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“Hey! Are you okay?!”
…
“Look at me, I’m right here. What’s wrong?!”
….…
“Ribbi-”
He had been expecting familiar black irises, but instead, multicolored eyes snap open, nearly blinding him in the darkness. He stumbles back in shock. To his horror, distorted shadows start expanding from the form that was once his friend, engulfing everything in the room.
Those erratic, unrecognizable eyes lock in on him. Heart in his throat, he scrambles to reach for the door but the form moves with a speed faster than he could blink.
A black limb wraps around his foot and lifts him up, knocking him to the ceiling, then slams him back down to the ground. His voice warps as he screams, immense pain coursing through his body as it starts glitching.
He can’t move. Large claw-like shadows surround him, trapping him like prey. Countless eyes peer down at him.
“Pl-plea-asee…I-I’m so-o-rry-y…” he chokes out.
The writhing mass has no mouth but he swears he could almost hear it scream something.
‘You couldn’t save me.’
Jax jolts awake.
He sits upright in his bed, heaving for air. His heart thunders erratically in his chest.
His eyes scan around. He’s in his bedroom alone. It was just a nightmare.
Jax moans, rubbing his face with his hands and plops back down the bed. He lies there for a while, exhausted eyes staring at the ceiling.
Characters don’t need to eat or sleep here in the circus, which is weird when their bodies can still feel hunger or fatigue. Or when their brains make up dreams when asleep. And Jax’s brain likes to fuck him over every now and again and bring up that moment.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Though it doesn’t always begin the same way. He thought about all the things he could’ve said, all the things he could’ve done differently to change the outcome. But the ending never changes. Whether awake or asleep.
He’s not able to go back to sleep every time this happens. His usual plan is just to get up and wander around the empty circus and hide somewhere until it was time for breakfast.
But Jax doesn’t feel like doing that either. He still feels worn out after everything that happened yesterday.
‘I’d move on. And probably forget about you.’
Jax grunts, rolling to his side and curling into a fetal position, wrapping his pillow tightly around his head.
God, why the fuck did he say that.
He hadn’t meant to go this far. She intrigued him, that’s all, being the fresh meat. He wanted to know what makes her tick, how she got here. Then one thing led to another and he found that he…liked hanging out with her. She’s fun when she’s not an anxious mess.
Then she had to go and hug him.
He’d gotten careless and let her in. If only she just did what he told her to do and shot him. But nooo, she had to keep digging and trying to pry him open and had the nerve to blame him for what happened to Kaufmo.
Stupid jester.
‘I’d move on. And probably forget about you.’
‘You couldn’t save m-’
Jax throws his pillow at the wall and springs up from his bed with a manic vigor.
Maybe he needed that walk after all.
He also makes sure not to look at one particular crossed-out picture on the way out.
He keeps his distance at breakfast, wears his devil-may-care grin, said his lines when necessary. But other than that, no one bothered him. Even Pomni. He could feel her gaze on him across the table but otherwise didn’t talk to him, to which Jax is relieved.
And he certainly doesn’t catch himself unconsciously glancing at her direction when she isn’t looking. Nope.
When Caine appears, Jax is eager to find out what kind of adventure the ringmaster has to offer for them today. He could use the distraction. But as the ringmaster started rambling, he kind of maybe zoned out.
He’s popped back to reality when he hears ‘beach party.’
“Why make a dumb beach party an adventure when you could just go to the beach at any time?,” Jax points out.
Everyone ignores him and they all agree to it.
Jax groans. Fantastic.
It was a sunny day outside. Maybe too sunny for his taste. The sand is loose under his feet, the lake a clear crystal blue.
It’s only been five minutes and Jax already wants to go back to his room.
He doesn’t join the others, pondering about what he’s going to do to pass the time. He considers bullying Gangle for a while but the thought stops short as he takes in the view before him.
Gangle. Sad, crybaby Gangle. Smiling without her comedy mask in sight, tears still in her eyes, giggling at something Zooble said.
And Zooble. Grumpy Zooble. Looking proud at making Gangle laugh. Agreeing to go on an adventure with no complaints for once, and actively participating.
Crazy Kinger. Calm and tranquil underneath a tree.
Cheerful Ragatha. Mouth frowning and brows scrunched together as she complains to Pomni something about pinching crabs.
Jax scowls. He stomps away and sets up a chair underneath an umbrella, several feet away from everyone and plops down in his seat.
‘And what’s the funny one doing sulking like a fucking loser?’
“Shut up,” he mutters, crossing his arms like a petulant child, sinking deeper into his seat.
He sits there totally having fun by himself when he hears a splash followed by a shriek.
Jax looks up to see Pomni flailing in the water, struggling to keep her head up. Kinger rushes in and guides her to shallower ground.
He doesn’t realize his body tensed up until the jester was out of the water, still coughing but otherwise safe.
His shoulders relax. Then he grits his teeth, turning his head away.
Stupid jester.
After a while, he seemed to have dozed off, when he hears footsteps coming towards him. Jax huffs out a breath. He expected this sooner or later.
The footsteps stop in front of him. Without opening his eyes, “Beach adventure already a bore without me?”
“Sure looks like there’s a party going on under that umbrella.”
Jax finally looks at her. Pomni still has her hat, but with only a swimsuit and no gloves, she appears even tinier than ever. Though with him sitting, she gets to be taller than him for once.
Stretching his arms behind his head, crossing one leg over the other, Jax gives her a wide smirk.
“Clearly not in the same level of fun as you were having, splashing around.”
She flusters at that, hands wringing together. “Yeah. Apparently this avatar doesn’t know how to swim.”
Jax’s smirk widens. “If only I had a camera with me.”
Pomni gives him a dry look. “I just came to ask if you want to play volleyball with us.”
Jax eyes her incredulously. He fully expected her to confront him about their fight yesterday. “Pass. I got my own thing going on here.”
“Well, we need equal numbers for both teams,” she reasons. “Zooble didn’t want you to join, but I still wanted to ask.”
Jax rolls his eyes. Her persistence is so predictable.
He regards her lazily, smile tilted with a sharp edge. “If you’re looking for a team player, you got the wrong guy, clownfish.”
She seems to have expected that, and, “Alright. I’ll stop looking.”
His smile drops.
So please… Just stop looking.
Pomni’s gaze is focused, resolute.
He remembers the day she first got here. Eyes filled with horror and panic, trying to make sense of the prison she got herself into, desperately searching for an exit he himself stopped looking for.
Right now, those eyes have never looked so steady. Jax searches her face, yet he could find no hint of mockery or disdain.
She gives him a small smile. “The offer still stands though.”
Pomni turns and heads back to the others. Jax watches her retreating figure.
He doesn’t take up on her offer. But he does watch their game, snickering any time Gangle fumbles with the ball. It ends soon enough and everyone goes off doing their own thing.
He eventually gets comfortable in his seat after a while, begrudgingly conceding to listening to the calming sound of the waves. He looks to the others absentmindedly.
Ragatha’s building a sandcastle with Kinger. Gangle burying Zooble in the sand up to their neck.
And…
Jax twists around, scanning the entire beach, but there’s no jester hat to be found anywhere. The others haven’t seemed to noticed yet.
Then he spots it. A pair of lone footsteps heading toward a cluster of trees.
Wondering where she’d gone off to, Jax suddenly remembers the pond.
Jax bolts up in his chair, his foot starting to tap anxiously.
It’s probably not a big deal. There’s no way she would find the pond that easily.
Whatever. He doesn’t care. Nope.
But she can’t swim…
The tapping intensifies.
He does. Not. Care.
Black sludge closing in on him everywhere. He gasps for air but finds none, lungs feeling they’re about to burst-
…..Motherfu-
Jax throws his head back and groans audibly, too irritated to give a fuck that everyone heard him.
He springs up from his seat and stomps across the beach heading towards the trees.
“The f[BOINK]ck got you in a twist?” Zooble’s voice calls out.
“None of your business!” he yells back. Everyone is getting on his nerves today.
God, he should’ve just stayed in his room.
Stupid fucking jester.
He doesn’t bother looking for her, heading straight to where he remembers the pond is. The trees increasingly begin to thicken the farther he goes in. After a while, Jax is starting to think he’d forgotten where it is until he sees the clearing up ahead. He trudges onward.
Sure enough, he spots her hat as he gets closer. Pomni has her back to him, standing a couple feet from the pond peering at the black water curiously.
The sight only pisses him off more.
“You really are an adrenaline junkie, aren’t you.”
Pomni jumps in surprise. She whirls around to see him with his arms crossed, an unamused frown on his face.
“How did you…?”
“Just caught the smell of trouble and followed it,” he shrugs casually. “Looks like abandoned buildings aren’t the only places you like to explore.”
“Well, it’s either this or the lake again, and you saw how that went,” Pomni mumbles, rubbing her arm.
Jax scoffs. “I wouldn’t call this an improvement, honestly.”
“What is it?” She eyes the pond nervously now.
Hands on his hips, Jax stands beside her a good distance away from the pond. Well… it looks like a pond, but what’s weird about it is the water. Black inky sludge fills the entire hole, motionless and thick. Calling it a tar pit was a more fitting description.
From the way it appears, it also looks sort of like a black hole. A dark, presumably deep abyss…
Caine opening the cellar, dropping Kaufmo down there without a second thought-
Jax glitching out, watching the last the time he ever gets to see them-
He flinches. Ugh, no wonder he hasn’t come back here since.
“Get close enough and it’ll suck you in and won’t come back out,” he grumbles.
A literal black stain in the middle of a colorful happyland. Though no one but Jax seemed to have discovered it yet, being situated at the base of a mountain and surrounded by trees. It would have to take a real idiot to accidentally stumble upon it.
Jax side-eyes at the idiot next to him.
“O-oh, has anyone ever fallen in before?” Pomni asks.
Yes. He had been the idiot too before actually, back during his first days here, but he’s not going to tell her that.
He raises an eyebrow at her. “Why? You wanna test it? You made the effort to find it, after all.”
Pomni takes a huge step back away from him. “I’m good. Thanks.”
He rolls his eyes. “Relax. I’m not gonna throw you in.”
“I still remember how far you threw me out of that truck.” She scowls at him accusingly.
Jax snickers. “I thought you forgave me for that.”
“Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting.”
He snorts. “Wow, where’d you get that from, a cat poster?”
Jax starts to stroll leisurely around the pond, but still mindful of the edge. He hears Pomni eventually following behind him, mimicking his steps.
“I bet you found more interesting stuff inside abandoned buildings than this,” he wonders aloud.
“It’s actually the seemingly less interesting stuff that draws me in the most.” Pomni replies. “The stuff people leave behind or couldn’t take with them. But there were other creepy things I found too.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jax piques, looking at her. “What’d you find?”
Pomni is acting shy all of a sudden. Avoiding eye contact, kicking pebbles in her path.
“Uhh, there was a grand piano in an old hotel that made eerie tunes when you play it. And one time I found a chest full of weird dolls made from sticks and wax.”
“You found spooky pianos and creepy voodoo dolls and yet you can’t even handle a haunted mansion?” Jax can’t help but tease her.
“Hey!” Pomni rounds in on him, four feet of indignation. “You weren’t there! A giant angel head was trying to kill us and I got possessed by evil ghost spirits!”
“Ha! You call that traumatizing? You don’t even know half the stuff I had to go through.”
He starts telling her about one adventure they had. He honestly doesn’t remember all the details now, but there was one moment that had been disturbingly ingrained into his brain forever.
“-but then Ragatha had the brilliant idea to cheer us up by playing the bugle she found.”
“I didn’t know she can play the bugle,” Pomni muses.
“Oh, she was playing the bugle all right, but that doesn’t mean she was good at it.”
Pomni fights back a snort, as if she didn’t expect that, and covers her mouth as she laughs.
“Hey! Don’t laugh!” Jax tries to sound scolding, but he’s smiling as well. “Do you know how much it had to hurt listening to that? I have rabbit ears, for crying out loud! I was the victim!” He gestures his hands around theatrically.
“Right, right, sorry,” Pomni eventually composes herself.
“So anyway, I got rid of it when Raggy wasn’t looking.”
“Don’t think she was happy about that.”
“Eh. She lived.” Jax shrugs. “Anyhow, what about you? I bet you can play the lute. It’ll go with your whole shtick.”
When Pomni doesn’t answer right away, Jax turns to look at her. She had bent down and picked up a pebble.
Weighing it a bit, she reels her hand back and throws it at the pond.
Once it was close enough the sludge comes to life, rising to make contact first and gobbles the pebble down, never to be seen again. The surface stills again as if nothing happened.
“W-wow, you weren’t kidding…” Pomni’s voice echoes somewhere. “Well, I had three years of music classes, but I think I only know how to play one song…”
But Jax wasn’t listening. The sight of the shifting black mass has him swaying unsteadily on his feet.
The tar gripped his hand before he could understand what was happening. He tries to pull back but the black sludge slowly extend up to his arm, sucking him in. His shout for help is cut off when more sludge grabs onto his face, sticking to him like glue.
He struggles with his free limbs, searching something to hold on to. The tar slowly dragging his body into the pond. He gasps for air, but finding none. Lungs feeling they’re about to burst.
Suddenly he feels a different kind of grip take hold of him, trying to pull him out. Arms tightening around his waist, the tar loosen and the surface breaks that he could suck in air again. Finally it lets go and he tumbles back, free.
He’s still coughing when he hears them speak.
“Hey, are you okay?”
He lifts his head. Big black eyes fret over him in concern. It takes him a second to recognize it’s her.
“Yeah… Thanks to you.”
A green smile cross over pink rosy cheeks. “You gotta be more careful next time. Some of the secrets here are best stayed secret.”
“No kidding. I, uhh… opened a door the other day and something punched me in the gut, flew me right across the room.”
They laugh. “Oh, I know that one too well. It did my face a couple times too. Ragatha tries to help me remember but I still keep forgetting where it is.”
She then tilts her head curiously. “Hey, did you know your fur puffs out when you were holding your breath?”
“Did it?”
“Yeah, thought I’d have trouble pulling you out from the way you looked.”
He chuckles. “I think I’m more embarrassed about almost getting eaten by a tar monster more than anything.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She finally stands, brushing off some invisible dirt. “Happens to us all the time. I could show you the ropes around here if you want.”
She offers a hand out to him.
He smiles, some of the anxiety he had since arriving here start to ease a little. He lifts his hand to reach for hers-
“Jax?”
He blinks.
…Huh. He’d forgotten she had been there to pull him out. Memories of her had admittedly been hazy ever since…
Pomni’s voice tethers him back to the present. “You okay? You kinda spaced out for a minute there.”
Jax blinks several more times. He attempts to act casual as he takes in where he is again. He’s standing near the pond, and…
Blue-red eyes override his vision.
..…Uhhh, shit.
Shit. He did it again.
He was supposed to be avoiding her, and what the fuck is he doing right now?!
“Yeah. Whatever.” His voice monotone. He abruptly starts retracing their steps.
She jolts up. “Hey! Where you going?”
“Back to my spot. This place drags.”
He hears her call out, “Really? You’re doing this again?”
He keeps walking. “Do what?”
“Don’t play dumb, Jax!”
“The only dumb thing I see here is you.” Jax throws her a mocking smile over his shoulder.
He can see her clenching her fists in the corner of his eye, glaring at him. “Will you just stop?! I’m not letting you walk away again!”
“Definitely walking away to avoid getting clown disease from you.”
“Well you were the one who followed me here, remember?”
Jax stops.
Pomni continues as she calls him out from the opposite side of the black pit. “Why? Because you were worried that I might fall in?”
He finally turns to her then, smile turning into a sneer. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“That’s a load of crap coming from the guy asking about abandoned buildings and lutes.” Pomni crosses her arms.
Jax scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Fine, so what if I did.” It’s his turn to glare at her. “But you said you’d stop looking.”
“I did say that, but that doesn’t mean I’ll just stand by and take your bullsh[HONK]t!”
He throws his hands up in frustration. “Well if I give you so much bull then why do you still bother?!”
“BECAUSE LIKE IT OR NOT, I CARE ABOUT YOU!”
Her words seem to reverberate around the clearing. Jax gawks at her, Pomni’s fiery glare burning him across the distance between them.
She keeps going, “I care because you’re my friend and I won’t let you run away from me again!”
‘Better run now than later. Remember how well it went when you ran away from abstracted Kaufmo like a fucking coward.’
Jax bangs his fists at his head. “Shut UP!” More to the voice in his head than at Pomni. “What do you want from me?!”
Pomni points a finger at him. “What I want is for you stop lying and tell me how you really feel!”
She stomps an angry foot forward, close to the edge. Too close.
Jax zeroes in on it immediately and panics.
He lifts a hand up. “Stop-”
Too late, the sludge comes to life and takes hold of her foot like a magnet.
They lock eyes for a single moment, hers filled with terror. His name forming on her lips is cut off as she’s pulled under.
In truth, he never did found out what would happen if someone stayed in the pit long enough. His first experience was harrowing enough. It could just be something harmless, like getting transported to a different part of the circus.
But his body dove in after her before he could even think about it.
As soon as he was under, Jax is already struggling. The pressure encompassing him is even more intense than he remembered, but he pushes through.
He searches around, but could find no sign of Pomni. He dives farther down. With the goo slowing his movements, Jax has no idea how deep this pit really goes, much deeper than it appears to be.
Then, through the blackness, he spots something blue.
What the…?
He doesn’t know what to make of it until it begins to turn pink.
Then red. Faster. Orange.
P-Pomni!
Heart in his throat, Jax swims towards her. She’s stroking her limbs through the water properly but it’s no use. She could only sink deeper, her face turning green now.
Jax grabs a flailing hand and hauls her to him. One arm around her waist, he starts swimming back up.
With Pomni’s added weight, it feels like he’s been swimming for hours. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been down there, his lungs losing air. But Pomni falls limp in his hold, and he propels his aching limbs faster.
Finally he sees light shining above, and with the last bit of effort, he breaks through the surface.
Jax gasps for air. He struggles to reach for the edge as the tar still cling at their bodies. He pushes Pomni out first, then himself. Pomni is still unconscious as he drags her away from the pool.
“Hey,” he coughs out, shaking her. “Wake up.”
She doesn’t move.
“POMNI!” he shakes her harder.
Jax is panicking now, trying to figure out what he needs to do when her body shudders for a moment, then another, and her eyes flutter open.
Pomni sits up and coughs out flecks of black goo out of her lungs.
Relief floods his chest so intensely Jax almost collapses. Hesitant hands hover over her, uncertain. “Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah,” she stutters. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Jax freezes.
Heart pounding in his chest, his gaze searches frantically around. Her skin remains stark white underneath her swimsuit. Blue-red eyes stay vibrant and steady.
‘Calm down. She’s not abstracting.’ But his breathing isn’t slowing down.
A hand touches his arm.
“Jax, are you okay?”
Pomni still looks shaken, but focuses on him with worry.
He wills himself to take slow deep breaths. “Fine. You better watch yourself next time,” he replies gruffly.
He tries to stand up but Pomni grips his arm, stopping him.
“Jax, stop, I’m sorry for pushing you but we really need to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Why can’t you just let it go?!” He feels a wide grin split his face automatically. Too wide. Too fake.
“At least let me thank you for saving me.”
‘You couldn’t save me.’
Jax laughs bitterly, manic even to his ears.
He yanks his arm back. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What the heck does that mean? Of course it does,” Pomni says, incredulous.
A lump lodges in his throat.
Right then, that thing that’s been building up inside him all day, since their fight, just bursts. His teeth part open as he cries out,
“WELL WHAT GOOD DID IT DO ANYWAY WHEN I WON’T BE ABLE TO SAVE YOU WHEN YOU ABSTRACT!”
…And there it is.
Jax stands over her panting. Pomni stares at him wide-eyed.
Now that he finally got it out, Jax just feels…empty. All the fight in him suddenly vanishes, the walls and mask he’s been so desperately trying to maintain all day crumble to bits.
He slumps over to a nearby rock and sags down, dropping his face into his hands.
“There, I said it. I’d care if you abstracted tomorrow and it’ll probably be my fault!” Jax yells, the words coming out like vomit. It should mortify him that he can’t seem to stop, but he’s too tired to care now.
He wouldn't move on. Her fate would be another nightmare he can never escape from, another voice in his head not letting him ever forget of his failure.
He digs the heels of his hands harder against his eyes. “That’s what you wanted to hear, right?! Are you f[BOING]cking happy now?!”
Pomni is silent. He hears her shuffle and sit down beside him.
“Jax… I’m not going anywhere.”
He pulls his head up to glare at her. “You can’t promise that.”
Pomni looks rightly ashamed. “I know. But I can promise I’ll try my hardest. And… I promise it won’t be your fault if it does happen.”
His glare softens, but no less exasperated at her. He drops his chin on top of his hands.
“Like I told you, it doesn’t matter,” Jax says tiredly. “You either go on forever in this place or lose your mind and abstract.”
“That’s... a depressing way of thinking about it.”
“It’s even more depressing if you’re still hoping for a way out of here. You saw what happened to Ka-” Jax chokes. “…To Kaufmo.”
“So is that what you’ll keep doing? Keep being the funny one?”
Jax knows what she means. He’ll most likely regret everything he said by tomorrow. Pretend this conversation never happened. Go back to hiding behind fake smiles and archetypes.
He can almost feel himself doing that right now, but one counter-argument stops him.
It would also mean shutting Pomni out again. Doing that had only hurt her, and Jax wasn’t keen on doing that a second time.
But if he had learned anything these past two days, is that Pomni is a lot more resilient than he ever expected her to be.
And obnoxiously stubborn.
Jax sighs. “It’s pointless now, isn’t it? You’re probably just gonna beat me up again until I confess my feelings. I still have the bruises from last time, you know.”
Pomni lands a playful punch at his arm.
Jax recoils dramatically. “Agh! Haven’t you assaulted me enough, woman?!”
She giggles, his mouth tilts up at the sound.
“Does… that mean we get to be friends?” she asks hesitantly.
Jax pictures her heartbroken face when he told her they were never friends. He takes a moment before answering,
“I can’t promise that this'll be the last time I mess up ,” he warns. “Cause it probably won’t be.”
Pomni takes this in stride. “Alright. I can work with that.”
She continues, “Then I promise to come save you when you need me.”
She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
His eyes start to heat up, much to his horror. His face crinkles as he fights his damnedest not to cry, and ultimately fails. Jax turns away from Pomni as tears fall down his cheeks. He rubs them away furiously.
Jax sneaks a glance. Pomni thankfully is looking anywhere but him.
“That’s… so cringe, Pompom,” Jax mumbles.
“I’m okay with that,” she says cheerily. He huffs out an amused exhale.
Stupid jester…
Then out of nowhere, something like hope rekindles inside him he long thought had died.
He tries to tamper it down, but it’s blossoming so quickly he’s not able to stop his next line of thought,
‘If it ever does happen, I’ll do everything I can to save you.’
More tears fall, his heart stuttering in his chest. It’s a promise that’s impossible to keep, he knows.
But…
He remembers her.
How she saved him that day, in more ways than one. And yet he couldn’t return the favor. And he lost her in his failure.
‘I couldn’t save you.’
He thought about the countless things he could’ve done differently, but he knows he can never go back and change it. That grim truth had haunted him since then, a weight on his soul he could never escape from.
But now… it feels like he can actually face it head-on, and the voice shifts into something akin to acceptance.
‘I couldn’t save you. But I’ll do it right this time.’
This is a promise he keeps to himself.
Jax wipes the last of his tears and sits up straighter. Pomni seems to perk up at this, and proceeds to swing her legs back and forth beside him, a tiny smile on her lips.
They sit there in silence for a while.
The voices are quiet now.
Jax stares at the black pond in front of them.
His memories of her were always fuzzy, but he recalls her smile much clearer now, as if he had just seen it yesterday. It was the first good thing he clung to after he got here.
“If you think that was embarrassing, check this sh[CROAK]t out!”
Ribbit’s throat sac kept getting bigger the longer she held her breath, until she couldn’t hold it anymore and had let out the loudest burp that he swears echoed throughout the entire circus.
She had shown Jax later that day, and he laughed so hard he fell right on his ass.
Jax lets out a small laugh at the memory. Pomni takes this as a sign for her to safely look at him.
He notices she’s still in her swimsuit and figures they’ve been here long enough.
So he slaps his knees and stands up. He feels naked all over, which is ironic considering he’s not the one in a swimsuit. But he feels… lighter.
“I’m done with this place. We better head back before the others start to think I did something horrible to you.”
Acting nonchalant, Jax offers a hand out to her.
A bright smile slowly crosses Pomni’s face, almost blinding, and Jax absentmindedly thinks it suits her. She reaches for him.
In the back of his mind, he considers snatching his hand away at the last second, just to mess with her. Instead, he meets her halfway and pulls her up.
“I’ll just tell them you saved me from a man-eating tar pit.”
“They’ll never believe you,” he says as they make their way back side by side.
She considers for a moment. “Then, maybe I’ll tell them your fur poofs out when you hold your breath.”
Crap. She actually saw that. “Nah. You must’ve hallucinated that.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Uhh, yuh-huh.”
“Don’t want to let anyone know you actually look like a cute fluffy bunny?” Pomni gives him a cheeky grin.
Heat spreads across his face. “Tell anybody and I’ll seriously consider shoving you back in that pit.”
“You and I both know you wouldn’t.”
He can’t find anything to say to that, and a different kind of embarrassment settles inside him.
“Uhh… in any case,” Pomni sounds flustered herself. “Don’t think I’m going anywhere near water again.”
Jax shrugs. “Fair enough.” He sure as hell would never come back to this place again.
“Good thing your head looked like a disco light down there or else I couldn’t have saved your a[QUACK]s.”
She attempts to shove him. He kicks sand right at her face. She sputters.
Jax cackles, a full-bellied laugh he doesn’t try to stop.
“Fluffy motherf[SQUEAK]cker,” Pomni jabs, the corners of her mouth tilted up.
“Stupid a[HONK]s jester.” His grin widens effortlessly.
They continue to throw insults at each other, though their words carry a hint of something soft that Jax doesn’t want to put a name on.
For now.