Chapter Text
What’s happening with everyone? Why is everyone staring at him with pity instead of the usual annoyance?
He hates it – they don’t know him, he doesn’t want them to know him. How dare they gossip about him.
Jax wanted to stare back threateningly at them but he did not want to make eye contact with her.
She had an intense stare that pierced his own, a beautiful kaleidoscope that he could get lost in, a gaze that he knew could read him like a book. And if he applied pressure she would push right back and it was so exhausting and not worth doing, besides he had an archetype to uphold.
‘Do I have something in my teeth?’ Jax practically leered at the gaggle of girls sitting around the breakfast table, his smile plastered across his face, poking himself in the cheek in an innocent gesture.
Aside from a slight eye-twitch from Zooble, it didn’t garner the response he hoped for and a loud silence followed his statement.
Jax immediately squashed the panic that rose in his chest, and quickly followed with a classic failsafe diversion, gesturing to his body as if he was presenting himself like a model. ‘Or, perhaps, you like what you see?’ He chirped suggestively.
Much to his delight, the whole group seemed to recoil with varying levels of disgust; Gangle squeaked and went a bright shade of red that rivalled the ribbons of her body, shrinking into her chair to try and hide her embarrassment.
Ragatha had gone a slight shade of green, her face filled with disgust and immediately dropped her gaze to her stack of pancakes, her fork that had been half raised to her mouth, lowered in lost appetite.
Good, serves you right.
Zoobles eyes were in danger of disappearing into the back of her triangle shaped skull they rolled them so hard. They dismissed him with a shake of their head and turned their back to him. Jax was surprised it wasn’t punctuated with being flipped off or being told to %$!# off.
Pomni… Pomni hadn’t moved, she hadn’t changed her expression, she held her stare and Jax found himself looking everywhere but her.
You sure you could handle me in all my glory?
Eh, I’ve had worse.
‘Hah!’ Jax laughed, humourlessly desperate to escape his own thoughts, as he sauntered over to sit next to Gangle – as far from Pomni as possible – rudely reaching his long limbs over the table to claim Ragatha’s abandoned food.
Ragatha huffed but didn’t put up a fight, instead opting to clasp her tea cup and turn to Pomni to converse in something about sewing or something or rather, Jax didn’t care and zoned out.
Still blushing, Gangle peered at him from behind her hand ribbons. ‘I was saving that seat for Kinger’ she said meekly, ending on a squeak as Jax side-eyed her.
After a moment, Jax studied the forkful of pancake and spoke quietly, out the corner of his mouth so only she would hear. ‘You didn’t group up with me.’
Gangle flinched.
Revelling in her fear, Jax casually took his time eating the mouthful, deliberately and calculating his moves and cold words ‘And now you don’t want to sit next to me…’
‘I’ll sit next to you.’ Kinger’s booming voice nearly made Jax jump out of his skin. Mentally cursing to himself Jax sat up tall, his smile plastered back onto his face. Kinger was seemingly excellent at silently appearing.
Jax tries to ignore the small snort his ears picked up from the other end of the table. Despite seeing Pomni in his peripheral covering her mouth to hide her mirth at him being jump scared.
‘Ah, Kinger, you always know how to make a guy feel appreciated.’ The sarcasm was palpable, hiding Jax’s frustrations at being interrupted. He’ll have to confront Gangle later. ‘How you feeling after yesterday, no hard feelings old man?’ Jax feigned politeness, he knew if he got Kinger rambling then he wouldn’t have to engage in any conversation.
Ramble was what Kinger was best at and it was the best one-sided conversation that Jax could just disassociate and pretend an intense gaze wasn’t trying to stare him down from the other end of the table.
Jax wasn’t sure how long he was zoned out, but when he zoned back in and took in the sight, he was a little confused. All the girls were gone, but Caine hovered in front of them, conversing with Kinger.
‘Hmm, so what you’re saying is you want to go fishing for… crabs?’
‘Well, when things got a little chaotic, I would drive to the ocean and find crabs in the rock pools, there is always something interesting to look at in the corners of the ocean.’ Kinger sounded soft, reminiscent even.
‘O-kay’ Caine sounded uncertain. ‘I don’t know how I can raise the stakes for that but I’ll consider it.’
‘Consider what?’
Caine and Kinger looked at each other blankly, Jax nervously glanced between the two as the silence seemed to stretch on for an uncomfortable time.
‘C-C-crab fishing?’
‘Oh, I love looking for crabs in rock pools…’
‘Great! Great!’ Jax stepped up, interrupting Kinger with a pat on the back. ‘You love ocean bugs as well as the land bugs, great input.’
‘Now Caine,’ Jax threw his arm around the floating AI and walked away from the Kinger who blinked before shrugging and shuffled back to his pillow fort.
Jax made sure no one was around before pulling the oversized teeth closer, ‘You want to up stakes? I’m your guy…’ Jax was barely able to finish his sentence before Caine ripped away from his grip.
‘Ah yes, the rule breaker who likes to just shoot people.’ Caine had a slight bite of distaste to his words as he mimicked the shooting of a gun with his hand. ‘Of course, why would I make something myself when I could come to you and you just BLOW EVERYTHING UP AGAIN!’
Jax’s shoulders tensed as Caine’s unsettling realistic eyes stared him down from point blank, the AI’s body unnaturally contorting and flailing to punctuate his point.
‘Ok, no explosions..’
Caine relaxed, only slightly, ‘No explosives, and no guns.’
‘None.’ Jax said, dragging his hand across his chest. ‘Cross my heart.’
Caine sighed with barely veiled patience. ‘You have ten seconds. And I may OR MAY NOT use your suggestion. B-b-because I’M the adventure creator, NOT YOU.’
Jax’s smile filled his face, oh he had a suggestion alright. A suggestion that Caine wouldn’t be able to resist.
-
‘Good evening my shimmery mermaids!’
Pomni’s surprised yelp went unrecognised by Caine as he boomed at them.
‘Are you ready for a team bonding, relaxing adventure?’
‘Relaxing?’ Pomni still clutched at her chest as if to prevent her heart from leaping out of her ribcage, looking up at Caine in disbelief. ‘Really?’
‘What’s more relaxing than floating among the waves? Fun under the sun? Dancing in the rain? Navigating the high seas on your very own vessel?’
‘A beach trip?’ Ragatha perked up.
‘What’s the catch?’ Zooble squinted suspiciously.
‘Crabs!’ Caine shouted gleefully. Snapping his fingers.
‘What…?’ Pomni barely started asking before bright sun flooded light flooded her vision, blinding her.
Blinking rapidly, shielding her eyes, Pomni realised she was standing on a dock, next to a tethered fishing boat, a bold logo of a crab on the faded blue paint. Her multi-coloured jester attire was gone, replaced with an unfortunately ugly orange waterproof hooded jumpsuit and heavy boots.
‘Ah, damn.’
Pomni glanced beside her, a similarly dressed Ragatha stood at another tether on the dock, her shoulders slumped slightly as she sighed.
‘Not quite a beach.’ Pomni called to her, sympathetically.
Ragatha met her eyes and smiled. ‘At least we’re together, yeah?’
‘Yeah… where did the others go?’
With a splutter, the boat in front of them roared to life and as they glanced up at it, a window opened and, with a captain’s hat sat at a jilted angle to balance on her head, Zooble appeared looking slightly disgruntled. ‘Would you be able to untie the boat from the jetty and come up to my quarters? I’d like to get this over and done with as soon as possible.’
After exchanging a glance and shrugging, Ragatha and Pomni set about untying the ropes. Despite not knowing what she was doing, it barely took Pomni any time to unhook the tether and toss it back onto the boat, hesitating briefly before she leapt across the gap. The water below seemed almost unnaturally blue and cloudy and she didn't want to start the adventure wet.
Her boots gripped well as she landed. A soft thud to her right informed that Ragatha was aboard as well. It was closely followed by a heavier thud in front of her and she raised her sight to the tall figure in front of her who had jumped off another dock from the other side of the boat.
Jax also wore an orange jumpsuit, his hood had holes for his ears and he had foregone the boots at all, his large purple rabbit feet comfortable on the deck. His signature smile was plastered on his face and he took full advantage of his height to keep his sight over her head, still avoiding eye contact with Pomni despite standing in front of her.
He stood his hands on his hips and glanced over his left shoulder. ‘Tik-tok, ribbons!’ He called.
Gangle was still on the dock, her ribbons poking out of her jumpsuit were not making much progress with the simple knot. Thankfully Ragatha had already noticed and climbed onto the edge of the boat to help, teetering slightly in her balance.
Realising his moment to cause mischief, Jax stepped sneakily toward them.
‘Jax.’ Pomni’s warning cut through Jax, making him hesitate.
It caught the attention of Ragatha who quickly withdrew from the edge, scrambling to safely gain her feet and hold her hands up, ready to grapple should Jax try and throw her overboard. Gangle soundlessly leapt and landed next to her, backing her up. The boat, now free from its moorings, started moving out to sea.
Jax straightened up and casually put his hands behind his head.
‘What?’ he drawled, dragging the word out, ‘I wasn’t doing anything.’
Ragatha wrinkled her nose at him in distrust but dropped her hands. They all stood there, silently exchanging glances, except Jax deliberately kept his back to Pomni.
Pomni’s gaze bore into the back of his head. Feeling a surge of anger at being ignored she opened her mouth to berate him.
‘ARE YOU ALL DEAF? GET THE %$!# UP HERE’ Zoobles' frustrated voice pierced the silence, causing them all to flush and scramble to get up to Captain Zoobles quarters.