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Pixelated starlight shone down from an inky black void onto the theater after the Favorite Character Awards. Pomni and Ragatha walked side by side as they watched countless wooden dolls stroll out of the theater to acres of poorly-rendered cars ambling in the parking lot. Not knowing where else to look, she watched as each doll approached a car, and in the blink of an eye, each doll and car were gone.
“So,” Ragatha started nervously, shaking Pomni out of her thoughts, “you wanna…talk in my room?”
“Sure, sounds good,” Pomni replied. She was trying not to let herself get too upset about the day’s events. After all, the other woman wanted to tell her something too, she didn’t want her spat with Jax to disturb that.
Suddenly, a portal appeared by the edge of the theater's patio. The two women looked up and around, but, surprisingly, their all-seeing ringmaster was nowhere to be found. Pomni looked up at Ragatha, who gave her a confused shrug.
Hearing chuckles behind her, Pomni looked back to see a giggly Gangle with a bleary-eyed Zooble leaning into her as they awkwardly stumbled through the theater doors. She noticed the empty sauce bottle in the mismatched character’s hand, letting herself have an amused chuff.
“You need any help with them, Gangle?” she heard Ragatha shout across the lot.
Gangle suddenly looked up at them in surprise but quickly regained her grin. “No thanks, Ragatha, we’re good!” she proclaimed with more joy in her voice than she’d heard from her in a while. Zooble then let out a long sound that almost sounded like a friendly “hey.”
Ragatha gave them a thumbs up before turning and walking through the portal. A moment later, Pomni followed her through. Again, Caine was nowhere to be found. It unsettled her but she decided that it would be dealt with later. They walked towards the hall of rooms.
They got to the door with the redhead’s portrait on it. Ragatha unlocked the door and walked in, summoning Pomni. Before she complied, Pomni turned to notice the tall lanky purple figure turn the corner and stroll down the hall. He had a huge grin on his face and arms folded behind his head like he was the king of the world. He had the same atypical swaying gait that he had at the awards ceremony. He took a brief notice of Pomni before spinning his own key on his finger, placing it in the lock, and opening his door with a flourish and walking inside. On any other day, Pomni wouldn’t have called this odd in the slightest. She took a second to process this before shaking her head, walking into Ragatha’s room, and closing the door.
Ragatha’s room looked a lot like her own, with an identical layout. The main changes were to the color palettes of the bed, furniture, and walls; they matched and complimented Ragatha’s outfit. Pomni also couldn’t help but notice that Ragatha’s bed frame was white with a wooden texture. Its backboards brought to mind the visual of a farm’s fencing. Ragatha sat on her bed and patted in front of her. Pomni went to sit while briefly noticing the miniature horse figurines donning her nightstand.
“So, uh, what’s on your mind, Pomni?” The taller woman nervously asked. Pomni wasn’t sure she was ready to say all the words she needed yet, so she deflected.
“Actually, I think you should go first, mine is kinda... a lot.”
This took Ragatha a bit by surprise. “Oh, uh, okay then. Uhh”
The redhead fiddled with her hair nervously for a moment and took a breath before continuing. “Kinger and I had a bit of a talk after we lost today, and he…surprisingly really helped?” She shrugged her shoulder a bit with a shy smile. “I just…I’m really sorry, Pomni, if it ever felt like I was, like, smothering you or anything? I want everyone here to be happy and okay, but I guess I pushed too hard and made things worse, so I’m…I’m sorry for that.” She looked to the side sheepishly as she rubbed her arm.
Pomni blinked for a moment before responding. “Hey, it’s alright, I know you were trying to help. I kinda just didn’t like being treated like…a kid?”
Ragatha’s head popped up to look at her with more focus before the jester continued.
“Like, this whole place is so weird and scary, and I didn’t like feeling like... it was weird to feel that way? I probably should have said something to you about that sooner, and I guess that’s why I’ve been a little off with you lately, and I’m sorry for that. But I see what you were trying to do.” She paused for a moment to awkwardly put out a hand. “And I’ll always be willing to be your friend, if you’ll have me.”
Ragatha’s eyebrows shot up. “O-of course, Pomni,” she said before reaching out to take her hand. "Friends?" she asked with a small shake.
Pomni smiled and gave her a shake back, “Friends.”
Ragatha sighed deeply with relief before pulling her hand back to scratch under her hair. “Whew! That felt nice to get out. Now, what did you want to talk about?”
Pomni froze for a moment, almost forgetting her side of the conversation.
“Well, I kinda already said...some of it? I was sorta on the same page as you, but also...” she trailed off.
“Also?” Ragatha inquired.
Pomni tensed up for a second. She felt like she had a thousand questions, a thousand things she wanted to talk about. All of them tied back to one person.
“Are you seriously gonna blame me for something that EVERYONE else did, too?! You didn’t even know him!”
She thought for a moment, trying to summarize her mental tornado of thoughts into a concise question, before fumbling through the best thing she could think to ask. “What...don't I know...about Jax?”
Ragatha’s face fell a bit, but she didn’t seem too shocked. “Why, what happened today?”
“Well, he... we were playing the game, and we were actually having a great time! I know it was wild and hectic, but we worked really well together, and we were having a blast! But then,” she reached up to grip at her hat. “After we won, I gave him a hug, and he shoved me away. Then he started saying all this stuff about how we weren’t actually friends and that everyone here is just his toys and he likes watching us suffer.”
Pomni looked up for a second to see Ragatha’s terrified expression before turning her gaze to literally anything else. “And I called him out on it. I just…I didn’t believe that everything today meant nothing to him! I still don’t believe it! But he still pushed me away, and then,” Pomni got a bit of a lump in her throat but tried to keep it down. “I asked him what he would do if I...abstracted, and he said he would move on and forget about me.”
“Oh, Pomni,” Ragatha reached out a hand to put on the other’s shoulder. Normally Pomni wouldn’t have liked something like this, but she found she was warming up to all kinds of touch lately. “For what it’s worth, I would never forget you. I remember everyone I’ve seen come and go through this circus.”
Pomni took a deep breath to suppress a sob before continuing. “Thank you, I know you would. But that’s the thing, I really don’t think he meant it. I think it was a way to try to keep me away.” She shuffled a bit before reaching to scratch the back of her neck. “But,” she resumed, “is it weird to say that I think it would have hurt less if I thought he meant it?”
Ragatha took her hand back before putting it in her lap and looking off to the side. “No, no I don’t think that’s weird at all, I…actually kinda get it.” She stared at her hands as her thumbs danced mindlessly against each other.
Pomni looked up at her and was about to ask further before Ragatha started up again. “I’m so sorry he said that.”
Pomni took the hint and decided to not dwell on her reaction for now. “It’s okay, I’m just…I’m really worried about him. I haven’t seen him really have an actual connection with anyone here except for…I guess except for me. And look, I know that he’s a total a[$%#!]shole and everyone here hates him, and maybe I hate him a little bit too? But I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t at least try to help him in some way, and I can’t do that without knowing more about him. I really don’t want to leave things the way they are now. So, please just... please tell me what you know?”
Ragatha’s eyebrows furrowed for a second. “You know,” she started, “one of the things Kinger told me today was that sometimes people need space, and if one person isn’t willing to talk, you should just leave them be.” She shrugged and vaguely gestured with one arm. “Maybe Jax needs some space right now.”
“Yeah,” the jester girl started, “that makes sense.” Pomni closed her hands tight around each other. “And in any other circumstance I would completely agree with you, but...” she trailed off. She ran a blue-gloved hand up her face and onto her hat as she took a nerve-steeling breath. “Ragatha, I think he’s close to abstracting.”
Ragatha’s pupils went small as she stared straight at Pomni.
“Look, after everything that happened today, I kinda want some space from him too. But I’m worried he doesn’t have a lot of time.”
Ragatha looked down at her thumbs again as they tapped against each other in an anxious rhythm.
“I don’t want to make him more mad or anything, but,” the jester took a breath, “I really don’t think I can get anywhere with how little I know now. And I don’t think anyone else here is up to the task, to be honest.”
Ragatha glanced back up at Pomni and sighed. “Okay, I’ll trust you on this. As much as I…don’t get along with him, I still don’t want him in the cellar.”
Pomni let out a breath. “Thank you.” She scooted a bit closer to the older woman before she went on.
“So, Jax got here maybe 5 years after I did? I remember his first day, he seemed excited, like he was about to spend a day at an amusement park. He got really into that day’s adventure, it was some kind of lazer tag competition, if I remember correctly. None of us had the heart to break the fun for him. When the adventure finished and he asked to leave, I ended up explaining to him that we didn’t know how to leave and that he was trapped. He thought I was just joking at first, but Caine and everyone else confirmed it. I saw something…break in him at that moment, I think. He went quiet and had on this nervous smile. He tried to play it cool, but I could tell he was really scared. I tried to offer some comfort and advice. But then Ribbit walked up to him and started talking to him.”
“Ribbit?” Pomni asked.
“He was Jax’s friend. I think he was Jax’s only friend, before you at least. I tried to get closer to Jax, but we just never really clicked, I guess. He always preferred to spend time with Ribbit. They always hung out together. Ribbit always seemed to be able to cheer him up somehow. Ribbit would always make these silly jabs at us, and he usually knew when to dial it back. But Jax didn’t. He started upping the stakes and intensity of his 'jokes,' and by the time Gangle got here, he had gotten pretty nasty about it. Ribbit at least spared Gangle the second he saw she was upset at his quips. Ribbit and I started calling Jax out after a while, but he just brushed us off.”
Ragatha took a moment to breath before continuing.
“Then one day, out of nowhere, Ribbit started being just as mean as Jax. He didn’t have the same confidence as Jax, though, but it was still enough to turn everyone else away from him, at least a bit. But pretty soon after that, Jax and Ribbit weren’t talking to each other and seemed to be ignoring each other. I guess they had some fight. I tried to reach out to Jax about what happened, but you can guess how that went. Ribbit tried reaching out to us all, and I welcomed him back in, but we were never super close even before Jax got here; he also saw right through me, I guess. Things kinda blew over after that. And then Ribbit seemed pretty happy. He looked a bit lonely, since we all lost some trust in him, but he looked happy. But then...” she trailed off. She pulled her knees up to hide her chin and wrapped her arms around them, almost hugging herself.
Pomni processed this for a moment. She recalled the door in the hall of a frog crossed out with a large red X. “What happened to Ribbit?”
Ragatha took a deep breath before answering. “A bit after he and Jax stopped talking, we were all hanging out in the common area one day. And then all of a sudden, Jax came sprinting in from the bedroom hall, looking more scared than we had ever seen him. And that’s when we saw Ribbit, or, I guess what he had become, he... had abstracted.”
Pomni took a deep breath. Knowing that it was coming didn’t make it hit any less hard.
“Ribbit cornered Jax, and we saw him get on his hands and knees, apologizing and begging for him to come back. Ribbit shoved Jax up against the wall, which made him start glitching out.”
Pomni remembered what Ragatha was like when the same happened to her on her first day in the circus. She tried to imagine the same thing happening to Jax, and something about it felt so deeply wrong, more-so than if anyone else had.
“Then Ribbit turned to look and charge at us, but luckily Caine stopped him and threw him in the cellar. Once he fixed Jax, he just stood staring at the spot on the floor where the cellar opened up. He had this blank expression, and it seemed like something had shattered inside of him. I tried to talk to him, but he basically ignored me. He looked really angrily at us before sulking away to his room. I think we were all too stunned to say anything. We told him about the funeral service we were holding, but he didn’t show up. Something in him just wasn’t quite the same after that. Before Ribbit was gone, he at least seemed happy and like he was enjoying his antics. But after that, it almost seemed like he felt like he had to do it for some reason, there just wasn’t that weird mean spark in him like before. I kept trying to be there for him, but I guess I just gave up after a while.”
Pomni took a moment to process all of that. It all seemed to check out with what she knew about the purple rabbit, but one part of it stuck out to her. “You said that Ribbit seemed...happy right before he abstracted?”
“Yeah, he wasn’t like before, but he seemed to be doing okay. That just made his abstraction more weird.”
A pit opened up in Pomni’s stomach. She couldn’t help but think back to earlier when she saw Jax at the awards ceremony. Her mind focused a bit.
“Pomni, are you-?”
“What was Kaufmo like before he abstracted?”
This took Ragatha off guard for a moment before she started. “Well, he had gotten here a little before I did, from what Kinger told me. He always had this optimistic attitude. He would make silly jokes all the time, but to be honest, they weren’t usually great jokes. They were jokes that a TV show dad might make. But most of the time we would still laugh at them, sometimes those stupid jokes really helped on a rough day. But then maybe a month before you showed up, he started talking about seeing a red exit door and tried to convince all of us that it was real. So many of us had been here for so long that we didn’t believe him, but we tried to humor him. Every time he tried to point it out, it would turn out to be nothing or some other thing. After a bit, I think he went to Caine about it? And then he seemed to be back to normal, back to his usual self. He didn’t mention the door again. But then the day you showed up, we opened his door, and he was gone too.”
The pit of dread in Pomni’s gut grew. Her eyes went wide as she stared at the door.
“Pomni, are you okay?”
Pomni’s head snapped back and refocused on the woman in front of her. She blinked her eyes a few times to get them to really lock in on her. “I need to go talk to Jax.” She hurriedly slid herself off of Ragatha’s bed before turning back to the redhead. “Thank you, Ragatha, for explaining all that, it really... made some things make sense.”
Ragatha smiled, a bit nervous. “No problem, Pomni.”
The shorter woman quickly clarified, “I promise that not every conversation we have is gonna be about Jax. After this is cleared up, you and I can do something fun together. I just…”
“Hey, I get it,” Ragatha reassured. “It seems like a weird time for him right now.” She took a sharp breath. “But he’s probably asleep, I wouldn’t bother him until morning.”
Pomni’s insides almost felt like they were about to explode from her anxiety. “I don’t think he—I can wait that long,” she said, catching herself. “But thanks for the heads up.” She put her hand on the doorknob before Ragatha spoke up again.
“Pomni,” the jester girl turned to look at her. The ragdoll’s face was anxious but tried to keep on a small smile. “Good luck, and please don’t feel any pressure, but I still mean what I said earlier, I’m here to talk whenever you need me.”
Pomni gave a bittersweet smile and nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it, I’ll keep that in mind,” she responded. After opening the door and stepping into the hallway, she turned and gave a shy wave to Ragatha. “'Night, see you tomorrow.”
Ragatha waved back, “See you tomorrow, Pomni.”
She closed the door quietly before stepping back and turning to look at Jax’s door.
She knew she was probably making a huge mistake, giving him another chance. But with what was at stake, she knew it was a risk worth taking. She walked over to the door sporting the image of the rabbit and just stared at it for a few seconds. Jax’s earlier words filled her head.
“There’s nothing more to me, so please, just stop looking.”
Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe Jax wasn’t as close to the edge as she thought. But she wasn’t about to take that chance. Maybe she would fail, maybe she would make things worse, but she wasn’t one to let things be when she knew she could at least try to make them better. All she could do was try. She had already come this far. There was no way she was giving up now. Taking a moment to steel her nerves, she raised a hand and knocked on the door.
She heard a couple hard steps and the sound of something small being thrown, then a shuffle from the other side, like bed sheets moving. An annoyed but strained “go awaaaaaaay” followed.
“Jax, it’s me, can we talk?”
…
“Jax, I’m not going away until you come out here and talk to me.”
…
She knocked again, harder this time. “JAX!” She yelled at the door like it had slapped her mother.
…
Pomni knew that Jax’s stubborn ass not only could but would probably hold out for the entire night. She didn’t want to sit on the floor waiting for him to get up in the morning only for an adventure to take up the rest of the day. She knew she had to match his tenacity if she really wanted to get anywhere with him.
She tried to think of a way to coax Jax out without being too destructive or disruptive to the others, then she remembered something. She turned around, sat on the floor, and let her body weight fall against the facsimile of wood. She took a deep breath.
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do.”
She waited for a moment. Silence reigned.
“I'm half crazy, all for the love of you.”
…
“It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.”
She waited a minute. She started again.
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I’m half crazy, all for the love of you. It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.”
Nothing. So she started again.
And again.
And again.
She lost track of how many times she sung that stupid song. At some point she stopped waiting between repeats and just let the words flow again and again. She took a breath to start another go.
“Dai—“ suddenly, the door behind her back was gone, almost making her fall backwards. She caught herself just in time to sit up, turn, and look up at the towering purple rabbit standing above her. He glared down at her with a displeased expression and noticeable bags under his squinted eyes.
“Jax, I—“
His gaze rapidly flicked to the side before he stepped over her shoulder and started to take off in a run.
Okay, Pomni thought.
So it’s gonna be like that.
Before he could get far, Pomni shot her hand up to grab his ankle, sending him falling. The force of his trip dragged her down onto her side, but she held firm onto his leg.
“Ugh, jeez, Pomni, I know you were trying to get some of this earlier, but I didn’t take you to be a foot gal,” he remarked with his signature smug grin.
Pomni’s head snapped up to look at him, her face in an unpleased scowl. “I know what you’re doing, a[$%#!]shole, that’s not gonna work on me!”
Jax stood up as much as he could and tried to pry Pomni off of himself. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t pull that s[$%#!]t on me, you know why I’m here!”
Jax stood up and lifted his leg, taking Pomni with him. He leaned down to meet her eyes. “Oh, yeah, enlighten me then, court clown.”
Pomni dragged herself as close as she could to his stupid face without losing her grip. “You’re joking and deflecting everything serious anyone ever says so you don’t have to stoop yourself low enough to face your feelings like the rest of us!”
Jax’s scowl returned as he stood up straight again. He imitated the sound of a stadium buzzer “rnnn, wrong!” He started violently shaking the leg that held the determined jester girl while she tried not to vomit, holding on for dear life. “You really can’t remember anything, can you?” Another series of shakes. “I’m just kidding around.” More shakes racked Pomni’s body. “I’m the funny one, remember?”
After another round of shakes, he got frustrated and slammed his leg into the wall, causing Pomni to release with a loud yelp and fall on the floor.
Pomni took a moment to regain her bearings as she turned her head to look up at the purple rabbit. For the first time in her life, she saw in his face what looked like panicked remorse.
“Yeah, well,” Pomni started, shoving herself up on her elbows, “I’m not laughing, buddy.”
After a moment, Jax’s scowl returned, and he turned to run the other way.
Pomni sprung to her feet and chased him. She was a little dizzy and disoriented from the shakes but quickly locked in and started gaining on him.
“Why you running, bunny boy! Don’t you have more jokes to tell me?” She taunted.
Jax didn’t respond, instead turning the corner into another section of the hallway. Pomni skidded on the carpet, her hand slamming on the carpet to pivot her around the corner to save time and gain up on him.
Once she was close enough, she leaped off the ground, clung onto his back and started scaling his shoulders.
“You can’t run from me, Jax! I know you’re upset about something and your cheap tricks won’t work on me anymore!”
Jax just chuckled and grabbed for Pomni as she leaned on his head and swung her legs over his shoulders. “Look, I can obviously see that you wanna ride me, but this is just ridiculous.”
Pomni let out an exasperated yell as she leaned to one side before violently tossing her weight the other way, throwing Jax off balance before slamming into the wall. Pomni dodged the impact by standing on his shoulders before leaning down and grabbing the straps of his overalls, throwing herself over him, and slamming her feet into the wall under his arms. She yanked his straps closer, bracing herself against the wall, putting herself on eye level with Jax. She leaned close to his face and saw that his pupils were swirls, still reeling from the imbalance and blunt force.
“Hey! Listen up!”
After a moment, his eyes focused again, watching her with a blank expression. Mere inches from his face, Pomni laid into him.
“I DO NOT believe a single f[$%#!]king word of what you told me after we won today. We ARE friends, you DON’T want to hurt me, you WOULD remember me if I was gone, and I KNOW you only do all this pranking and bullying bulls[$%#!]t to keep people away so you don’t have to risk getting hurt by someone who you actually like. And I get it, it’s scary to open up and let people in, but we need to. And YOU need it now more than ever. So I am not going to stop bothering you and doing whatever it takes to get you to just TRY to be honest about what you’re feeling.”
Jax looked her up and down for a moment before scowling while showing his wide set of teeth. “Alright, Twilight Sparkle, I don’t need a lesson in friendship from you.” He shoved himself off the wall, leading to Pomni losing her standing and falling to the ground after losing her grip on Jax’s straps. “You know what I feel?” He turned around as Pomni looked back up at him. “I feel like you,” he put a finger on her forehead, “are just a stubborn brat who wants to drag other people down to join in her wacky ways of getting close with others. Maybe all that mushy stuff works for you and everyone else here, but it is NOT for me. So you need to stop trying.”
He stood back up and turned to walk back to his room. Pomni gained her footing and followed him.
“OhoHO, don’t act like you’re so above feelings and mushy stuff, mister, I KNOW you care and you just hate showing it.”
Jax turned to glare at her for a moment as he kept walking. Pomni refused to back down.
“What about at Spudsy’s when you asked how I was doing? What about during the star-watching thing, and you complained about Ragatha being fake? What about at the bar when you apologized to me for the president shtick? What about when you freaked out at softball because of the dress?” Jax seemingly ignored her but the last question coaxed a small growl under his breath.
“And just today when you taught me how to shoot? And when you shot me in the hall with Kinger and f[$%#!]king apologized for it? That all seems like a LOT for someone who doesn’t care! And what about Ribbit?”
Jax stopped dead in his tracks before whipping around and shoving Pomni into the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her. As she caught her breath, he got down on her level, grabbed her biceps, and pinned her to the floor. He got an inch from her face and spoke in a gravely serious tone. “Do not. EVER. Speak his name in front of me. AGAIN.”
Pomni struggled between shuttering breaths. “Why? don’t want to remember,” a deep stuttered breath, “anyone who you actually gave a s[$%#!]t about?”
He recoiled. “N-NO! He just…” he trailed off. He let out an annoyed huff before standing back up.
Pomni caught her breath as she watched Jax start to walk away. Before she could really think it through, she got up on her feet, backed up a bit, and took a running start towards the wall between her and Jax. She leapt onto the wall and then pushed off it to gain enough height to grab Jax by the ears, dragging his head down and throwing him off balance again.
“You CARED about Ribbit, didn’t you?! Admit it!”
“SHUT UP!”
Jax tried to pry and shake Pomni off of him while she jerked his head this way and that. In the process, Jax stumbled through the hall into the common area of the circus, devoid of the life and light that usually filled it.
“You push us away so it doesn’t hurt as much if we abstract, right?!”
“I SAID SHUT UP!! WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING ALL THIS FOR?!”
“Because I actually care about you, you d[$%#!]kbag!”
Jax finally got a good grip on Pomni’s arm and tried to throw her away from him. Despite his efforts, she grabbed onto his arm just as he let go. Her arm extended like a fishing line as the rest of her body flew away. But just as fast as she flew away, she came back as her arm retracted like a rubber band. Right as he realized what was coming, her leg made swift contact with the side of his head, sending him to the floor.
Pomni let go right after the kick. She landed on one leg before gaining her balance again. She immediately turned back to Jax, laying face up on the ground with swirls for pupils.
“O-oh my god, Jax, are you—“
“Well,” Jax put a hand to his face. “If you really care about me that much,” he focused on her again and sat up, “you sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“Well!” Pomni retorted. “You have a funny way of showing it too! If you didn’t run from everything, I wouldn’t have to do all this just to keep your attention!”
Jax reached up and grabbed one of the pointed ends of Pomni’s jester cap, yanking it up and throwing her over his shoulder like a bag before letting go. With her flat on the ground, he stood over her, scowling with seething rage at her as she glared up at him.
“What do you even want from me, huh?! You want me to say that Ribbit was what made this whole place bearable?! You want me to say I pushed him to be more like me so I wouldn’t feel alone?! You want me to say it was already too late when I tried to say sorry?! You want to be able to look down on me too because it was all my fault?! You want me to say that I do all this because admitting to myself how f[$%#!]ked up this whole circus is too hard?! Is that what you want?!”
Pomni softened. “I-is that how you really feel, Jax?”
Jax’s scowl smoothed into an expression that was a bit more blank and a bit more unnerving. “No…no! I—“
Pomni stood up to face him. “Because if it is, I’m still gonna be here for you. You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily.” She gave him a smug smile.
Jax took a step back. He was shaking. He looked surprised but more than anything, he looked horrified.
His lips started to turn up, but they twitched as they did so. His pupils shrank and started to wobble around his eyes sharply. He walked over to lean on one of the colorful house-sized toy blocks that accented the space. His hands landed on his brows before moving to smooth back his ears.
“Oh, Pomni, Pomni, Pomni. You have no idea what you’re in for when you say things like that.”
“I’m not sure that anyone does when they’re getting to know someone.”
“Yeah but you KNOW ME, Pomni! You’ve SEEN how everyone acts around me. Good things DON’T happen to people who stick by me.”
Pomni gave him a serious look. “I don’t believe that. Ribbit-“
“STOP SAYING HIS NAME!” Jax put a hand to his chest as it started rising and falling rapidly.
Pomni continued, “he enjoyed your friendship while he was here, right?”
Jax gave a chuff, “yeah and look where that got him.” He gestured to the floor vaguely.
Pomni shrugged. “Yeah, but that time still mattered to you, didn’t it? And I bet it still mattered to him, too. It wasn’t your fault—“
“WASN’T IT?!”
Pomni backtracked. “Even if it was your fault, you can’t know that that’ll happen again.”
Jax looked away from her for a minute as he processed this. His breaths started getting heavier and quicker. He put his head in his hands as the breaths continued to rack his chest.
“Jax, are you—“
He suddenly pushed himself off the block and stumbled away from it. He then took off in a run towards a certain part of the common area.
Pomni sprinted after him as fast as she could but he somehow seemed faster than before. She watched as he entered a small bathroom that she didn’t know was there. She hesitated for a split second before running and opening the door.
She found Jax at the sink, splashing water on his face like he had spent 30 years in an arid desert. As the door slammed shut behind her, Jax’s head whipped around like he was just caught in a bear trap. His pupils were tiny scribbles that twisted and contorted and rearranged this way and that. His face seemed a shade or two darker than normal. But what made Pomni freeze where she stood was the slight static effects that covered his skin and floated in the surrounding air.
When he spoke, his voice came out slightly more echoey than normal. “Pomni,” he marched over to her, “I told you to stay AWAY!” He shoved her back through the door and tried to slam it shut. Pomni kicked her foot through the opening to prevent him from closing it. She then reached through to grab the straps of his overalls again and yanked him out of the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. After she let go, she felt lingering buzzes of electricity on her palms that just bordered on painful. She got a better look at Jax, noticing his head was slightly swelling and retracting.
“Jax…?”
As he tried again for the bathroom door, Pomni threw herself in front of it to keep him out. He slowly backed away from her, hyperventilating, a hand grabbing desperately at the short fur on his chest.
“Jax, please, just talk to me!” Pomni pleaded. The purple figure in front of her almost didn’t seem like Jax at all. He seemed more distant, almost like he couldn’t hear her at all.
He looked around anxiously before choosing a direction and took off in a four-legged cheetah-like sprint towards it. Pomni stood and watched as he bolted into another hallway.
Pomni took a moment to recover from the fear and dread of seeing Jax’s dire state. She didn’t have time to dwell and worry, she needed to act. Luckily, she saw the direction Jax took down the hall.
There were a few points on the circus map where seemingly dead-end halls would load a different area where the hall would keep going. Caine had been meaning to patch them up, but they weren’t enough of an issue for him to worry too much about. Pomni had gotten a bit disoriented the first time she stumbled onto one. But now she was familiar enough with some of them to see them coming.
She ran towards the hallway opposite to the one Jax ran into and turned the corner. She ran until she saw the dead end, accompanied by a noticeable lack of colorful decor. She stood right against the wall and stared at it for a moment. Sure enough, the wall disappeared and there Jax was, none the wiser. She snuck up on him from behind before jumping to cling onto his back, earning a startled yelp from him. He crouched down and tried to shake her off him like a dog shaking off water, but she held firm.
“Jax! Come on, you don’t actually want to abstract, do you?!”
Jax finally grabbed a hold of Pomni’s arm and threw her several feet away from him. She slammed against the wall and looked back up at Jax in shock. After seeing the static that clung to her hands and arms, she tried to brush them off.
“It’s better than staying in THIS place forever with no way out!” Jax shouted at her.
“You don’t know that!” Pomni retorted. “There might be some way out that we haven’t found yet! You’re just gonna give up on that ever happening?”
“Pomni,” Jax started, exasperated. “I have been here long enough to know that there’s no way out. And if you delude yourself into thinking there is, you’ll…” he took a breath. “You’ll end up like Kaufmo.”
Pomni, not knowing quite how to respond to that, tried to approach Jax. He flinched and took a couple stumbling steps away from her. He looked down at his fuzzy, static arm and let out something between a sigh and a laugh.
“This has been a long time coming, I’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened before now.”
Pomni glanced him over to look for any worsening signs. She saw none and took it as a small window of hope. “Y-you’re not just gonna let it take you, right?”
He started shuffling across the wall opposite of Pomni. His voice sounded far away. His eyes stared into nothing, like he wasn’t seeing the inside of the circus anymore. “Why not? It’s better this way. It’ll all be better this way.”
“Not for me! How do you think I’ll feel when you’re gone and I could’ve stopped you?”
Jax turned back to look at her with a blank, unreadable expression. “Then you’ll know how I feel.” He then sprinted the other way, and Pomni gave chase.
At some point he took a moment to open a random door behind him before he kept running. Pomni didn’t understand the reason for this until she ran by said door, at which point a boxing glove shot out, landing right on her ribs. She was flung against the wall and looked up just in time to see Jax turn the corner, gone again. She shook it off and stood back up.
Remembering where he was running, Pomni took off back to the common area. Once there, she looked around to find the place completely empty. She ran to a corner where a multicolored striped ladder led up into the colorful plastic tubes near the top of the circus, where she and Jax had had their shootout with Gangle and Zooble earlier that day.
Running through the tubes, she took a minute to orient herself correctly and remember where she was going. Finally, she made it to where the shootout had occurred and found the open hole where Gangle had disconnected the pieces of tubing with her Tommy gun.
As Pomni approached, she suddenly felt herself slip, the slight tilt of the tube pulling her quickly towards the opening. She tried to scramble backwards but was unable to. When she got closer to the opening she pushed her hands and feet into the sides of the tubing, slowing her down and holding her in place, staring down at the floor of the circus several yards away. She tried not to panic too much but held firm as she waited for her target. Just as she’d expected, Jax ran out onto the patio right below her. He turned to look around him to see no one. He seemed to calm for just a moment before Pomni dropped herself on him, knocking him down to the floor with her.
He scrambled under her weight for a moment before Pomni grabbed his wrists and pinned them over his head.
Pomni had just about had it. “Why won’t you just talk to me?!” she yelled at the squirming man under her. “I care about you! And you care about me!“
Jax continued writhing under her grasp. “NO YOU DON’T! NO ONE IN THIS PLACE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT EACH OTHER! IT’S ALL FAKE ANYWAY!”
“You don’t get to decide that!”
Jax took a deep, loud breath. “You know I’m never gonna get better, don’t you, Pomni?” He chuckled, nervously. Pomni wanted to smack that stupid smile off his face. “I’m never gonna be the sweet baby bunny you want me to be.”
“I just want you HERE! I don’t WANT you to be something you’re not!” Pomni screamed back.
Jax mustered up all his strength to turn over, sending Pomni off of him, unshackling his wrists. Pomni quickly got back on her feet and was almost ready to give chase. But when she looked at Jax, he was on his hands and knees, staring at the ground like it owed him money. His whole body shook and his breathing was still deep and labored. The static effect that surrounded his body slowly started to spread out. She stomped back over to his side.
“So, what, you’re just gonna give up on everything here? You’re gonna give up anything that makes you happy here for the stupid cellar?”
“Why not? I can’t hurt anyone there. I’ll even be able to see Ribbit again.”
“Will you, though? Will you even be able to tell him from the others?”
Jax didn’t have a good answer for that, he just stared up at her.
Pomni thought for a moment. “Will you really be able to tolerate dozens and dozens of those eyes on you? In the total darkness? It’ll be like a bunch of little holes.”
Jax inhaled sharply at that and exhaled with a chuff that was trying to sound humorous. “I guess I’ll have to get used to that, huh?”
He then reached up and tried shoving Pomni in the chest but was only able to muster enough strength to push her a foot or so backwards. She looked back at him, confused.
Jax looked up at her with uncharacteristically sad, pitiful eyes. “Please,” his tone was desperate, pleading, “please Pomni, just go, it’s too late for me.” His head then tilt down, bracing for the end, like placing his head in the stock of a guillotine.
Pomni watched as the static kept creeping further and further from him. As it neared her feet, she took an anxious and fearful step back. She looked at Jax, wondering what was holding him back now. Why was he still in this weird state of limbo? She then recalled the image of Ragatha’s glitching body painfully crawling across the floor and remembered something the rag doll had told her.
“Ribbit shoved Jax up against the wall, which made him start glitching out.”
It was then she realized what Jax was trying to do. And what she needed to do.
She took a deep breath, and then let it out. She looked right at Jax in the center of a nearly 5 foot radius of static, and she marched towards him.
The static overtook most of her body and while it was almost painful, it was more ticklish than anything else. She got up behind Jax, knelt down, and wrapped her arms around him.
Jax’s head tilted back up. “What’re you-?”
“Even if you are abstracting, I’m still not going anywhere. Like I said, you’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
Jax tried to shake her off, but didn’t have enough strength to fully detach himself from her.
“And when Caine comes to throw you in the cellar, I’ll jump in after you. And even if he does snap me back up, I’ll run so he doesn’t heal me. So I’ll still have something to remember you by.”
Jax took in another sharp inhale at that. “N-nah, you-you’re not gonna do that. You saw what it did to Raggy, you really want to know what that’s like?”
“If I’m just your plaything, you shouldn’t care what I think.”
Jax knelt his head down again, hiding his face from her.
“You…no, I’m just a goofy a[$%#!]shole, Pomni, we just…y-you don’t really care about me.”
Pomni looked down at her own body, overtaken by static caused by him. She was growing exhausted with all this, and she snapped. “SAY THAT TO MY F[$%#!]KING FACE THEN, A[$%#!]SHOLE!”
His face was still, motionless despite the heaving of his chest. He still wouldn’t turn to look at her.
Pomni grabbed his face and yanked it to face her. She wasn’t sure what expression she’d find him with, but the expression she did see was near-unreadable.
His eyes were wide and focused but his pupils still danced and contorted violently in the centers. His mouth contorted in a small benign frown.
Pomni still held her determined scowl, refusing to let up for a second, waiting for another wall to be thrown in her face.
His breaths gradually slowed, and his pupils started to settle. His eyes scanned Pomni’s tenacious face once again. His pupils contracted while his mouth closed to form a wide pouting line. She was violently shoved away again, smacking flat on her back on the ground.
She quickly sat up to lunge for him again but found that he wasn’t running, he wasn’t even walking. Instead, he was sat curled up in a ball, face hidden behind arms and knees, ears drooped and dangling in front of him. The static was nowhere to be found. His chest started violently shaking again, even worse than before. But this time, it wasn’t caused by anxious hyperventilating.
It was caused by sobs—loud, rapid, devastating sobs unlike any Pomni had heard before. They ravaged his entire frame, making him shake like a leaf in the wind. They were the sobs of someone who lost more than most people would ever fully know. If they weren’t in this digital world, Pomni would be worried about Jax losing consciousness due to a lack of adequate breaths.
Pomni moved to put a hand on Jax’s back but he quickly shoved it off, which she kind of expected. But he didn’t make any move to get up, no move to escape, no move to have his meltdown somewhere private. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and scooted just far enough away to give him space, but not enough to leave him completely alone.
She just let him get it all out. She watched as sobs racked him for minutes on end, maybe the better part of half an hour. Every few minutes or so, the sobs would let up for a quick moment before another heartbreaking round shook him from head to toe.
Pomni knew that this wasn’t really what Jax wanted. This wasn’t how he wanted his night to go. A part of her almost felt bad about it, but she knew that he needed this. Maybe he would never thank her, but she was okay with that. Knowing that she probably saved him from the cellar was thanks enough.
At some point, the sobs let up for a minute or so before Jax freed his red, puffy face from its cage of limbs. He glanced up and looked mortified when he saw that Pomni was still there. His pupils went tiny and frazzled again, and his body stiffened, almost like he was about to run for it.
Pomni returned his panicked gaze with a slightly exasperated but welcoming one. She pushed herself up and started shuffling on her knees towards Jax. His signature toxic, frustrated glare returned to his face but struggled to stay put as the sobs threatened to retake him.
Once Pomni got close enough, she threw her arms around Jax’s shoulders and sat back down, pulling him slightly forward with her. After a few moments, the sobs returned to him in full force. He buried his face in the jester’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding onto her like a lifeline. In between some of the sobs, Pomni could feel more than hear some anguished screams come from Jax, muffled by the poofy costume she wore.
After several more minutes of Jax unleashing nearly every emotion he stomped down over the years, he gradually regained a semblance of a normal breathing pattern. Pomni kept a hold on him. Jax reciprocated.
As the tension dissipated, Jax leaned back to look at her face and broke the silence. “If you tell any of the others about this, I will personally hunt you down and murder you.”
Pomni gave a small chuckle at that. “I’ll hold you to that, then.” She let her impulses win and placed a hand on his forehead and ran it back between his ears, giving a few soft strokes to his fur. She watched as he mildly leaned into the touch but tried not to make it too obvious.
His eyes filled with tears again, but benign quiet ones unlike before. His voice came out in a quiet whisper, like he was telling her a secret.
“I-I’m sorry, Pomni.”
Pomni let out a small breath she didn’t know she was holding. She smiled and scratched the top of the rabbit’s head as tiny whimpers emerged from his throat.
“Apology accepted, Jax.”