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When it’s all said and done, nothing really changed.
“Could you take this seriously for once in your life? We can’t afford to lose another piece of the puzzle because you’re too careless,” Zooble snatches the oversized puzzle piece out of Jax’s hands who in return glares at them. Crossing his arms only to huff, then he tries to swipe the puzzle piece back only Zooble is too fast for him.
“Look, like I said before, that elf just came out of nowhere and jumped on my back. It’s not my fault that I was at the top of the Christmas tree when it happened,” Jax tries again to take the piece, but gives up as soon as Zooble glares at him. He backs to stand closer to Pomni’s side.
“You heard what Santa Claus said. We need to get at least four out of six puzzle pieces to the North Pole or we won’t be able to save Christmas.”
Yeah. Nothing really changed.
Well.
“Besides, we wouldn’t be in this mess if we were out of the circus. But, no. Someone decided to doom us all to Caine’s Wacky Adventures forever,” Zooble’s tone is far less annoyed and more aggressive. Enough to almost make Jax’s I-Don’t-Care expression almost falter. Ragatha can see it from her spot beside Kinger.
“Are you bringing that up again? It’s been weeks. Let. It. Go,” He groans, but it was obvious to tell that it got under his skin. As it has for the weeks since the failed escape adventure.
“You expect me to just get over you hitting that red button without listening to anything we were saying?”
“I expect you to shut it, but that’s not going to happen. So, why don’t we just continue on with this stupid adventure?”
Ragatha, seeming to be the only one willing to, intervenes before Jax can get too far away from them, “H-Hey, wait, don’t leave. We’re supposed to be a team, remember? We can’t do this without you,” It earns a scowl from him. One that makes her take a step back. He notices this and the scowl becomes more of a frown.
A long pause of silence between the two, then Jax glares back up to Zooble, “We were never a team,” Before he turns away from the group.
“J-Jax, please-”
“No, Ragatha! Just don’t. You can’t turn this situation around with your fake positivity. That’s not how it works. It never has been. So, could you just leave me alone for once?” He shrugs out of grip rough enough that her hand snaps back to her side. Fear or concern, all she can do is look at him as if he was close to a dangerous spot and if the way his eyes started swirling told her anything, he was. It made her almost want to reach out to him again, which he could sense as his attention flicked to the hand he had only moments ago swatted away. A little longer than she assumed he would and it made her wonder what sort of thoughts were plaguing him. She wasn’t given the chance to really think about it when Zooble’s voice mumbles just over her shoulder. Jax’s demeanor falls right back to where it had been a moment prior.
“How about speaking up if you’re going to shit talk me?” He shouts right over to where Zooble stood. At her side, she sees the way Pomni and Kinger shrink back- Shocked looks on both of their faces. Behind her, Gangle tries to pull Zooble back away from the situation. However, Jax had a power over the situation that no one could prevent.
“How about you calm the fuck down? Why are you angry anyway? None of us are to blame for this.”
“Oh, and I am?”
“You hit the button. You got us trapped here. You made the decision without telling anyone. We were all ready to leave when you lost your mind. Why wouldn’t any of us be mad at you? Did you expect that things would stay the way they were after that?”A good point- Ragatha knows- and it seems that he did as well by the way his lip furrowed, “Do you know how long we’ve all been waiting for an opportunity like this and you just blow it?”
“Who said that I wanted to-” The anger died away with each word said until there wasn’t anything left save for a short huff. His eyes search over the area- The snow, the puzzle pieces, all of it. It’s as if he was realizing the same thing they’ve known all along, “All of this is pointless.”
“What are you-”
“Get fucked,” Jax’s statement had no bite to it yet the tension in the air still remained. Tension that Zooble, as usual, had no problems with matching.
“You’re such a fucking asshole, you know that? Can’t you just admit when you’ve done something wrong and apologize for it? I think you owe everyone here that much.”
“I said get-”
“-Fucked, I know. I can’t get fucked, remember? But I could if you didn’t doom us to an eternity of Caine’s adventures!”
She could feel it. The anger rising between the two. The three other members took turns locking eyes with each other before three pairs of eyes landed on her. Mainly because of where she stood, she was directly in the crossfire between Jax and Zooble’s fight. Words kept being tossed out- Slurs of curse words, accusations at one another, and the distance between the two kept closing in. Ragatha could practically feel the red hot anger radiating off of Jax as he bumped into her to point a finger at Zooble. She presses a hand against his chest just to keep him at a distance. Still, though, she knew something- anything- had to be done.
“You know, it’s not completely impossible to get… Fucked.”
She just wished that it wasn’t that anything.
All at once, everything went silent. The kind that made a ringing in her ears begin. Jax stiffens under her touch and Zooble behind her practically gasps at the sudden realization. Only then does she regret saying it, mostly how she said it. It’s not unusual for Zooble or Jax to speak with such vulgarity. It was a daily occurrence. She, however, was raised to act more… ‘ladylike.’ And saying that was definitely something her mother would scold her for. Not like it really matters, though. The only person that’s showing any real issue with what she said was Jax and the look of disbelief he’s giving her. Suddenly, aware of the hand pressed into his chest, Ragatha is quick to pull away from him, but that somehow makes him more suspicious of her.
“We can… what?”
“I-I… I, uh… I-I just mean that… Y-You know, it can’t be… Completely impossible, right? No one’s ever tried it a-and…” Nothing else could be said. Her thoughts were too scrambled with the fear of what reaction she’d get from that. Not so much from Kinger or Pomni or Gangle or even Zooble, but the purple bunny glaring at her. Because she knew- Any excuse that she’d give, he wouldn’t believe anyway.
“No one’s ever tried, huh?” Eyes sweep over her face, down her body, then back to her own eyes, “You sure about that?”
And the nerves hit all at once yet something entirely different that she couldn’t place. A shiver goes up her spine and she tries to fight back the verberation of it all. Jax’s stare feels different than what she’s used to. Glaring at her when she’s talking too much, rolling his eyes, when she scolds him, smirking when he’s about to say something that’ll get under her skin. She’s used to that. This look, though, felt more intense than it should have. An idea in his head that he’s mulling over, which scared her more than any fight him and Zooble could have.
Speaking of, a soft hand lands on her shoulder that startles her, “Uh…” Zooble speaks up and she looks to them through the corner of her eye, “M… Maybe we should just continue on with the adventure. Santa’s waiting and all.”
She nods, “Yeah. Yeah, let’s… Let’s get going.”
One quick glance to Jax, she knew that this conversation was not over.
******************************
When it's all said and done, everything has changed.
Her hand shook as she looked over her palm. One thumb, one, index finger, three fingers sewn together. Ragatha wasn’t human. Not on the outside anyway. She had a blue button where an eye should be. She had red thread for hair. She had nubs where feet should be. She was not human.
Yet the feeling rising in her body as a result from today’s confession proved that she was- ‘No one’s ever tried, huh? You sure about that?’
That’s the thing, she has tried. And she’s known the truth for a while. It was impossible to live inside the circus for as long as she has and not become curious about the nature of her own body. The first few months here, she couldn’t care less. Her main focus had to be keeping her sanity in a world she didn’t understand. When she got the groove of that, things became more of an exploration. Of the world she was in, of the circus that was now her home, of the body she had. That same body that heats up at the thought of those moments. Mainly because she knows that because she’s spilt that secret, everyone was probably thinking the exact same things. She doesn’t like that. Everything was hard enough as it is between everyone in the circus. The last thing she needs is the idea that they thought she was hiding a secret from them.
Then again, maybe they wouldn’t even bother her with this. There’s more important things that they were dealing with. Surely this would be the last thing anyone was concerned about.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Welp.
Never mind.
She’s on her feet in an instant. From being startled by the sound or the nerves that’s spread through her body, she doesn’t know. Still, she heads toward the door where she’s met with the exact person she knew would be there.
“Jax,” She practically screams when she’s met with him at her door. His usual demeanor, his usual stance, his usual everything. The only difference is how her chest tightens. It’s not common for him to show up at her room and it’s certainly not common for him to knock instead of using the key he has to her room. Then again, neither was that look he was giving her as he clears his throat.
“So, uh… About that thing you said earlier?”
“Wh-Wha-”
He doesn’t let her get the question out before he shoves past her. She stays frozen at the door for a solid ten seconds before turning to face him. Well, face his back that is as he takes to staring at her farthest wall.
“Jax,” His back twitches, “What are you doing here?”
“Answer my question first.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
His head throws back with a heavy sigh, then he turns to face her, “Then, answer my statement. Geez, is now the time to be this literal? I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you here, Raggy.”
“Are you? You just showed up.”
“Raga-” Another sigh. This one is less loud, but more dragged out. He pinches the space between his eyes, “Look… I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier during the adventure. About how it’s not completely impossible to be fuc-”
“Yeah, yep, I remember,” She interrupts before the word is finished. She crosses her arms over her chest and finds a spot on the ground to stare at, “What about it?”
Silence. There’s a long moment of silence, but she can still feel his stare on her. Maybe the same one that he had when her statement first came out. There’s a similar tension to it that she tries to force away, focus on anything else, but Jax refuses to let her.
“How exactly do you know that it’s possible? Getting… Yeah.”
“O-Oh, um… I-I guess the same way you’d learn… When you’re human.”
That gets him. She can tell because when she risks a glance up to him, his eyes squint as he looks her up and down. She thinks about backpedaling- Say that she made up a lie to keep him and Zooble from killing each other and that it was impossible to have any sort of sexual feelings. As much as she wanted to do that, she knew him far too much to expect him to believe that. So. She sighs, sits on the edge of her bed, and tells him the truth.
“Exploration. That’s the less… Gross way of saying it. I realized that it was possible a few months after I arrived at the circus when I started to see all of the things that my body could do. You know that we can’t feel pain. We don’t feel the need to eat. We don’t need to sleep. So, I was curious if there was any way of feeling those types of feelings. I had no doubt that I couldn’t. Turns out, though, that we can. It’s just different in these bodies.”
“Different?”
“Yeah, different. I assume that you’re not made the same way a human man is,” Eyes flicker downward, then she looks anywhere else out of embarrassment, “I-I mean, I assume no one here is built like they used to be. I-I mean that… I-I'm not-”
“Dolly, you get way too embarrassed for someone who just said we can fuck less than a few hours ago.”
“Get out of my room!” She points at her door, but he ignores it. A haughty chuckle as he crosses his arms.
“Okay, okay, I get it. I won’t be so crude anymore.”
“Thank you.”
“If-”
“If?”
“If you answer every single question that I have.”
“You have more questions?”
“Heck, yeah, I do! You can’t spring something on us like that and not expect us to have questions. You’re just lucky that I got to you before Zooble could. I have a feeling that Gangle and them can’t wait to learn more about this little discovery,” He makes his way over to her bed where he plops down. His back pressed to her wall and one leg dangling over the side while the other props up on her mattress. Flashbacks of a past friendship hit her, but so does an entirely different feeling with the next few words, “Join me?”
“I-I, uh… O… Okay,” Slowly she moves to her bed. He pulls his leg closer to his torso and she takes the spot as far away from him as she could get, “So… Questions?”
He tilts his head. Eyes sweeping over her face down her neck, then her body. She should feel annoyed yet the first thing she does feel is a tension in her chest. Same chest that he lingers his gaze on for a little longer before meeting her attention.
“How’s it work?”
“I-It,” She clears her throat, “It’s strange. It’s not like everything else. We can’t feel pain, we don’t need sleep. But when it comes to this, it’s like Caine forgot to shut off the parts of our body that could feel pleasure. It’s like the sensors are still there, just without the parts for it.”
“Okay?” He says, but there’s a look of confusion he’s giving off. She bites back a giggle.
“You’re going to have to use your imagination for this, Jax. It’s the only way it’ll make sense. There’s specific areas that just feel what they’d feel if we were fully human. Next question.”
He thinks it over, “Hmmm…” And she tries to prepare herself for it, “What made you want to try?”
“Huh. That’s an easy one. I guess at the time I didn’t really consider how little my body was capable of feeling, you know? When we first get here, it’s more of a shock than anything. Over time, though, it started getting frustrating. Not being able to do all of the things a human can do, it started to chip away at my mind. I would turn to some dark places just to see what would happen. When nothing… I guess I took a different approach. And when it worked, I felt relieved. It was like this pleasure.”
“Heh, nice.”
She rolls her eyes, but still ignores that comment, “It was mostly meant for exploring more than anything.”
“Exploring, you say. All right. You gotta admit, though, that it kinda goes against Caine’s Family Friendly Circus for us to be able to do that. We can’t even give the middle finger without him blurring it out,” He raises his hand to look over the yellow gloved palm. Twitching his fingers several times, she watches each one carefully. Balling his fist up, her mind wandered to weeks ago when a bright red button was pushed. Since then, he’s never made an effort to speak to anyone unless he absolutely needed to. He’s laid off the excessive pranks, he hasn’t been as insultive as usual, he hasn’t been Jax. Looking at him now, this is the first time since the incident that she feels like she’s seeing him again. It makes it hard to look anywhere else.
Which he notices.
She turns away when a pair of eyes find her. However, she still finds the courage to point his way, “You, uh… What’s your next question?”
“Did you try with someone else?” Nothing could prepare her for that one. Her whole body heats up at the words, even more so when Jax shuffles to be closer to her.
“What? That is… That’s way too… Why would you ask…”
“So, that’s a no. Actually, that was a dumb question. The only other one here at the time was Kinger and that’s a disgusting thought. Although, Caine-”
“Would you shut up? No, I never tried with anyone. It was just me by myself to see how far I could get. That’s. It,” She inhales so deeply as if she had lungs that needed the air. Her head felt like it was pounding. Not only was she worried that Jax now had a mental image of her in a compromising position, but he also assumed there was someone right alongside her. Something that never even occurred to her when she first started these explorations. How much worse can these questions of his possibly get?
“Have you ever… Wanted to?”
Ragatha, whether from surprise or curiosity, meets Jax’s gaze. He was closer than she thought, so there’s limited space between them and she can see the shifting pupils running over her features, “What do you mean?”
He sighs. Something about this question must get to him, too, “With someone. Have you ever wanted to try it with someone?”
How does she answer that? A lie? The truth? She can’t give him the truth. Not when the truth of who she considered is staring at her as if the answer she’s about to give is a life source for him. It’s true that, yes, she has considered exploring these things with someone else and that someone had been him. It began when they were friends all those years ago when things were less complicated. He was new to the circus and he leaned on her more for security. It felt wrong at first given the circumstances they were in. It’s not like she chose for those specific thoughts to happen. And she did try to fight them. Yet spending every second of every day with someone, it made the mind wander. Would it be possible? Would it work out? It was all curiosity until it became something a little more.
Would he even want to?
The first time she ever asked herself that made things switch for them. Well, switch for her. She refused to ever let him know what she was thinking. Partly because she’d have to explain the truth to him about how they can feel sexual pleasure, then have to explain that she thought of him when those ideas sparked in her head. It was best to never mention it. She had to let it die in order to keep their friendship from getting awkward. But they weren’t really friends anymore and things were already awkward.
“Once.”
His eyebrows knit together. She almost wants to smooth it out, but resists. She waits for the part where he asks who and she has to stutter out an excuse as to why she can’t tell him. To her surprise, he doesn’t ask that. He goes silent instead. It’s rare for him to have nothing at all to say. She’s not sure she likes it. It makes it hard to understand exactly what he’s thinking. She can guess in this situation what he’s thinking, but she doesn’t want to assume in case she’s wrong. The silence stretches on for far too long, so she clears her throat again.
“Why are you here, Jax?”
He doesn’t answer. She already knew that he wouldn’t. She wasn’t expecting an answer anyway. Another length of silence hits them. The roles reverse and he becomes the one too nervous to meet the eye contact. It makes it easier for her to bring up the next topic.
“My turn.”
He blinks, giving in, “Okay.”
“Why’d you hit the red button?” She doesn’t know where it comes from. Some twisted part of her that’s been craving the truth since the beginning. Jax is usually cruel, but he’s not evil. So, trapping them for eternity in the circus isn’t something that she can see him doing. There has to be a reason. His hand twitches and she wonders if he’s reliving that moment, if he’s relived that moment every day since. It’s hard to forget when Zooble constantly reminds him every day. Throwing it back in his face as it’s the worst thing he’s done to them. She doesn’t know if she entirely believes that it is; however, in the way his eyes darken, she can tell that he does.
His hand becomes a fist, “Are we here to chat about that or the explorin’ crap?”
“A bit of both from the sound of it,” Tilting her head, Jax glances at her briefly. His heavy sigh lets her know that she’s finally cracking him.
“Look, if you’re gonna claim that I did this to spite everyone or to hurt you guys, then you can shove it, okay? I don’t need to deal with that shi-”
“I wasn’t going to say any of that at all,” She reassures him. It only does so much to ease his fears. Though, it does something by the way his fist unclenches, “I won’t get mad. I just want to know.”
“I-I… I don’t… Know.”
“O… Okay. Okay. Uh- I-It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. I was thinking maybe you’d want to-” Hands grip her shoulders and she’s forced to be face-to-face with him. Dark pupils swirl as he glares at her. She can feel huffs of breath against her cheeks. Everything about his demeanor should scare her. She’s more worried about him than fear for herself. He wants her full understanding, that’s what he’s not saying. He has it anyway.
“N-No. I mean that… I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t even mean to do it. It felt like something was… Controlling me. Like I wasn’t in control of what I was doing. I had this… Memory… Then, I was hitting the button. That’s all I know. It was all just a blur a-and… You… You don’t… Believe me, do you?” He says it more of a fact than a question. The hands on her shoulders loosen, but she keeps them in place with her palms pressed to his elbows.
“I never said that! I’m just confused. Are you saying that Caine… Controlled your… Actions? Is that possible?”
“I-I don’t know. B-But think about it. The stupid sauce, the vegan thing. How would he be able to do any of that if he couldn’t?”
“I never really thought about it. I assumed it was some silly quirky thing Caine likes to do. Until recently, I thought it was all harmless,” Thinking it over, Caine has mentioned several times how their minds are the only things he can’t control. How they look, sure. Their names, yes. How they think and feel…
The stupid sauce was something that she tried to forget. It was a dark moment for her and what made it worse is that she barely remembers anything that she said under the influence. Other than the things that Jax threw back at her at the bar that is. One thing in particular made her wonder if Caine actually could control everything about them- ‘I, like, hate you? But I don’t want you to hate me.’ Only one part of that was the truth. She could never hate Jax no matter how hard she wanted to. He was a big part of her history in the circus and no amount of bullying could ever change that.
“I didn’t mean what I said when I was high on stupid sauce. If you were worried about that.”
“Which part?”
“About hating you. It wasn’t true. I think I was frustrated by everything. But I don’t hate you.”
Soft nod, then the corners of his lips turn upward just enough to consider it a smirk, “How could you? I’m awesome.”
“Yep, there it is. I knew that you-”
“Thanks,” He interrupts her. The word was so hushed that she would’ve missed it if they weren’t this close together, “That means a lot. Especially now.”
“I-I… Y-Yeah. Yeah. Any time,” She removes her hands from him, leaving his hands to fall down until they cupped her wrists. Yellow gloves contrast with purple skin and it looks ridiculously cartoonish. She was feeling a little too much for it to mean anything other than Jax. And that made what she did next easier, “Your question earlier.”
“Which-”
“It was you,” His eyes snapped back onto her as if they ever truly left. No hesitation on her part, she pushes forward to press a chaste kiss to his mouth. Nothing too explicit yet the tension that was building in her chest all day nearly explodes from the contact. The fingers around her wrists tighten, then release. He does this several times. She tries to focus on putting enough pressure on his lips for this to count as a kiss. It’d help if he kissed back, but it didn’t matter in that second that he wasn’t. It felt nice to feel something other than the stress she’s been feeling for the past few weeks.
As quick as it began, Ragatha separates from him with a soft hum. She finds his eyes hazily watching her. His lips hang open as if he’s about to say something. Maybe that’s what finally snaps her out of the trance.
“Oh! Oh, no. Oh, God. I-I am so sorry. Th-That isn’t what I… I-I mean, I shouldn’t have-”
“Shut up already,” Then, the distance is closed off again. One hand clasped on her lower back and the other gripping her neck, Jax brings their lips crashing back together- Far less chaste than the previous one. He finds a rhythm that has her vision going fuzzy. He tilts his head to deepen the kiss, he nips at her bottom lip, he slides his hand further down her back until he grips and she gasps against his mouth. She knows exactly where this is going as soon as he’s dragging her into his lap. Her dress hikes up, giving him complete access to run his fingers over her thighs. Meanwhile, she slips her own under the straps of his overalls. There was no warmth to his skin yet her body felt like it had just caught fire. Even more so when his tongue presses to her mouth to push her lips open. A familiar feeling that she hasn’t experienced in a long time pools in her stomach, slowly making its way further. He tugs her closer forcing her to rub into his stomach and she just about melts then. An eager whimper escapes and Jax stills against her. She opens her eyes enough to see the way he looks at her. Something clicks.
“You… Feel it?”
“Mhmm,” His own whimper brings an urge in her, “Oh, yeah, I feel it,” Their lips connect again, only briefly before he trails his lips down her- Little nips and sucks and-
“Ohh, Jax,” She thrusts enough into him to elicit sounds from the both of them. The thrill of it made her want more, made her need more. She grips his shoulders, rolls her hip, and the sensation causes him to bite down hard enough that she sees stars. If she had known how this would feel, she never would’ve hesitated all of those years ago. A thought that drags out a short chuckle hidden behind a gasp.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Come on now. You can’t exactly hide anything from me anymore. Look at where you’re sitting. It’s my lap, if you were wondering.”
“I’m not hiding anything. I was just thinking that… Well, if I had mentioned this to you sooner… When I first started feeling this way toward you, then we could’ve been doing this a lot sooner.”
“Oh, yeah? When was sooner?”
Getting lost in the feeling of his mouth against her neck, the truth became easier to admit, “A few months into you being here.”
Until his lips halt all actions. Her eyes snap open and she knows that she made a mistake in admitting that. It was too late to say take it back. Jax’s hands grip her shoulders to bring their faces back to each other. A pink tint across his cheeks, his lips still parted, and conflict ran rampant over his expression. It was still too late to take it back. Even so, she doesn’t think she’d want to if she could.
“When we first became friends. It just happened. I had already known by that point that this was possible and I guess the idea of experiencing it with someone else sparked curiosity. Like you said, the only other person here was Kinger and that was not something that I wanted to think about. So…” Her hand raises to motion at him. He doesn’t look away from her face, though. Instead, he tucks a strand of hair out of her face, then trails his hand down to the space between her neck and chest.
“So, you imagined me, huh?”
“I did,” She whispers, “I do.”
Eyebrow flickers upward. He risks lowering his hand down. Where a chest should be still has the sensations of one, so when he finds a particular spot to pinch at, she has to bite down on her lower lip to keep the moans at bay. Jax has none of that. He bends further until he’s a breath away from connecting their lips.
“What’d you imagine?”
“Wh-What?”
“You heard me. When you’re in your room and you feel the urge, what did you imagine me doing to you?” His finger rolls against her chest forcing her head to fall backwards. Though, his hand on her neck keeps their eyes locked, “Something close to this?”
“It starts out like this, yeah,” She tugs at one of his straps until it slowly slips off his shoulder. He watches it only momentarily before locking eyes with her again. Far less innocent than before if that was even possible. She risks a kiss to his bare shoulder, then another. Kisses over his neck, down his chest- His hand tangles in her hair, “There’s a zipper on the back of my dress that you undo.”
His hand in her hair trails down to the zipper that he steadily drags down her back until his fingers graze her lower back. He grips the freshly exposed skin and she can’t contain the moan that slips out. Nor the next one when he kisses her lips again.
“Then, what?”
She swallows, hard, “Then, I ask you if you’re sure about this. It changes everything.”
He tilts his head just to be able to kiss the side of her cheek, “Things are already changed. What’s one more thing?”
She nods. It’s the only answer she needs to push past the nerves every inch of her body is experiencing. The other strap of his overalls comes down, leaving her staring at a bare chest. Meanwhile, he slips both hands over her back- sprawling fingers over bare skin- before he hooks two into her dress to pull farther away from her body. She doesn’t notice until cold hair pricks her skin and he groans at the sight of her. She almost wants to curl into herself to hide, but Jax knows her too well and keeps her from doing so with his hands pressed into her arms. She watches as his attention sweeps over every inch of her body that he’s allowed to see. After a while of this, Ragatha risks it. She slips out of his lap, something that has him scowling until the dress fully falls off her body. He’s on his feet in an instant.
One thing that Ragatha’s always liked about Jax is how confident he is even when he has no idea what he’s doing. This was one of those moments. He stands over a foot taller than her, glaring down at her, then he’s picking her up to wrap around his body. It only lasts for a split second until her back hits the mattress. He finds a spot between her legs to rest. Both palms pressed into the mattress on either side of her head. It’s not long before their lips reconnect. Long gone was the need to keep this chaste. They both knew exactly where it was headed. It was her turn for the upper hand and she gained it by slipping his bottom lip in between, slipping her tongue into his mouth, clawing against the skin of his back. In return, he slips a hand between them, down her stomach and to a place that makes her lose all control. It’s clumsy and it’s awkward, but seeing as there’s no specific way of knowing what feels good, he wouldn’t know. So, she guides his hand where it needs to be. He flicks his thumb and-
“F-Fuck,” Her head digs deeper into the mattress.
He breathes heavily, it’s a laugh, “Look at you. Weren’t you just getting embarrassed by that word not too long ago?”
“Is now really the time?”
“Now’s always the time for teasing you. But I guess you’re right. There’s other things that I’d rather be doing,” He presses harder into the space between her legs. Moving his fingers around to see what causes what. If there’s one thing Jax is, it's a fast learner. You kind of have to be in the place they reside in. She can’t say that it’s perfect, but the fact that this is him and it’s her makes it all the better.
It was always going to be the two of them.
A feeling close to fondness bubbles in her chest.
“Jax?”
He brings his face back to hers. Haze filled eyes make her feel an ache, one far more romantic than it should feel, “Yeah?”
“I-I… I think that I…” Nerves get to her, though, “I think that it’d feel better for you, too, if you weren’t wearing anything.”
It works, “Hm. Someone’s eager,” He slips off of her long enough for the clothing to fall to the ground with her dress. He finds the same spot between her knees, “Better?”
She wanders over every inch of bare skin, from his chest to his stomach and everything in between. As she thought, nothing. Yet the heat still rises over her body. It pools in her chest, in her stomach, to the space that has her thrusting forward against him. Something that earns her a soft hum from the man above her.
“Really eager.”
“Shut-”
He turns her upside down until she’s sitting in his lap again. He sprawls underneath her with both his hands on her waist and hers pressed into his chest, “Now. Show me how this is supposed to work.”
“I did. It’s all about-”
“No. Show me how this,” A hand motions between them, “Is supposed to work.”
Her confusion turns to understanding turns to embarrassment until she finally does cover her chest up, “O-Oh. I… I-I don’t… A-Actually, I…”
“Stalling.”
“Augh, I just think that-”
“Stop thinking. We’ve been doing way too much of that lately,” He grips her arms to pull them apart, “Show me how it works. Please.”
“Okay,” She slips out of his grasp, raises her body off of his, and he watches her every move. It makes it hard to focus, but she manages, “Like I said, it’s all about the sensations. You saw it on me. It works on you too. I know it might seem impossible seeing as there’s nothing there. But I bet as soon as I-” She presses her palm firmly where she knows he’d feel what she means. And, boy, does he? His hips raised into her hand and a sharp hiss escaped. She looks over his face in case it was more painful than pleasurable; however, the way he gasps right after proves which one it is, “Right there,” She moves her palm until her fingers brush the same area. Spreading over him just to see what would happen. It just happens to be him clutching the skin of her sides hard enough that she thinks she might need her sewing kit after this. She doesn’t care at the moment. She’s more focused on the way her name slips out like a plea.
“R-Ragatha. Raaaagathaaaa.”
“Good, yeah?”
“N-No shit,” The bitter words mean nothing as he thrust against her hand. Pride hits her so intensely that it gives her confidence. She throws her free hand above his head closer enough to where his ears lay. Kisses to his open mouth, his cheek, his neck- Never letting up on the movements that have him practically melting below her, “Is it possible to do this together?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like… If it were the real thing? Could we both gain something out of this at the same time? If we-”
“Oh,” She had to have seen this coming yet she still wasn’t prepared for it to be this early on. Not like she expected this to happen more than once. Well. She hoped that it would. She was thinking too much, “I-I think it is.”
“You think?”
“Obviously I’ve never tested it out. So, it’s not like I’d just know. I assume it’s a possibility. It’s no different than what we’re doing now.”
He nods. It goes quiet until he speaks again, “Try.”
From his neck to his face, she brings her head back up. Wondering if he was serious or not. Gentle hands tangle in her hair, “If I had known that any of this was possible, you’d be my first thought, too.”
“R-Really? Is that just because Kinger was the only other-”
“Because it’s you, Ragatha,” All serious, all truthful. He means it. He means the next part as well, “I want to try this with you.”
Sighing, she presses her forehead to his, “Okay,” And she kisses him again. This one is far more intense with the idea of this moving further. She doesn’t even know how to move this further. But Jax helps with a strong grip on her neck that trails down to her lower back. A moan vibrating over his mouth and the rest just feels instinctual. The only way she knows to make it work, Ragatha slips one leg against his waist and the other underneath his leg. He maneuvers to give her a better angle- His hand dragging her flesh against him and she cries out the moment their centers connect. If it wasn’t for his mouth against hers, the entire circus might have just heard. Something that he jokes about, but she ignores it for the pleasure shooting through her. He hooks a hand behind her knee to drag her closer, then rolls his hips into her. An action meant to drive her crazy, but the groan coming out is from him instead. Though, she has to admit- In the years that she's been alone doing this, it's much better to have someone else to experience it with. It's been a long time, even before she entered the circus. And even though it's not the same, no moment before or after will ever match this one. Jax does something to her, whether it be frustrating with her with a prank or frustrating her with the friction between them.
Nothing.
Will ever.
Compare.
“I-I… I would've hit the red button, too,” She admits through a ragged gasped breath. Only through squinted eyes can she see the lulled expression he gives her.
“Yeah?”
She nods before her vision completely falls down to his stomach, “Anything if I got the chance to do this.”
That gets him. So much tension between them needs to find a place to go and that just happens to be hands gripping her thighs and hips thrusting forward and words that he speaks yet she can’t understand. Like she said, Jax is a fast learner and it takes him no time to find a good rhythm that makes her mind go fuzzy. Her leg pressed to his side digs deeper into him and she swears she can feel heat radiating off of him. No, they can’t feel that. Can they? She doesn’t know anymore. All she does know is that she never wants this feeling to end. If she was doomed to imprisonment in the circus for eternity, then this is a good place to begin that sentence.
The first moment she ever pictured Jax in this position springs to mind when he slows his actions. How much guilt hit her as soon as the climatic high had ended. He was her friend and that’s how she chose to see him. Not only that, he was young and naive and scared of his new environment. Not that he’d ever show that; however, she was good at picking up on cues with people. He was no exception. So, when the first thought she had after a rather harsh adventure had ended was of Jax hovering over her while she explored those familiar sensations, she couldn’t help but feel nothing but disgust for herself. That time, every other time as they remained friends, every time after their friendship ended. Up until the very last time before this moment. Yet somehow, the guilt melts away as if it never existed to begin with. He was below her, gasping out her name, clawing at her skin, practically on the verge of a melting point that he doesn’t even know exists yet. But that’s exactly what causes the next question he asks.
“Hey, uh… Is it possible to cum?”
Still, no amount of preparation could prevent the burning ecstacy that shot through her at the sound of that. She tries to keep her mind from slipping. She grips at his body tight in order to do so. How is it possible that she’s lost every single word she’s ever learned in such a short amount of time? “Not… Not in the typical sense, no. But it’ll sure feel like it.”
From her thigh to her chest, Jax fondles what would’ve been breasts if she were still a human woman. Though, even in her human body, nothing felt as amazing as the way he touched her. She’s losing control slowly- A fact that she knows he knows. It’s why he smirks when their eyes lock again, it’s why his hand swirls over chest, it’s why his foot hooks behind her back to kick her down to his mouth. A soft kiss against her lips before the words, ‘Wanna watch you cum,’ have her go limp against his body. She twitches just enough to let him know that he’d get that wish soon. But the way his mouth twitches against her was her telltale sign that he was on the verge of climax himself. She wonders how he’d react to it. Being a male, the experience was far from what he’d be used to. She’s spent many nights pondering over that idea. So, the sensation of built up pleasure merely only going off within the confines of their avatars has to be an interesting sight to witness. And it’s one that she wants to.
She gains the upper hand back. One hand under his chin to tilt his head back, she works to suckle and bite every inch of his neck, hoping that it was possible to leave little pink bruises there. She’s never been one to metaphorically ‘mark her territory,’ but in this instance, she’ll make an exception. Though, no marks would need to be visible when she has the sound of her name whimpered into her ear when she grabs his leg at her side to halt and she rolls her hips into him. Once, twice, three times and his body shakes. One hand leaves her skin to grip the fabric beneath them as silent pleas and begs escape his open mouth. It’s the only way she knows he’s hit his peak. The mere sight of him causes her to hit her limit and she cries out when it does. The circus be damned, nothing else existed in this moment except the two of them.
When it’s over- when the feeling subsides- Ragatha’s body crumbles against him. Arms wrap around her back to keep her there. There’s going to be a million questions they both need answers to, but that’s for a later day. Her mouth covers his neck again, only she was too tired to fully kiss him.
“So,” He tries to regain his breath to no avail, “So, that was-”
“Yeah,” She giggles. A sound that he responds to with his own chuckle, “That was.”
“Definitely going to have to do that again.”
“Yeah?”
Before he can answer, a heavy knock at her door startles them. She’d fall straight out of his lap if it wasn’t for his arms keeping her there.
“Hey, do you two think you can keep it down in there?” Zooble’s voice scolds them, “We’re all glad that you two finally got together, but we’d rather not hear about it.”
“U-Uh… S-Sorry,” Is all Ragatha could say. There was no excuse that she could or would want to give. Instead, she goes back to staring at Jax who’s found his usual grin that she’s missed.
“Bet that’s going to come back up later on.”
“Shut up.”