happily, Jax had resolved to grabbing the biggest monkey wrench he could find and bashing in the windscreens of any cars that dared to pass by the shop. When Ragatha yelled at him to come and help, he said that he was, by getting them more customers in the long run.

 

Pomni kind of wanted to join him, she had spotted a good potential weapon, but he hadn't spoken to her yet since the morning so she assumed he still wasn't over it, what a big baby.

 

Zooble and Gangle sat at the front desk, claiming to be the receptionists despite no task on the list requiring it. Really, they were just chatting.

 

Ragatha and Pomni were the only ones trying, and somehow, Kinger was getting through tasks faster than both of them combined with his absurd methods. It was dizzying to watch him shove a screw-driver in the exhaust and it somehow fix the problem with the car's radio.

 

Ragatha ran her finger down the list, checking off some more boxes, “Woo! One more task and we are done, everyone!” She called out to a response of half hearted cheers, Jax got run over, which had happened a few times and it'd almost stopped being funny.

 

“Hey, Pomni, I got this one covered if you wanna go… do that.” She pointed out the big garage door at Jax, chasing after the car that hit him and swinging wildly for it's tail lights.

 

“Ah, I don't know… might be awkward…” She really wanted to, it showed.

 

“Pomni. Go hit the cars.” She held a firm stance.

 

“Okay, okay!” She grinned, rushing to pick up the fishbolt spanner she saw earlier, she didn't know that was what it was called, it just looked perfect for smashing windows and cracking headlights.

 

Jax was so shocked to see her that he neglected to notice the pickup truck speeding at him before it was too late. The truck stopped abruptly after throwing him 10 feet forward, which gave the perfect opportunity for Pomni to jump onto it's hood and get to work.

 

As the windscreen collapsed inward, the low function NPC just beeped and yelled a loop of, “Hey! Stop that! Hey! I'm reporting this! My car! Hey! Stop that!” With every hit.

 

Watching this, Jax felt like he'd been hit by a truck in more ways than one. His chest fluttered, seeing Pomni laugh maniacally as she smashed this car to bits. He'd like to think it was to avenge him. Wow…

 

The Truck occasionally jolted forward, moving slowly but hitting the break again suddenly when it sensed Pomni.

 

He rushed over, beginning to really hammer in the grill on the front. He had started to get bored, but her being here with him and hanging out with him, despite how he'd acted toward her that morning, made it fun all over again.

 

Usually by now he would've let the poor car go, but Pomni wasn't done. She crawled into the car through the now conveniently open windscreen and went apesh#t on the radio, the cup holder, the speedometer and also the NPC, who didn't react any more than, “Hey! Stop that! I’m reporting this! Hey!”

 

The absolute look of enamourment in Jax's eyes, his hits had become more like pretend as his gaze was 100% fixed on her. Pomni’s eyes were lit with a mad fury, continuing to laugh and looking for anything else breakable.

 

They only stopped once the portal back the circus opened again, both giving the body one last hearty smack before retuning to the circus, taking their weapons with.

 

He looked down at her as they left, “Hey… Pomni. So, are we like, OK?”

 

She gave a squinty smile, “About what?”

 

“Yes, right. Nothing happened, gotcha.” he decompressed with relief.

 

“I'll see you later,” She winked at him, instantly regretting it but what could she do now, “I got something I need to do.”

 

“…without me?” He looked a little dejected.

 

“Yup! Bye!” She waved with her spanner and ran off towards Ragatha with a purpose that made him believe she was about to attack her for a second.

 

“Hey, Ragatha.” She grinned.

 

“Hey, Pomni, is everything OK?” She was glad to see her back with Jax, even though it was scary to watch and she felt bad for that poor NPC.

 

“Oh! yeah! But I had an idea I need your help with, are you free?” She buzzed with anticipation at her answer.

 

She was initially surprised that Pomni was choosing to hang out with her, “Ooh! Of course, what's the idea?”

 

♤♤♤●●●♤♤♤

Notes:

Driving in my Truck, right after a beer.

So, I go back to college tomorrow, which will probably make updates a little slower. I was hoping to finish this before then but time snuck up on me😭