Work Text:
“Uh, wait-” Caine stammered. With no fanfare, no warning signs, not even a pop, he disappeared.
Pomni watched in horror as it unfolded right in front of her eyes, unable to muster the strength to do anything but force her chest to keep rising and falling. She could hear her companions next to her, varying levels of movement among them, but they all stayed put just the same as the circus began to crumble. Gaps opened up in the floors, walls, and ceiling of the tent, glitching blocks falling through as the colour leaked out. It was like the circus was dying, and Pomni couldn’t help but feel mournful as she gazed at a block falling through one of the holes.
Caine always did have trouble with cube collisions.
Then, it was silent. Her own breath filled her ears, along with the heaves of her peers behind her. She hadn’t seen them yet, because surely Caine hadn’t subjected them to the type of torture she had went through?
Her breath hitched as Gummigoo’s blackened teeth flashed in her vision. She raised a hand to scrub frantically at her eyes, letting out a whimpered gasp at the deep pull of pain. She could feel blood trickling down her arms and legs, the main parts of her the crocodiles had chawed on. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath- she could do this. They could figure this out.
And so, with all the strength she could muster, she turned to see her friends. She was not prepared for it.
Ragatha sat rigid against the wall, holding her knees, and doing her best to control her breathing even as tears leaked out of her one good eye. Knives sat embedded in her hand, face, and chest, but she didn’t seem to be preoccupied with it, instead focusing on the floor. Her eyes were wide and lined, indicating terror in that cartoonish way, and her hair floated up the tiniest bit every other second.
Gangle, just a little bit behind Pomni, sat on her knees staring at her somehow-intact comedy mask. The ribbons that made up her body were stained in places with a dark substance that looked like… motor oil? She didn’t move whatsoever, just staring at what Pomni now realized was actually the back of her comedy mask. Zooble was next to her, holding her hand, but their face was turned towards the ground so Pomni couldn’t even catch a glimpse. They weren’t looking at anything either, not even Gangle, and had a raised elbow to protect the view of their face against any eyes.
But the one that scared Pomni most was the thing that was sat cross-legged, shoulders hunched, gazing at the ground but in a way that was not as protective as Zooble. Her eyes flickered to its shape and colour- a pale-ish yellow, and then the odd puddle souped around it. A deep lilac purple. With a surge of realization, she realized what it was.
Jax.
He picked at his fingertips, his skin pooled around him. Before Pomni could open her mouth, maybe to ask what in the actual hell had happened while she was away for thirty seconds, they all heard a shuffling approaching them. Pomni swiveled as fast as she could without tearing at her skin more, and set eyes on Kinger, still in his bucket.
“I think…” he swallowed, his voice echoey and metallic with the bucket, “I accidentally killed Caine.”
Nobody said anything, still on the ground, and Kinger slowly raised a hand to lift the pail. “Oh, shit,” he whispered, dropping his hand in shock. “What did he do to you?”
Pomni gripped her own arm before struggling to her feet. They were only flesh wounds, thank god. Nothing was broken inside. Still, blood dripped down her leg as she took a shuddering breath, preparing to say something, anything, that would fill the silence and maybe get them out of this awful mess.
“What do we do next?” Gangle spoke behind her, placing a gentle ribbon hand on her shoulder, one of the only places not covered with bite marks and scratches. Everyone else slowly began to rise as well. Zooble stepped up, face downturned, taking audible breaths. Ragatha pushed herself off the wall, pulling a knife out of her hand and throwing it to the ground. She didn’t touch the one in her eye, nor her heart. Jax followed, holding his skin as close to him as he could, and stood hunched in the back. Everyone stared at Kinger.
“I… don’t know.” Kinger took a shaky breath. “Maybe we can try to… fix everyone?”
The silence that followed was loud. Fix them?
“Good a plan as any,” Zooble whispered, barely audible.
Pomni nodded. “Okay, y-yeah. We can do this.”
Kinger removed the bucket from his head, blinking in the dim light. He squeezed his eyes shut once, opened them, and nodded determinedly. “I think it’s dark enough. Okay. Ragatha, I’m sorry, but do you want to go first?”
Ragatha gave a tiny nod, tears still brimming in her eye. Kinger made his way over to the doll, and Pomni turned to face the rest of them. “Do you guys wanna sit down again?”
They all all-but-collapsed to the ground again, their display of strength gone. Pomni turned to face Gangle. “Is it okay if I see your mask?”
Gangle wordlessly handed it over, and Pomni turned it around before quickly averting her eyes. There was the usual smile, but so grotesque and disfigured, the design nearly melted, and the entire thing blackened like it had been burned. Gangle buried her face in her hands, a sharp sob being muffled, and Pomni placed the mask down carefully, turning it around again. She kicked it away, as far as she could, and turned back to the ribbon girl. She was staring up at Pomni with watery eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Pomni sat down again, ignoring the screams of protest her skin made, and gently touched Gangle’s shoulder.
“What happened to you? Did we all go through different things?”
An obvious question. She still had her skin.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She sniffled. “Was a zoetrope, my face, a-a truck… I don’t know.” She fell silent again. “Did… that happen to you guys?”
“No.” Zooble’s voice was sudden and unexpected. “Caine made a mountain of hands pull me down. Mirrors, whatnot. Stupid piece of shit.”
Was Zooble talking about the mirrors or Caine? Pomni had a feeling she knew.
“I had, um, Gummigoo attack me. His brothers, too.” Pomni took her turn at the brief synopsis of those awful seconds, not mentioning the billion other things that came with it. How it was dark, a spotlight shone directly at her face. How it came as a surprise- and god, she hated surprises. How Gummigoo’s teeth had flashed in the murky darkness, how they pierced her skin, how she had screamed when the other crocodiles came. How scared she had been, and despite all rational thought, how betrayed she felt.
But everyone merely nodded, accepting the explanation. They had all done similar shortenings, by the sounds of it.
“I’m sorry, Pomni, I don’t have any kind of bandage on me,” Gangle said apologetically, regardless of it not being her fault or responsibility whatsoever. She didn’t even check, just sat there guiltily. Zooble shook their head, still downturned, and muttered something that sounded like a mirror of Gangle’s words.
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” Pomni answered softly, staring down at her still-bleeding wounds. The bite marks, deep scratches that welled blood, a uniform three lines from the gummy claws all over her. They all fell silent, glancing over at the remaining member of their group.
Jax sat slumped, a foot away from their impromptu circle, gazing down without much recognition. He hadn’t moved to try and put his skin back on, and Pomni wondered with a shudder if it hurt. He looked very different like this, the opposite colour of his skin, earless and featureless. When he shifted slightly, Pomni caught sight of two square pupils where his eyes would be, and black lines down his mouth area. Normally, they would be teeth, but now they looked more like bars to a jail cell, or a code to scan.
“We can go ask Kinger or Ragatha if they might have some sort of cloth you can use, Pomni,” Gangle asked, already standing up. Zooble, still gripping her hand tightly, followed silently. They stepped away, casting a worried glance between Pomni and Jax. Pomni smiled slightly. It's okay.
They shuffled away, to Kinger and Ragatha a few meters away. Pomni was relieved to see Ragatha talking to Kinger; she was one of the only two that hadn’t said anything after Caine’s breakdown. She turned back to the one left.
Jax had barely reacted to them leaving, maybe slumped down a little bit more. He held his peeled skin to his upper arms like a blanket, his fallen protection. Pomni didn’t say anything, only looked down. She would have to say something by the looks of it- but what does one say to someone who got skinned alive, and what does one say to someone who got ripped apart likewise?
“I have it.”
Pomni’s head shot up at that, staring at Jax. he hadn’t moved, but the raspy, barely audible voice was definitely him.
“What?” she said before stopping herself, registering that rudely exclaiming ‘what’ to someone so obviously struggling would probably not get her a peaceful response. But this was Jax, he defied the norms- and he did so again.
“I have a bandage,” he croaked out. His mouth lines didn’t move, but the cartoon logic was the very last thing on Pomni’s mind. He moved for the first time since sitting down, reaching into the folds of his costume-looking outer layer, procuring a roll of gauze from presumably, his pocket. With the smallest possible movements, he set it on the ground and nudged it towards her. It rolled for a little, both watching it, before falling on its side and stopping. Jax stared downwards again, slowly sagging again.
Pomni stood up, refusing for that to just be it. “Jax. What happened to you? Are- no, you’re not. But you have to try to be a part of this, you know. I-arg, I’m sorry. That sounded bad. I- I just mean-”
“Pomni, be quiet.” Jax’s voice was slightly stronger, and he tilted his head to look at her. His sentence ended on an awkward note, tone implying there would be more to it, but there was nothing. He only stared at her, taking in her bloody limbs and tattered clothes.
There was a moment of silence between them that seemed to last forever. Every moment they spent together stretched into infinity, smashed into an instant. Jokes. Promises. Lies.
“I don’t see you as less.”
Jax looked up for real at that.
“You’re as human as you always were, Jax. I am too. And even though you’re annoying-” she laughed, eyes blurring- “I always considered you my friend.” She took a step closer, and finally got a clear view of his face. Shiny, yellow, oddly shaped. And she found that she didn’t give a single shit. “So i’m gonna help you, because you can’t do it on your own. Then you can help me, because I don’t think I can do it on my own.” she gestured to the roll of gauze.
Jax gave a nearly imperceptible nod, and shifted slightly. His skin was only dangling to his waist, the rest was intact. Pomni came close, kneeling in front of him, and held the skin of his midriff. It felt rubbery, and Jax’s expressionless face stared down at her as she slowly placed it where it was supposed to be. It seemed to attach itself, sticking at the least. A soft, whistling sigh escaped him, and Pomni smiled up at him.
“Hell yeah,” she muttered. Then his hands joined hers, and they both silently smoothed his skin back where it once was all the way up to his neck. The seam where it had split in the first place had halved down the middle of his face, and his hands came to rest on Pomni’s shoulders as she reached around his neck to take the remaining bit. She folded it over his head, his ears floppy as his pupils blinked open in the costume’s gaps. She stepped back as he reached up to feel it.
He looked like the Jax she knew again. Sure, his ears were straight down, and his eyes were wide and lined and shaking, and he was slumped in the most un-Jaxlike way possible, but he was okay. The split his skin had made had come together easily. But not seamlessly. The faintest pink line traced its way up his body, splitting his eyes. He stared at her without saying anything. Then stood up suddenly.
Pomni was overcome with a flash of terror for a second. Would he leave her? Would laugh, tell her she was a joke, disgusting for standing here bleeding in front of him?
He grabbed the gauze in the middle of the floor, taking a swift step over, and now kneeling in front of her. He wrapped the bandages slowly around her legs, making sure to allow her to move but still covering all the wounds. His ears rose as he ripped the end of the bandage with his teeth, tucking it into itself. Propping himself up more, he came face-to-face with her as he began wrapping her forearms, wrists, and hands. Blood stopped leaking down her body as the bandages caught it, him moving over to her other arm with a careful gentleness.
With a soft push, he got her to stumble a step to the side. “Don’t stain your shoes.” the sentence was hushed, quiet, and Pomni realized she had been standing in a growing puddle of blood. However, the cartoon logic was kicking in- bandages didn’t heal, but apparently they did now. Jax stood to his full height, and they stared at each other with the pain of two people knowing each other. Pomni offered him her hand.
“Come on.”
He took it, slowly, and they made their way over to the other four humans. They were all leaning against the wall, conversing, but when the two approached they all stood up straighter.
“What's the plan?” Ragatha asked. No one had an answer for her, but they were better off than five minutes ago. Maybe that was the goal from now on- be better off than five minutes ago.
Pomni looked up at Jax, who was still stiff with fear and shame.
“I don’t know. But we’ll stick together,” she proposed. Everyone mumbled, concurring, and when Jax glanced at her the same time she glanced at him, she knew it was a nod of agreement.
That was the best they had, the best they could do for each other- for now.