Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jax was never good with talking about his feelings, or even talking at all. So why would this ever be different?

It was a regular day in the circus, everyone getting ready for some 'in the house adventure' that Caine has been hyping them up about. "Whatever, I'm going to my room." The purple rabbit announces as he rolls his eyes. Caine stops whatever he was saying to bubble to stare at Jax. "But why?! I thought you would like this one Jax! Even zooble seems up to whatever adventure I have planned!" Caine says while gesturing to zooble off to the side, who seems to be watching gangle who is talking with ragatha, but they snap out of it once they hear their name.

"I don't care, I don't wanna do it." Jax says as he shrugs with that care free smirk plastered on his face

Just then, pomni walks over to kinger and starts talking to him while they wait for the adventure to start. God, he can't even remember what the adventure was, he wasn't paying attention. He was too tired.

"What even is the adventure?" He asks with a confused expression. Caine swirls up into the air, "I'M GLAD YOU ASKED JAX! THE IN HOUSE ADVENTURE FOR TODAY IS HIDE AND SEEK!" all of them stare at him, pomni then smiles, followed by ragatha, gangle, kinger, and zooble chuckling at it. "It doesn't seem too bad, just give it a chance." Zooble says to Jax who is currently still confused looking at Caine.

Jax rolls his eyes away from zooble, but he sees pomni staring at her with a hopeful expression, like a dog wanting you to pet them. His eyes widen as he stares at the jester but quickly recovers and shakes his head in disbelief while he chuckles. His gaze lands back onto Caine who is still waiting for Jax to answer.

"Geez, okay fine!" He shakes his head while smirking. "Let's get it over with."

Chapter Text

The adventure FINALLY starts, Caine chooses zooble to seek while everyone else hides, while looking for a hiding spot he runs into pomni. "Ah, there you are pomni." Jax says with this sly tone that confuses her, "were you.. looking for me? Or something??" She says while slowing her walk to look around for a hiding spot.

"Nahhh, just wanted to bug ya." He smirks while he heads to his hiding spot that he mentally picked out. "Ahh, okay! Have fun!" Pomni smiles before turning away and heading to her spot she just found.

Why was that so.. adorable? No, no no nonono. He was not doing this, why was he feeling this way?? Ohhh my God, why did he think pomni was cute? No, he doesn't like her, she is just a friend-

...

She is just someone who is stuck in the same place he is, not a friend, not anything.

-----

Jax makes it to his spot just as Caine's voice booms through the circus, "YOU'RE 5 MINUTES ARE UP, THE SEEKER IS RELEASED!!!"
Jax quickly covers his ear at the sound, God why did he have to be a rabbit??? He shakes his head and looks around, he has never seen anyone over here so he should be fine. He leans against some blocks and slides down to a sit, geez this was exhausting and it's barely started! He sighs but sucks his breath back in when he hears a familiar voice. "CAINE, do we get any hints? The circus is pretty f*SHPLONK*ing big." Zooble says probably 20 feet away from Jax.

Caine let's out a humming tune while he thinks, "hmmm, YES ZOOBLE! YOU WILL ALL GET 3 HINTS! WOULD YOU LIKE YO USE ONE?"

"Mhmm" zooble responds
"YOUR 1ST HINT! WHERE MAY THEY BE, IS IT A HE OR A SHE? KICK AROUND A ROCK, MAYBE CHECK A BOX?"

Jax curse's himself in his head for hiding behind something so obvious but also couldn't care less about the game. He scotches over to a random standing closet and discretely opens the door and slips in, he hears foot steps approaching the spot he was just in not even a minute ago.

Once he hears the footsteps fade, he sits down in the tight closet, but he is able to fit so it's okay. He leans his head against the wood and looks up.

A singular bright pink bowtie hanging loosely on a hanger.

Shit

Chapter Text

Whoa, no no nonono- why, why here? Why now?
The rabbits breathing quickens as his eyes dart around frantically. He couldnt breath, like the walls were closing in-

-----

Pomni was sitting behind a giant triangle, that was almost flat against the wall, key word 'almost'
But as she heard zoobles foot steps fade, she looks around and decides to not change her hiding spot yet.
She spots stairs that she hadn't noticed before, they blended in with the rest of the place. Hmm, maybe she will hide up there next round, then she gets snapped back to reality as she heard a squeak sound from across the room. The dresser? Eh, probably Jax or something.

-----

Gangle walk around in the hall with all of their faces plastered on their doors that lead to their rooms. She stops in front of zoobles, God they are so cool. Gangle gets slightly red at adoring zooble.
Then suddenly, footsteps, gangle ran to the couch in the corner only to hear a familiar voice walk closer to her.

-----

Ragatha looks behind the couch to see gangle hiding. "Ah, it's alright, just me!" Ragatha gives gangle a thumbs up while smiling. Gangle stops hiding and smiles, he comedy mask not broken yet, but her smile looks strained. Ah, the restaurant, the dumb stupid sauce.
"Gangle, I'm sorry for what I said, I didn't mean it.." the doll looks away in shame.
"Its okay, let's just go hide before we get found" gangle smiles sweetly but it still looks strained. Ragatha gives up for now decides she will make it up to gangle after the adventure.

-----

Zooble walks around the circus, damn their legs hurt. Maybe? Maybe they were just tired, but it was kinda fun. They looked from the second floor to the ground and their eyes landed on a certain 'fortess'
Oh my God it was so obvious, they groan at the realization but you can see that they are smirking, even if they don't have a mouth. They make it to the first floor and walk up the the pillow for.

-----

Kinger lays down and looks at a butterfly flying around his fortress.
*Knock knock*
Kinger peeps his head out
"Oh! Zooble! Do you need a hiding place? Hurry before you get caught!" The chess piece gestures into his fortress.
...
"Ah" he says as he realizes, "I'm guessing your the seeker, aren't you?"

-----
Ah, breath in- they hate you -breath out, bre- its all your fault -ath in, breath- "ribbit, I'm sorry" - out
He can't see well at all, can't breathe well either. Please, please, please not now-
Ribbit is gone Jax, and it's your fault
It should have been you instead
-he reaches for the closet handle his vision is to blurry to see it, to weak to even grab it. He knows that they can sleep, but he choses not to because they don't 'technically' need sleep, but why, why wait till he is in his room, where he can cry and nobody would find out, at night when he could visit ribbits room and apologize for hours.
He feels like he is watching himself from the corner of the closet, cold sweat, shallow breaths, blury vision, his mind is going 300 miles per hour and yet he can feel himself slipping from whatever rope he was clinging to-

*Click*

Chapter Text

He didn't even know when he had opened the door, and started running, but he did. He ended up pushing up against the door and opening it, he tumbled out and started running. Nobody could see him like this.

He ran to these miss shapened stairs and stumbled up them, as his mind was still elsewhere.

Stop
Stop.
STOP

Could barely see as he let out shallow breaths over and over, uneven and Shakey.

He reached the top and basically pushed himself off the last step as he ran up, he found a balcony and a long line of doors. Ones he didnt recognize, some didnt have anything in them, others had numbers on them.

He didn't care, he ran into the first one, a door labeled "41.63" and looked around, small room, a couch and a self, dark and blank, but it made him feel worse, he turned off the light and sat in the chair, shaking and only then did he realize the warm liquid running down his face.

Ah, he was crying.
How pathetic.
Crying like a fucking baby.

He inhaled and shoved his face in his hands, he wiped his tears and shook his head.

The pink bow still etched in the back of his mind.
Why them, why did it have to be them?

Good God...
Why?...

He sat around staring at nothing as if he would get an answer. After a bit, he brought his legs into the couch and hugged them against his chest.

If it wasn't for the dumb shit he said, rabbit would still be here, ragatha and him would still be friends..

-----

"STOP, YOU KNOW WE CANT ESCAPE" the purple bunny yelled and yanked his hand away from the frogs grasp. "Yes there is Jax! I SAW IT, COME ON! JUST FOLLOW ME!" The frog smiled in a unsettling way as he reached for Jaxs arm again, but failed.

Jax took a step back, then another, then another. "Ribbit please, I don't want you to abstract.." Jax said, the shaking tone in his voice as tears welled up in his eyes, he was scared for ribbit. But ribbit took it a whole different way.

"Jax, you have always been a whimpy rabbit, come on! We prank people all the time! Why are you scared now?" Ribbit steps closer. "Ribbit stop" Jax says as he steps back, but they keep going. "You don't trust me.. YOU, DONT TRUST ME?! I ALWAYS TRUST YOU, COME ON!" ribbits voice gets louder and louder as he gets closer to the scared bunny. "YOU B*BONK*CH, YOU ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT" Jax steps back again "please stop.." Jax getting progressively more scared. "YOU ARE SPOILED AND I ALWAYS LISTEN, YOU ARE SELFISH!"

"Stop.."

"NO, NO, NO! NOBODY F*PLOINK*ING LIKES YOU! YOU ARE HATED BY EVERYONE. I SHOULD HAVE NEVER TALKED TO YOU, AND YOU SHOULD JUST ABSTRAC-"

"NO" The rabbit snaps at the frog, "NO, BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS DRAG ME ALONG AND BLAME ME, NOBODY HATES YOU BECAUSE YOU BLAME INTO ME, IM YOUR SCAPE GOAT!"
The tables now turned as Jax is stepping closer to ribbit as ribbit steps back.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE SHUT UP AND NEVER TALKED TO ME, BECAUSE I HATE YOU SO MUCH, LIKE IM YOU TOY OR SOMETHING!? I WISH THAT YOU WOULD LEAVE ME ALONE AND STOP DOING THIS TO ME! GET. THE. H*SHLOP*LL. AWAY. FROM. ME." the rabbit huffs at how much air he used, but immediately regretted everything thing he says as he sees the from looking up at him. Terrified.

Ribbits eye began to glitch and change to a familiar color pattern. No no no no nonono. Jax dropped to his knees, but it was to late, his arm and legs were already black and rigid.

"I-im so sorry" was all ribbit managed to say, and it was so very quiet. But Jax heard it, tears spilled as the frog turned into a tall rigid dark entity. This was all jaxs fault.

"Jax, what have you done..." The doll standing at the entrance of the room, she only heard what Jax had screamed at ribbit, and with no context, Jax was the bad guy.

Ragatha grabbed Jax as the abstracted ribbit chased them, but Jax was numb, his eyes now too dry to cry, thoughts running to fast for him to catch up to reality, once he came to see where he was, ragatha was crying, screaming at Jax as he saw the 'cellar' close.

Ribbit was gone,
And it was his fault.

Ragatha and Jax were becoming friends because ribbit was introducing ragatha to Jax, but now, as he tried explaining what the series of events were before ribbit abstracted, she didn't believe him.

"YOU ALWAYS LIE JAX, AND HURT OTHERS, AND RIBBIT WOULD APOLOGIZE ON YOUR BEHALF AND STILL BE YOUR FRIEND, BUT YOU TOOK IT TOO FAR!" ragatha screaming as tears ran down her face, as her voice cracked from screaming and crying. "Rags, it wasn't what-" Jax tried but it didn't help. "don't you DARE CALL ME THAT, GET AWAY FROM ME, LIKE HOW YOU TOLD RIBBIT TO STAY AWAY FROM YOU. AREN'T YOU HAPPY?!" Ragatha screamed.

Jaxs eyes widened, he did say that.
He wasn't happy at all.
But there was no use in crying or explaining, she wouldn't believe him.
It was his fault anyway.

"I'll go..." Jax said silently as he walked to the hallway of rooms, his mind spinning but face lacking any emotion.

He glanced at ribbits door, an X already marked over the face on the door.

-----

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep. He hadn't slept in days, but it had only been like a 30 minute nap. So much sleep, right?

He than heard footsteps approaching the door, he wiped his face and plastered on a smile and faked a relaxed sitting position on the couch. The door creaked open and the light switches on, Jax squinted his eyes at the bright light before turning to the door.

"Took you that long zoobie?" Jax snickered "well your the last one, so hurry up, everyone is already down at the lobby for the next round."

"Alright, give me a break!" He swung his legs off the couch and exited the room and walking ahead of zooble to the direction of the lounge.

This is gonna be another long adventure...

Chapter Text

*click*

Pomni whips her head around the corner to look at.. a rabbit tumbling out of the closet? He looks, lost.. he sprung up and sprinted as fast as his stumbling legs would go. He went up the stairs pomni noticed earlier.

Pomni immediately got worried and began to leave her hiding spot to go get him, but right as she reached the stairs.
"Pomni! I found you!" Zooble called out
"Ah, but i-" pomni tried explaining but zooble chuckled, "it's okay, you weren't the 1st one found. I found kinger, than ragatha already, go ahead and wait in the lounge with them." Zooble walked away as pomni looked back up the stairs.
I hope he is alright.

-----

Jax and zooble rejoin the group in the lounge for round 2. Pomni keeps glancing at Jax, his smile doesn't reach his eyes, it almost never does, but this looks more forced than usual. "Ah, Jax? You alright there?" Jax snaps back to reality and stops staring at nothing. "Huh? Oh, yeahh! Just peachy." He smirks and focuses his gaze on Caine again.

God his face is hot, not burning but still. Why did pomni make him so flustered? God damnit. But as soon as he remembered the bow, the pink bow.. that's all he could think about. Fuck..

"WELL WELL WELL MY LOVELY LILLY PADS! THE WINNER IS JAX! JAX, YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHO WILL SEEK NEXT!" Caine exclaims. "Kay, I choose bubble" Jax smirks.

"WONDERFUL CHOICE JA- what." Caine looks at him while Jax snickers, "Whaaaaat? You said pick someone! I did." Caine states at him in confusion, "uh, pick pomni, ragarha, kinger, or gangle." Jax chuckles, "alright fineee, rags!" Jax glances at ragatha who is talking to kinger but her eye twitches a bit, she heard what he called her. Good.

"FANTASTIC CHOICE JAX! RAGARHA IS THE SEEKER! GO HIDE!" Caines voice booms all around them which causes Jax to wince again, pomni winces too.

Jax heads to the place he hid before. No, not the closet, the room he found. Pomni follows slowly behind and Jax doesn't notice. She was following him to make sure he was okay, but also because she was curious about what was up there.

She reached the top and Jax had already went back into the room he was before. The door clicked shut as he flopped onto the couch and let out a breath he had been holding. He found a mirror in the corner of the room, he stared at it. It was dark but enough light to see a bit, he saw himself. He tried to smile like he usually did but just couldn't.

Everything hurts, his head, his limbs, his face. He deserves it, he deserves this pain, this hate from everyone. No, no. Be happy, just be happy. This is all fake, everyone is, this is a cartoon, no escape other than death. Death didn't sound so bad..

A tear welled up in his eye, threatening to spill. And it did. "Pathetic.." he told himself, then a creak. Ragatha found him? No, of course not. It was pomni..

Pomni stood there in the dark, light shining in through the open door. Jax was crying, and pomni saw it. He was frozen, sitting there before he quickly wiped his face plastered that iconic smile on. "Whatcha need pom?" His smile wavering and trembling.

"Jax... Are you alright?.." pomni said, taking a step forward. "What do ya mean? I'm just fine!" Jax says as he watches her get closer. She sits beside him and looks at him, "you can tell me." She smiles, so sweet and genuine. So fucking pretty. He opens his mouth, about to tell her- no, he closes his mouth and shakes his head as he stands up. "I'm fine pomni, just peachy.." he stands up and walks out, closing the door behind him. If Jax hated something more than himself, it's probably pity..

-----

He walks back down the stairs, smile plastered on. 'wait till you get to your room's he told himself over and over and over. "Aha! Oh, Jax.. I got you, you can go sit in the lounge with zooble and gangle." Ragatha says but Jax doesn't respond, just keeps heading to his room. "Jax. Jax! Are you even listening!?" Ragatha progressively getting more upset. "Oh whatever!" She walks in the opposite direction to to go look for pomni and kinger.

Down the hall he walks to his door, opens it, he glances back just like he did when ribbit abstracted. He looked at ribbits door.

...

He closed his own door and walked over to ribbits, shuffled around in his pocket for a bit and grabbed out a key, he put it in the key hole and opened ribbits door, walked in, and locked it. He pressed his back against the door and slid down it, he sat on the lilly pad carpet that was right in front of ribbits door.

This was silly, silly and childish.
But it hurts so much..
Way too much...

Chapter Text

It had been hours, of sitting.
Starring at nothing.
Waiting for the answer that he knew would never arrive..

The room decorated with lush green hanging from the ceiling, hanging low and peaceful. The dark wood flooring with a big green lilly pad carpet in the middle of the room with a flower chair in the middle. The fuzz on the carpet so familiar, so real. But it wasn't. Even with the lights off, a soft glow illuminated from the ceiling and some hanging leafs, like fireflies swarming the darkness. The bed was low and light, the frog pillow still there, the green sheets with the mossy green blankets to match.

It was so pretty, like it was used only once. Just a memory to someone who was so deeply important.

Jax stood, slowly and carefully, like if he made a sudden move, it would all be gone. He inched his way to the bed and sat down on the far side, careful to not miss up the pillows.

Jax doesn't get emotional, but today was a different story, Everytime he thinks he has it under control, he is okay, that it won't affect him. It always makes him take his words back, an infinite cycle that won't let him catch a break. Won't let him stop to breathe because if he does, he tumbles back down to square one.

The adventure has ended long ago, he knows because he heard the sound of people heading back to their rooms and settling in for the night. The guilt was eating at him as he sit in the frogs bed, as if he had the right too.

If only he was able to realize, it wasn't his fault. It was the circus..

-----

Everyone has long been to bed but after searching the circus for hours, pomni made her way to her room, she couldn't find Jax anywhere. Yet she was so fucking worried about him..

Pomni clicks the door shut and heads to her bed through the dark, almost tripping on a block. She flops down and stares up at the ceiling, please be okay..

The ceiling didn't move, she didn't either. He sheets were so weird, like it was hard to sleep in them. Every time she moved, the sheets rubbed together making a soft 'vrr' noise. To some, it's just annoying, but for pomni, she hated every bit of it, it gave her goosebumps and it was unbearable to hear it.

She tried to shift slowly but it made it worse, after trying and failing over and over, at one point she took the blankets and flung them at the wall, which was hard to see how they landed, as she was in the dark, but the noise it made as it slid down the wall just pissed pomni off further.

She groaned as she grabbed the ends of her hat and pulled it over her face as she toppled down into her empty cold bed. It was just so frustrating, the noise made her wanna rip her hair out or peel her skin off.

Once she was able to clear her mind of the frustrating sound, she stretched herself out like a starfish and waited for sleep to take over.

A door creaks slowly and is softly shut with a small 'click'. Who else was up at 3am? Pomni sat up and neared her door as she heard another slow creak across from her door, then a second of silence before the door creaking shut with a soft click of the lock. Jaxs door was across from hers.. was he awake? Where was he?

Pomni opens her door and approaches Jaxs. Two soft knocks on the door then a small whisper, "Jax?.."

No response...

"Jax?" She tries a bit louder than a whisper. No response... She shakes her head and turns around to make it back to her room for the night.

"I'm okay, just had a bad day.. Have a goodnight pom..." A soft voice coming from inside Jaxs room. She almost didn't recognize it, but it was indeed Jaxs voice. He sounded so tired, but it was so sweet and genuine.

She smiled even though he wouldn't see it, "goodnight Jax." She turned away from the door and walked back to her door.

Glad he is safe,
Just got a hope he is doing better..

Chapter Text

as morning came, Caine had already planned out a new adventure, everyone came out of their rooms at different times, ragatha at 7:30 am, gangle and zooble came out of gangles room together at 7:45, kinger and pomni came out of their rooms at 8:00.

Someone didn't..

They all go to the seating area, ragatha puts down whatever she has been crocheting the past few days and watches as kinger rambles to the tired jester as they sit down.

Pomni looks around the table to not see Jax, he is usually late to breakfast so it will be alright. The table chatters about zooble and gangles sleepover, what book kinger has been reading (just a lot of bugs), and what that has been crocheting.

Pomni pushes the food around her plate and waits anxiously for Jax to come from his room.

8:30

Usually Jax would bee here by now, 20 minutes late but still eating breakfast with them, pomni stands up and pushes in her chair, "I'll be back." She smiles sweetly and does a small wave as she begins to walk away.

As she walks, she hopes he has been doing alright since yesterday. She turns and looks down the hallway, it almost seems peaceful, like everything isn't that bright and and eyesore today, but the pit in her stomach makes it hard to appreciate it.

She inches slowly to Jaxs room, she stops and stares at the smiling bunny that's plastered on the door, how realistic..

She hesitates, she lifts her and and right as she is about to knock, the door flings open and smacks her. "D@&# I am tired! What was that?" He cranes his cartoon neck and looks behind the door to see pomni laying on the floor, little spirals swirling in her eyes as she is disoriented.

"Oops, you alright there pom?" He grins but there is a hint of concern in his voice, her gaze finally focuses on the ceiling and slowly slides over to him, "..wut?" She asks lazily as she props herself up and stares at him, "you b@$#@&#, you scared me!" She slowly gets up and regains her composure.

"I didn't scare you! The door did!" He snickers at his own joke, but pomni looks at him like he just said that an orange is green. "What?- no, like last night when I came to check on you, and you weren't just late to breakfast, you were super late!" Jax rolls his eyes

"Does the little jester care for me?~ how sweet!" He says playfully as he walks down the hall, pomni rolls her eyes and walks with him. She then has a great idea, she walks just a bit slower, and just then she sticks her foot out and Jax being the tall idiot falls and lands like a starfish.

I know.
Cartoony, but that would make it accurate in the circus.

Jax groans and slowly pushes himself up from the floor, "what was that for?" He stands up and stares at her. "I felt like it." She smirks at him, then begins walking towards their destination, Jax just stands there for a few seconds before feeling a flutter in his chest, "hey! Get back her you little!-"

He begins running after her, she has caught on right after he yelled for her to come back, so it was a bunny chasing a jester.

-----

They reach the dining room and it was about 8:50 now, 2 plates were left out, one was pomnis, one was Jaxs. Pomni sits down and stares at the digital food, Jax does the same. They both simultaneously push away the plates with disgust. Jax stares at pomni, and pomni stares at Jax.

"Why aren't you eating?" Pomni raises and eyebrow and leans on her elbow. "I could ask you the same thing." Pomni smirks, "you first."

Jax smirks and rolls his eyes, "fine. Well I don't know." He looks down at the food, "it doesn't look, or taste, or feel like food. It makes me gag" his face now twisted in disgust as he finds words to explain. "It taste like how I think drywall would taste, and it feels like jello but more solid. Eghh." He shivers at the accurate resemblance, he shakes his head and looks at her, "what about you?" He asks with interest.

She nods along with his statement, "yeah, basically the same reason as you. It feels wrong to eat it." She looks at him and chuckles, he smirks at her then glances to the group over in the lounge.

This is the most genuine fun he has had in a long time.
This is the most anxiety free she has been in a long time.
They help the other and they don't even know it.

Chapter Text

As they watch the others in the lounge talk and talk, they glance at each other, Jax smirks wider. "Jax, don't you do it." Pomni tries to stay serious, but both of them notice the smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

Jax tilt's his head at her with a smile, "c'mon! It'll be fun!" He stands up and pulls her out of her chair to follow, pomni smirks as she fights against the bunny, she eventually got out of his grip and stared at him with an amused look.

Jax stares at her, then rolls his eyes, "fineeeee, what do you wanna do then?-"

Perfect timing!

Caine appears out of nowhere with bubble slowly floating behind him. "TODAYS ADVENTURE IS AQUAS AWESOME AMUSEMENT PARK!" He snaps his fingers and a normal pops into each persons hands.

"Caine, we don't need these." Jax holds up the snorkel as he smirks playfully at Caine, Caine shrugs and then turns to pomni as she begins to speak, "but don't we have an amusement park just outside the circus?"

"WELL-" Caine pauses for a few seconds before continuing. "JUST BECAUSE, NOW GO!" The portal appears and a giant hand comes from nowhere and pushes them all in.

-----

Well this was.. uncomfortable to say the least. The idea of wet clothing, sticking to her skin, ehhh. Pomni shivers at the feeling, he tries to breath in, but they are obviously underwater at the moment.

She struggles for a few moments against both feelings, but she slowly looks up at the vast blus, and through the blue she was able to see a sea horse rider, something about shrimps? And jellyfish floating upward. The jellyfish remind her of stars, but like constantly moving. She turns her neck to look at the group and what they are doing, zoobles is currently walking on the seafloor with her straight limbs, it's more like waddling. Gangle walks beside zooble, her mask spinning slower because of the water, kinger seems to be looking closely to spot any bugs but also seem quite fascinated by the jellyfish, just then he started glowing a lot, pomni squinted her eyes, she glances at ragatha who also seems to be looking at the others, ragathas red braids already sticking up. They exchange small smiles and then turn to look at another person, then she turned her head towards Jax. She actually didn't know what happens to Jax when he holds his breath, he never told anyone.

Well, to what pomni seems to see, he isn't that shorts haired purple bunny, he was a long haired black and white bunny, little spots scattered closer to his eyes. Pomni stared at him like that, she just wanted to hug him so badly! She never liked physical touch, but this was because he looked like a fluffy pillow. She shook her head and stared at the bunny, now looking down in embarrassment.

She slowly walks over, slowly because the water wouldnt let her walk any quicker. She finally reaches him and he avoids the eye contact. She taps his arm, he glanced at her, his face a little red. She points at a shark themed roller coaster and smiles with her rainbow face. Jax picks up at the sight of thrill, he nods and gives her a thumbs up, she gives him a thumbs up back.

Ragatha was drawing and reading the whole time with kinger while going to look around at times, but they did go on one ride, it was a slow tea cup ride, but instead of spinning teacups, it was spinning small ships, they smiled at each other as they enjoyed the others company.

Gangle and zooble went on slow and long rides, ones that let them be able to enjoy the ride better and together, sitting close and smiling at each other, both at times looking away with a flustered face. God they were so obvious.

After a few rides, it had tired pomni out a lot from the drops and rushes, Jax grabbed pomni and ran into the seaweed maze, and of course, a maze isn't a maze until you get lost. And guess what they did. It was mostly Jax because pomni was to tired to walk, so he just carried her there, while everyone else was enjoying the rest of the adventure, Jax and the tired pomni was stuck there for the rest of it, which was gonna be about another hour.

How fun!

Chapter Text

The portal opens and they can finally breathe! Hooray 🎉

Jax then goes back to the shorthaired purple rabbit like before and attempt's to shake himself dry, but to no avail, doesn't work, he grabs the Peace of seaweed off himself. He is more comfortable but starts to head to his room to dry off.

"WELCOME MACK MY CANDY HEARTS AND PAPER FLOWERS!"

Pomni walks in and immediately breathes a breath of air and falls forward, too out of it to do anything. 'Sea sick' is what Jax would call it.

Kinger pulls the last starfish off himself and shakes at the sudden cold air, but immediately gets distracted by a firefly. Gangle on the other hand looked down at her broken mask, zooble walked over and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Seconds later Caine snaps and her mask molds back together, she smiles at the sweet gesture from Caine and thanks him quietly before heading to her room as zooble followed.

Ragatha picks of seaweed that is scattered on her body, she shakes off her hand and looks at pomni lying face down on the floor. "Well that sure could have gone.. better." She says in a unsure tone as she looks back to Caine. "But Im sure the next adventure will be less.. wet?" She says as she looks back down at exhausted pomni. She looks at her for a good while, then presses her mouth into a thin line.

"Hey ragatha, can you help my count my eggs before they hatch?" Kinger asks, she doesn't know when he got there, but she was willing to help! "Oh. Yeah! Of course!" She slowly follows him.

"Wait what?"

As ragatha wanders off to help kinger, the now dry Jax comes around and and stares at pomni on the floor, "looks like that 'oh so positive' ragatha charm is starting to wear off, huh?" He smirks as he continues to walk by.

Pomni finally hasa registered something someone said, she slides her head to look up from the floor, "ehh?" She asks confused. She glances around and sees a.. thing? Person? Whatever it was, they were watching and then his behind the wall. She raises an eyebrow but brushes it off because she couldn't give 2 shits right now. Her main goal is to change clothes.

-----

Zooble sits on the couch minutes later while reading a art magazine recommended by gangle, they flip though it when Caine goes over to the area, probably to get a second opinion. He hums as he flips though his drawings of bees, "Looks like this one was a home run, eh?" Zooble asks sarcastically.

"Oh zooble, you mismatched cash piano, ill- TEAR YOU TO PIECE'S- constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!" Caine goes from casual, to frustrated, to casual again. As to zooble, they don't react, this isn't the first time he had a tantrum like that, zooble sighs and glances back at their magazine. "But never acknowledged..

Caine scoffs, "that's it! Everyone except zooble, get over here!" Caine snaps and everyone gets moved to the same room, thankfully all of them are dry by now so no mess from water.

Caine pitches some adventure idea for them to pick out from, most being referenced from real world prompts. Gangles mask cracks and slides off her face, "I was gonna sleep." Jax complains. Ragatha sets down the tray, "well, they all sound a bit.. dark?" She stares at Caine.

"I can't tell a compelling story where nothing bad happens! Where is the entry? The stakes?!-" Caine's exclaims but is cut off by bubble, "not to mention the ssssex appeal." Bubble states mindlessly.
"What are you talking about?.." Caine slumps a bit

As stated before, and stated again. The suggestion box it brought up, Caine slowly gets agitated, "I honestly didn't hate the one we did from the suggestion box." Zooble states causally. Caine let's lose and raises his teethy eyebrow, "youu- didn't hate it?"

Zooble nods, "yeah, I liked doing something grounded in reality" pomni nods along with, "yeah, I didnt mind that one either."

Off to the side, Jax stays quiet. Even from how energetic he has been, he is still super tired and wants to nap, why are we even having this conversation right now?

"What about the rest of you?" Caine points at them.

They all ramble in a mix of their opinions, gangle trying to be honest, but ragatha trying to put it lightly and not wanting Caine to feel bad, but Jax was over this, he groans and rambles about not liking any adventures within the past few days and how if he did something like them again- "I'm getting violent, and I'm going to kill ragatha." He nods as he finishes.

Gangle just stares at him with a bit of confusion but not much, on the other hand, ragatha is not surprised but just looks at him like he stole a lollipop from a child just to stomp on the lolli. She shoves down the anger building in her chest and looks back to Caine.

As more problems pop up, zooble and Caine go sort of back and forth before they land on a 'lighting round' I guess. "What?.. like- now?!" Pomni asks with worry. Please say no-

"That's right! So grab your bones and pop your pansies! Cuz here we go!" Caine opens a portal as they all fly up into it.

"I was GONNA SLEEEEEP-" Jax manages before being cut off by the portal.

Sweet...

Chapter Text

"oh I know this one." The playful voice says, tired but intrigued. "Back on, poach every thing, we are gonna be hunting the critically indangered, red ribbon rhinoceros." The trees fly by as Jax crouches down before looking behind him.

Bingo

Jax eyes widen as his gaze lands on the rhino that looks similar to gangle, he smiles and aims his gun right at the rhino's head. "Ahh, just like mom used to make." It was weird saying the word mom. He hadn't spoken about his family at all in the circus, except to an.. old friend...

The scene unfolds like he planned, he takes the shot as his thought fades quickly, the bullet lands on one of the thin ribbon strands that outline a rhino's shape. 'NICE SHOT!' it says in the air. Huh..

Jax runs up on all fours and takes a chomp of ribbon, he shakes his head like he is tearing off a piece of meat from a stake as he growls hungrily. He stops biting the ribboned rhino and whips his mouth with the back of his yellow gloved hand. "Ah, delicious meat!"

The flamingo with a zooble head looks in disbelief and disgust, "oh my god-" they say in annoyance. But Jaxs starts up again, "one down, for to go!-" he looks side to side playfully but gets cut off by zooble. "Alright, I've had enough of this. I vote to skip, and make Jax a vegan for the rest of the day.."

Jax grins at them with an eyebrow raised, "you can't do that." But just then, everyone agrees to the vote to skip, probably unknowingly putting him in this 'vegan' situation. Just then, a leaf pops up above his head. His morals were just forcefully changed! Wha-but- how?!

"What do you mean you can do that?!" He says quickly out for shock.

"Sorry Jax! Democracy has spoken!" Caine says casually before disappearing again. Jax looks down at the ribbon he was just chewing on, pretending it was meat, now he was vegan? "Democracy sucks." He spits hatefully. They all then get sucked into another portal to a new adventure.

-----

"Wait wut? Why me?!" Pomni looks around her new office in utter confusion. "I thought a position of power suited you!" Jax states while walking out of the room. Zooble mutters to themself, "oh God, are these all gonna be Jaxs?"

Pomni looks between zooble and ragatha who are now her.. bodyguards? I guess? Kinger struts over and plops a stack of papers on pomnis office desk, as kinger rambles on in the office of political matters, pomni stares like a deer in headlights. "We-uh-how do you know what to do- wut?" She says, anxiety rising in her voice.

"Did you not get the brief?" Kinger says. "..The what now?" Pomni says confused and concerned, then ragarha buds in, "your doing great pomni!"

Kinger Yanks her under the desk, it's dark but a click turns on a.. baby head, light thingy? "we all got briefs." Kinger says slowly, then covers the side of his.. non existant mouth with his hand as he whispers, "I'm your assistant."

"Is that a baby.. head.. lamp?.."

"Didn't you get one? I figured that we all got one.. if not, then you gotta tap into those master improv skills!" Pomni glances at the paper that kinger tapped, it was his brief.. I bold was.. 'DO NOT EMBARRASS THE PRESIDENT!!' Jax put time and effort into this adventure for everyone, it was kinda.. cute?

She snaps back to kinger, "I'm sorry, wut.." there is a familiar voice that comes from outside of under the desk. "Oh yeah, I didn't give you one because I wanted to see what you would do!" Jax speaks loudly. Yeah.. cute.. "thanks Jax.. appreciate it.." pomni says sarcastically.

"I'm not Jax."

Seconds later, Jax Burst through the door, "OI MATE, IM AN AUSTRALIAN EXTREMEST AND IM VONNA SET OF THIS BOMB THAT HAS THE WORLDS MOST DEADLY SPIDERS INTO-..." Jax stares at the scene in front of him, pomni in her chair as kinger comes out from under the desk.

"Did I pick a bad time?.." Jax says while pointing to his grin as a laugh track plays in the background.

"His acting is phenomenal.. it's hard to believe he's vegan.." Caine states as bubble nods beside him.

Suspenseful music is played by the purple bunny as pomni has to choose a wire to cut, "why wouldn't the president have a BOM SQUAD?!" she snaps as she looks at Jax with the pliers in her hands.

Ragatha pops in, "don't worry! I believe in you!"

"There are centipedes in there too~" Jax says like he is mentioning the weather.

Ragatha backs up from the 'bomb', "just- uh.. be careful!" She gives a thumbs up to pomni.

"Uh- okay- but which wire do I cut?!"

"Follow your heart~"

"You stay out of this! Shouldn't you be- like arrested or something?!"

"Hey, I'm on your side here." He grins

"Your literally not.."

"Come on! Just pick your favorite color." He points at the wires.

She looks at the wires and motions her pliers to the red wire. "So the red one?" Kinger walks up and points at blue, "id personally go with blue, blue is my favorite color! It being close to black and all."

"Wouldn't that mean your favorite color is black?"

"Well no, there isn't a black wire."

...

Gangle burst in, "Hi! I'm a New Zealand extremist, and.. I don't know.. what new Zealanders... Threaten- people with..."

Jax smiles wider as he knows what's coming.

As the bomb sets off, they all go flying in different directions.

-----

All sitting in a class, they all look.. 2d? "What is this? I don't like this." Jax says as he sits up with annoyance. "Ugh, can it. At least we have one that's by someone else." Zooble scoffs and rolls their eyes at Jax.

"Yeah, nothin more fun then being back in school.."

"Just give it a chance Jax!" Ragatha says trying to be considerate towards Jax but he can hear the annoyance in her voice. Gangle doodles away silently, "there is nothing wrong with your suggestion." Zooble says while turning to look at her.

"Wha!- how did you know this was my suggestion?!" She says, embarrassed and struggling to hide her anime drawings.

Jax takes his chair and slides it over to pomnis desk and sits down. "Can you believe this pomni? First she draws anime, now she drags us all into one? She must be one of em.." he thinks for a second, "-losers." He says snarky as he finds the right word. "You threw me out of a moving truck." The jester states with a monotone voice.

"Alright class! Today we are all gonna learn the popular foreign language known as!... English?" Kinger stares at the board as he reads the symbols he just wrote fluently on the caulk board.

"This is boring, I vote to skip it."

"Shut up. We aren't skipping it." Zooble says while getting progressively more pissed.

"Slice of life animes are the worst! It's embarrassing. Well, not as embarrassing as what gangle did to that anime figure-" Jax chuckles before gangle interrupts him, "ahh! Actually we can skip this one! Just skip it!"

-----

Stars sprinkle the sky as pomni lays down by Jax who is about to close his eyes for a nap. "This is mine.. can I finally.. like, chill?" She asks him. "Uh, I guess, but I like a lil bite to my adventures."

To keep him from thinking about stuff he doesn't wanna think about, to keep him from spiraling.

His thought was thankfully interrupted by the chess piece, "then why don't you help yourself to a sand-which!" Zooble offers a plate with a few sandwich half's on it, she thanks them as they grab one and take a bite.

Jax sits up, starting past kinger. "Do you think that gangle is.. capable of being happy?"

"What?" Pomni asks curiously and partly shocked

"Well, her happy mask still breaks everyday. Does she think that zoobles gonna fix that?" He asks logically

"Maybe, she just doesn't wanna hang out with someone who is mean to her all the time!" Ragatha buds in again as she glares at Jax, who was actually being serious for once. "She like when I mean to her!" He counters. Does she? He doesn't know, it doesn't matter.

"I did think you cared what other people thought."

"Well I-... No, yeah your right. I don't" he looks away.

"Do you have any.. real friends?" Pomni asks, his eyes open a bit more as he thinks for a moment. As he is about to answer, ragatha glares at him as she murmurs, "not anymore.." she was refiring to herself and her trying to apologize and him being a jerk, but it sounded different to him, he stared at her, pissed, shocked and agitated at what he thought was the mention of his dear friend.

She quickly tried to correct herself, "wait, no- that wasn't mean! I was saying that- uhhh" she quickly changed the topic as she pointed at the fireflies behind kinger, Jax watches closely with the same eyes as she walks away.

"What was that about?" Pomni asks

"It's... Nothing." He flops back down on the digital grass. "Who cares.."

He closes his eyes for a moment before huffing and looking up at the star speckled sky. "Doesn't she get in your nerves at times?" He asks pomni, curious on what she thought.

"She's nice.." she shrugs, not wanting to sound rude, even if she sometimes get on her nerves.

"I don't know, I think she tries way to hard to get one everyones good side- like, we are stuck in here- why are you always pretending that it's always fine? Like, if you tell someone they are loved and appreciated every day, it.. kinda loses all meaning.. " He spews out. It made a lot of sense, his point and argument. Logical. Serious... And pomni agreed with him.

"It just feels like she is trying to take advantage of you, y'know?.. I don't know.." he adds on more, he lays there, eyes closed for a moment before sitting up, "also, she is dumb and she looks weird!" He smiles

"I think we all look weird." Pomni smiles

Jax stands, "excuse you. This is what peak male performance looks like! My ears and tail are kinda a pinacal of masculinity."

She raises an eyebrow, "you don't have a tail.." she points out

"What are you talking about? Or of course I do-" he looks back but doesn't see a bunny tail. "Wha, what happened to my tail?! Where did it go!?" He spins around, trying to get a better angle.

She chuckles, "I never seen you with a tail.."

He plops back down on the grass, defeated and confused, "when could that have even..?"

She chuckles sweetly, it was cute and infectious, Jax snapped out of it and looked at the adorable jester, he started to laugh too as they both layed down again and pomni stared at the stars while Jax closes his eyes in exhaustion, but still smiling. Pomni glanced at him, he was relaxed and peaceful, she smiled more seeing him like that while he took a nap.

Cute...

Chapter Text

Hey chat, I've been super tired lately and still need to finish some school work, so I will try and post tomorrow but don't be shocked if I don't. I will try
I hope you all understand
Stay alive, and enjoy it★

Chapter Text

Well after the whole bar and softball situation, they were all feeling pretty tired from being soaked and then thrown into a doozy of more odd adventures, even if it was from the suggestion box.

Jax heads for the couch and plops down heavily, it bouncing before settling to be still. The others still coming out of the portal, zooble and gangle chatting absentmindedly about a anime they like and kinger heading off his pillow fort.

Ragatha looks at pomni and opens her mouth but shuts it after realizing that pomnis gaze landed on the one and only

Jax.

Ragatha looks around for someone else to talk to but doesn't see anyone, she slowly walks over to pomni and placing a hand on her sholder.

Pomni flinches at the sudden contact of the dolls hand on her shoulder. "Ah, sorry. I was-uh do you wanna hang out?" The ragdoll asks politely but her gaze keeps switching between the jester and the bunny.

Pomni looks away for a moment, "well Jax said that he wanted to show me something, I was just about to go ask him about it." She smiles and makes eye contact with ragatha, "I'm sure your welcome to join!" The jester messes with one of the pom-poms hanging off her hat.

Ragatha winces at the suggestion, "uh, he seems pretty tired. We can hang out untill he is awake and ready!" She says in a forced cheerful tone while trying to look wmaway from pomnis face that now seems to be in a mix of confusion and hesitation.

"Well, maybe later than. I'm gonna go.. talk to Jax." Pomni says at she looks back up at ragatha. Ragatha looks crushed but as soon as pomni turns to go over to Jax, ragatha grits her teeth as she holds back tears. Why did pomni like him so much? He was a jerk!

She shakes her head and heads for her room to pick back up on her crocheting project she left off on.

★★★★★

Pomni waltz over to the half asleep purple bastard on the couch, she slightly tapped his forehead to wake him up, "mmmph, 5 more minutes.." he mumbles while rolling on his side, which evidently ended with his tall figure rolling off the small couch and landing with various mixtures of stars and birds swirling around his head.

Pomni looked at his cartoon stance, well more cartoon than usual and began to snort while trying to bite back a laugh, then turned into a chuckle. Jax sat up and shook his head and playfully glared at her which make her chuckle turn into a laugh. Cute...

Wait what.

Never mind that, "wha- what was that for, you couldn't let me sleep for five minutes?" He smirked at her as he stood up and slipped the imaginary dust off his overalls.

Pomni huffed as her laughs died down to a smirk as she answered him. "Well, that thing in the hall you wanted to show me?" She said, her smirk now replaced by curiosity. Jax looked at her like she was crazy before the memory of them talking at the bench wenched it's way back into his mind, "ah." He said like he just realized the answer to a math equation. "Yeah, let's go before I forget and lose track of you."he leaned down to her eye level as he taunted her, she rolled her eyes and playfully shoved his head aside.

"Hurry up bunny boy."

He stared at her like he just won a lottery without even trying, "bunny boy?" He asked with his eyebrow raised as he chuckled at the new nickname.

"Your a bunny, your a boy. Bunny boy." She shrugged. "Now hurry it up before I think of a worse one." Pomni smirked.

Jax bit back a laugh before he sighed and stood up fully. "Alrighty pompom, let's go."

★★★★★

They made their way down the hall, past all the doors rambling about whatever came to mind, ragatha heard from her room and quickly tried to refocus on whatever she was doing and ignore.

Jax and pomni walked past their doors, then kafmos, Jax caught a glimpse of it when looking at pomni, he bit back a scowl and just looked ahead. Pomni didn't seem to notice but as they passed the last 2 doors, she caught a glimpse of neon green out of the corner of her eye, she turned her neck slowly to look at the door she hadn't seen before.

A frog, smiling with rosey cheeks like hers, a pink bowtie and a big read X over the portrait, just like with the other abstracted members. She turned to Jax who seemed to follow her gaze and land on the door too, but instead of confusion or curiosity like she expected, it was recognition.

She could read his cartoony features pretty well and see that he didn't wanna talk about, or avoid the topic entirely. "They seem cool." She said sweetly before acting like she didn't see the way Jax released the air he had been holding in his lungs. As he relaxed and added a comment that came out softer than he probably intended, "they do.."

Chapter Text

They keep walking, Jax shaking off that feeling of dread and guilt as he glanced at pomni. They get into some playful disagreement on the person with the coolest room the the circus, "well I've never seen kingers room, he is always in his fort. And I've never seen yours." She says glancing up at him, Jax straightens up at the mention of his room, he shakes his head before deflecting. "Yeah, kinger is always in his fortress, I honestly don't know how he keeps the pillows together.."

Pomni catches on that he is trying to change the topic away from him and his room but the question does sit in the back of her head while she ponders about kingers building technique.

"Uhhh, maybe glue?" She eheugs, searching Jaxs face for an answer, Jaxs face contorts into something close to intense concentration and confusion. "How does he do it?.." Jax brings a hand to his head before he looks up and sees the door labeled, 'weewoo' on the front.

"Why does it say-" Jax cuts in to her sentence, "I have no idea." He walks forward and pulls a key out of his front pocket and slides it into the key hole, it makes a 'click' sounds as he turns it and the door opens slightly, pomni lifts an eyebrow at him.

He walks to the door and holds it open for her, "ladies first~" his voice dripping with meschivous intent. She looks at him skeptically, before walking forward into the door, Jax smirks wider and lets go of the door, it wings into her back as she flies forward to the ground. He smirks that he was able to pull that trick twice as she lets himself step out onto the ground where pomni is currently laying.

★★★★★

She rubs her temples as her eyes focus on the big bunny paws in front of her face, she shakes her head and looks up to see the digital sky and Jax leaning on the railing of the balcony, he looks down at her and chuckles, "honestly pompom, I'm floored." He says smugly, she groans and proops herself up and grabs onto the railing that Jax is leaning on.

She stares at his smage face, she kinda just wanted to tackle him, not because she hated him, but to get him back. She rolled her eyes but something caught her gaze, a ladder? She turned to it and messed with a pompom from her hat, a bad habit she has picked up ever since she got to the circus.

"What's that?" She points out to Jax, he turns to her with a raised eyebrow before noticing her pointing finger and following her gaze. He smirks to himself at he begins walking over, "took you a while to noti- WHOA-" he slammed his face into the floor, pomni chuckles as she puts her leg back beside her other one as she acts like she wasn't the one to cause Jaxs fall.

"Whoa! Jax! When did you get down there?" She says in mock surprise while stifling back a chuckle.

"Hardy har har." He says while getting up and brushing the digital dust off on his overalls, "very funny wize guy." He rolls his eyes as he head for the ladder without tripping over something this time.

"Thank you, I am very wize!" Pomni says as she follows him to the ladder, basically mocking him, he rolled his eyes as be began climbing.

★★★★★

Ugh, this is taking to long.. he finally reaches the top of the ladder and climbs on the top of the circus tent, see you would think that it had physics like fabric but Caine left it as a solid, so it was like walking on carpet because he decided to try and make it close to fabric. That what Jax thinks at least.

He looks back over to the ladder at pomni reaches the top and hesitantly steps onto the top of the circus, much to her surprise, it's like walking on carpet. She walks over to where Jax had sat down and started starting at the mostly purple and blue sky that's sprinkled with stars.

Jax leans back and puts both hands behind his head to act as a pillow for him, he stares at the moon who is currently sleeping, pomni slowly sits down by next to him and just hugs her legs to her chest.

There's a tight tug at Jaxs heart, or like someone just dug a hole in his stomach, "you alright there?.." his tone sly but his face isn't a cocky smile like usual, his mouth is closed, his eyes half closed and his black pupils smaller than before.

He regrets his words until he hears a soft and warm voice, "yeah, just reminds me of when I would stargaze with my little brother.." he hears a sniffle come from the jester as her hand goes up to her face and whips fine tears that have spilled from her eyes.

His chest twists in knots as he tries to find comforting words but his brain pushing them down, he takes a deep breath and calms his voice of any cocky tone, "what was he like?"

Pomnis eyes widen slightly as she looks back at the bunny, his usual smile now a softer genuine smile as his eyes stay fixated on her. She turns her body fully twords him and sets her chin on her knees, "he was about 3 years younger than me, I can't recall his name but I know he was super obsessed with pokemon, he loved all the games and would ramble on to me about his card collection. He was in marching band like me throughout highschool and he played flute while I had played trumpet. After our parents had left us, I would drive us to a hill every Saturday night, we would lay on the hood of the car and just watch the stars as we both told each other what was happening while he was finishing highschool and I was working at the supermarket."

Jax stayed quiet even as her lip quivered as she pushed back tears, she set a hand down on the roof to steady herself. she continued, "Him and be would call once a week even after we both got our own places, I can't imagine how he feels right now. His sister goes missing after our parents leave us?.." she chokes on a sob and looks up at the sky, "I miss him..." She feels a soft finger tracing circles on the outside of her glove, she looks down in the dim light that comes off the moon to see Jaxs arm extended and his hands tracing circles on the backside of her hand. Usually she doesn't like physical touch, but she didn't move her hand. She stayed there and let tears fall down her face as Jax comforted her. Ever so slightly, but yet it helped so much..

Chapter Text

At one point in the emotional night, after pomni explained for hours about her life she can remember outside of the circus, they slipped into a comfortable silence and pomni fell asleep while they stargazed.

Jax didn't share anything about himself, he put all his undying attention on to the jester that always slips into his mind. He just listened, and after she fell asleep he felt closer to her, but that voice, 'really? You're gonna go abstract someone else now?'

His eyes shrank, he had been staring at the orange and pink seeping into the digital sky above the, but now his vision was blurs. His eyes caught a glimpse of pomni moving in her sleep. His vision cleared as he looked at her. He looked back up the sky before sitting up and looking at the latter, then at pomni.

'Just leave her up here. Push her away before it happens again'

He shivers at the thought of losing her. stares at her, longer than he should before he quietly grabs onto the latter and descends it slowly while keeping his gaze on her before continuing down the latter. His feet- well, paws hit the balcony and look back up to see if she was staring down at him. He shakes his head as he heads inside the circus while trying to clear his mind. He thought about going to his room but he really didn't wanna be left with his voice blabing to him, so he instead went into gangles room. She was curled up, like a ball of ribbon, Jax walked over to the edge of the bed and saw he happy mask was back on, like it has a regeneration mechanic. He grabs it off her face without her waking and walks out of her room and closes the door. He then, having the mask in his pocket heads to kingers room, he unlocks it without caring if he woke kinger. He knew kinger spends every night in his pillow fort.

He walks in to find a royal styled bedroom, purple and red being reoccurring colors. Most likely because during the rule of kings and queens in medieval times, red was popular and purple was scarce, used by the rich. The bed had a fluffy canopy and it seems that all the pillows on the bed were missing, but a comforter stayed neat at the foot of the bed. The room had many royal themed parts to it, old and vintage it seems, like it's worth a lot. Even though we don't have currency in the digital world.

Jax wonders while looking at the room, a seemingly bigger room than the others. He spots a.. dresser? He didn't know how to explain it but the wood looked expensive too. He opened it to find many apon many varieties of bugs. His gaze falling on a specific 2.

★★★★★

He waltzed out of kingers room with two large jars filled almost to the brim with spiders and centipedes. He had overheard gangle chatting to ragatha about her being scared of spiders while ragatha shared about hating centipedes when gangle joined the circus. Using this knowledge he kept in his brain, he made his way back to gangles room and fed the spiders from the jar through the gap at the bottom of gangles door. After making sure they all went through the Gap in the door, he stood up and glanced around to make sure nobody had saw him do it. He then turned around to face the doll's door. He walked over and does what he usually does, empties the jar of centipedes through the gap at the bottom of the door. He tosses both glass jars to the floor and looks at zoobles room, contemplating what to do to piss them off today. He grabbed zoobles key from his pocket and feeds it through the lock and 'clicks' it open. He turns the door handle and walks over to zoobles bed, already finding an idea in mind. He disconnects their right leg and puts it in the bin with their other parts, then the left lag gets tossed into the bin too. Along with the arms, he carefully disconnects their neck from their bean shaped torso. He grins in satisfaction at the work he has done, he grabs the torso and puts it in the toy bin, not wanting to touch their head so he doesn't wake them. He grabs the bin and exits, making sure to lock the door so nobody can get it without a key. He then goes to places around the circus that people don't usually check to spread around the limbs before placing the bean shaped torso on the couch where people would most likely find it.

He chuckles to himself as he imagines all of their reactions, oh he forgot someone...

KINGER OF COURSE!

He walks over and removes one pillow, causing the whole fort to collapse onto the king. Surprisingly, the chess piece didn't stir, just stayed there. Jax watched for a reaction before he rolled his eyes and headed to the hall again, he walked past all their rooms, grinning from ear to ear before he stopped as his eyes caught on the jesters door, he stopped dead in his tracks, his shit eating grin now feeling a lot more forced. He pulled another key from behind his back and slid it into the keyhole and unlocked it slowly. The door slowly slid open after he let go of the handle and nudged it slightly. Red and blue everywhere with yellow accents. He looked around the room to find a bunch of building blocks scattered, but some places in a stair formation by her shelf which made him chuckle. He gathered all the building blocks and placed them on top of her tall dresser, knowing that will cause minor inconveniences for the jester in the future. He glanced at the clock on her nightstand, '7:45am' he smiled and walked out of pomnis room, as he locked it, he heard a blood curling scream come from the door in the middle of the long corridor. He smiled wider as he heard the ragdoll stream for help, "JAAX, WHAT THE F★CK!!!" She yelled. he began walking down the hall with his hands behind his head as he struts past ragathas door.

He stood at the end of the hall while looking back at all the rooms while waiting for more recreations, soon gangle began wailing from her room and Jax could just imagine how zooble tried to sit up after hearing gangle scream, only to soon then realize that they are missing all their parts.

Jax rubs his hands together as he hears kingers yell in distress, which the yell was short lived after he saw a bug. But Jax enjoyed it while it lasted and the made his way to the dining area.

★★★★★

The cool digital air shifted pomnis hair, it gently being swooped to the side, she sat up to see the sun still rising, where the sky is a nice warm yellow and orange but you can still see the blue in the sky. She looks to her left where the lengthy rabbit should have been, but she wasn't surprised to not see him there.

'i wish he was still here' she thought.

Last night, her stomach had that sinkhole, but Jax had helped ease that pit in her stomach. It made her heart twist painfully with gratitude because it was odd to have someone care for her, it felt good. other than her brother, nobody worried for her, they assumed, 'oh, she is mature enough, everything for her is going well!' and the fact she knew that's what they were thinking made her pissed.

She sighed and looks to the theme park, 'maybe we could go there for an adventure and me and Jax could go on some rides!' the thought made her smile, she still didn't understand why Jax kept popping up in her train of thought more often but she didn't think about it too much.

She stood up and made her way to the latter, just as she touched the wood, she heard a shriek from a familiar doll. It had startled her, she ended up falling forward and almost falling of the roof back onto the balcony, which is an estimated 35ft drop, she wasn't afraid of heights of anything but falling from 35ft doesn't sound very appealing. She had grabbed on with one hand to the edge of the roof, she swung her other hand up and used both to shuffle twords the latter. she hooked her foot on the side and grabbed on. She made her way down the latter while occasionally looking up and then back down. Her feet hit the floor and then heard another shriek from a well known artist in the circus. She groaned, already knowing this was probably Jaxs doing, she made her way back inside and hopped down from the stacked blocks and made multiple turns before reaching the main area.

She glanced around to see the bunny eating with his shit eating grin plastered on his face in satisfaction all while the screams continued, his eyes went from his food to her after noticing she entered, she thought his grin couldn't get any wider, but he proved her wrong. She rolled her eyes as he stared at her, obviously proud, a small smile creeped at the corner of her mouth before forcing it down. She followed the sound of the sounds of terror while passing by the collapsed pillow fortress, kinger waved to her as he rebuilt it, she waved to him while smiling and pointing in the direction of screaming, "uhh, after I'm done, I'll come back and help you rebuild you fort. Okay?" She helt 2 thumbs up out to him, "ah! That would be wonderful, Thank you pomni." She smiled. "No problem." Her attention got caught by another shriek, "I'll be back!" She waved frantically before speed walking in the direction of the hall, he waved before looking at his fortress in silence. "...AHH- oh a butterfly!"

She stopped in front or ragathas door, she tried the doorknob and it opened, the floor scattered with centipedes, some starting to crawl on her bed. Ragatha frantically ran out of the room once she saw a clear path and got as far away from the centipedes while panting in exhaustion. "Thank.. you." Ragatha said between panting and looking back up. Pomni gave a thumbs up before stepping over some centipedes and opening gangles door, which seemed to open just fine, gangle was curled up on canopy pole. Her comedy mask missing and spiders crawling everywhere. These bug pranks were getting tiring. Pomni walked in and got gangle on her back and basically let her get a piggyback ride so she wouldn't worry about the spiders. She out her down over by ragatha. She then went over to zoobles door and tried to open it, zooble was swearing like a sailor, "zooble, we will get you out, but what happened?" Pomni asked exasperated. "I'm missing all my limbs and torso so I can't get up, I swear when I find Jax I'm gonna kick the absolutely sh★t outta him!" Zooble added. Pomni nodded even though zooble couldn't see her from outside the door, "I'll be back. ragatha! Gangle!" Pomni called for them while waving them over, she explained the situation quickly, and both nodded quickly.

As they descended the stairs, ragatha looked at the lounge area with all the couches and spotted zoobles torso, "well I see their torso!"

She ran over while lifting her dress carefully, she grabbed it and met up with pomni and gangle. They made their way to see Jax eating, he wiped his mouth and grinned wider to see all of them standing their, "Jax, can I have zoobles key?" Pomni asked expectantly, he pondered for a moment. "Hmmm, why not?" He plopped the key in her hand, ragatha piped up in anger. "She literally had to give gangle a piggyback ride to get her out of her spider infested bedroom! What's wrong with you!!!" Ragatha grabbed her yarn hair and tugged at it in frustration.

Jax rolled his eyes and lazily looked at pomni, who didn't seem too dazed by all of this. "Really pompom? Giving out free piggyback rides?" He smirked, she let a small smirk play at the corner of her lips, "maybe I'll give you one, maybe I'll give You corn." She said playfully as she walked away, the others didn't see the way his sholders slumped.

'he is adorable... Wait a second-'

Chapter Text

"ragatha, you go find some part, Im sure Jax put them somewhere in the circus. Gangle, you go open zoobles door and grab their head, we all meet at the lounge once we are done." Pomni instructs to them, ragatha nods her head, "well, what about you?" Gangle asks softly. "Jax pranked kinger so I'm going to go help him." She smiles, gangle nods and starts walk in a different direction to head to the hall. Ragatha begins looking around, finding a left leg, then a left arm, then another left leg..

★★★★★

Jax shakes his head and grumbles at her comment about corn. Egh..

He stands up and begins walking over to kingers what used to be fortress. Pomni rounds the corner and waves to kinger, and he waves back to her. Jax stops dead in his tracks, pomni smiles sweetly, "uh, how do you connect the pillows?" Kinger raises an eyebrow before realizing, "ohh, you just place them there, for some reason it just stays." He shrugs as he smiles with his eyes. Jax watched this and gave the same look that pomni did twords kinger, "how did you find this out?" Kinger looks up from placing a pillow. "Find out what?"pomni sighs and lets out a small laugh, "nevermind." Jax watched this unfold like how his pranks unfolded.

"tsk.." Jax spun on his heel and turned the other way, but of course he saw ragatha, she picked up a right arm and looked over at him, she glared at him and he just smiled, forced and annoyed.

He decided to take the fall and walk in the direction he just turned away from, pomni noticed him walk by, she stuck her foot out like she usually does. He tries to act nonchalant as he walks past her like she doesn't exist. But as he falls and hears her sugar sweet laugh, it makes all of his anger melt away. He plays along and props his head up on his arms as he looks at her from the floor. "Well, thanks for the nap pompom." He grins and winks.

He unknowingly makes pomnis heart flutter, yet she doesn't understand why it does. She smirk, "alright bunny boy." She says at she places the last pillow and reaches for another pillow only to miss. She stares at the floor then recognition flies onto her face. "Thank you for your help pomni!" Kinger says, pomni nods.

Kinger then realized Jax was there. Jax raised an eyebrow amusingly. "...AHHH"

★★★★★

About an hour had passed, zooble got put back together and everyone was roaming the circus until Caine appeared for another adventure.

Pomni and Jax had been strolling around the circus, Jax occasionally causing shenanigans as they walked and chatted mindlessly. Pomni did most the talking as Jax added some comments here and there, anytime pomni would ask about Jax he would deflect and redirect, pomni noticed and was gonna confront him after like the 10th time-

'plop'

Zoobles arm landed right in there path, Jax was the first out of the two to look up and see zooble hanging out of a.. hanging pot?

"Making good use of your removable parts gimmick, huh?" He asked as soon as it popped in his head. "Ugh, could you just toss it back up here?"

"Well what are you doing up there?" Pomni asked, curiosity spewing before she could think to help zooble. "I'm hiding from Caine, he said something about an 'in house adventure'" they did air quotes as they said it, with the only one arm they have."and I'm not gonna be a part of it!" They say quickly before plopping back down in the pot.

Pomni thinks for a moment before nodding in agreement, then asking another question. "Why not hide in your room?" At that, zooble pokes their head out from above again, "I have, but every time I do.." zooble looks from side to side, like they are expecting Caine to round to the corner any minute now, "..he starts singing Daisy bell outside my door, it's creepy." A shiver runs down their spine. Jax chuckles and smirks wider at them. "Is that so? Well why don't we ask Caine! HEY CAAAAINE!!!" Jax calls out, the shout echoing in the vast colorful circus. "JAX YOU F★CKING ★SSHOLE-"

Caine comes speeding around the corner and skids mid air to a stop. "Hmmm, yes Jax?"

"Hey look! It's Zooble!" He says cartoonishly as he dramatically points to zooble. Pomni watches Jax out zooble in such a comical way, she can't help but chuckle. It was louder than intended. So much so that Caine and zooble stared at her for a moment while Jax just grinned, triumph across his face. But the softness in his eyes as he stared at her, like she was a happy puppy, it was unmistakable. And zooble saw it.

His face flushed back to normal as Caine turned to zooble in the pot. "Ah ha! There you are!" He snaps his fingers and the pot shatters, not normally but like it was made in graphic design. Which again, isn't wrong. Zoobles fell and landed like a star fish. But no limbs got unattached! Except for the one that was already in unattached. "I'll meet you guys by the stage in.." the teeth checked his non existent watch before speaking again. "..5.7 minutes!" And just like that, he zooms away just as fast as he zoomed over here.

Zoobles lifts their head up groggily and uses their hand that they still have on to run their head, the pain of the impact quickly subsides and their vision lands on Jax.

"..wait... You didn't even ask him about the song!" They say in annoyance as they sit up.

Jaxs face morphs into confusion, pomni can't even tell if he is faking the ignorance or if he actually already forgot.

"The what?"

Chapter Text

They all eventually met at the stage like caine had asked, zooble obviously arriving last. They weren't very thrilled for this adventure, they usually never are. Especially if it's an 'in the House' adventure. "Can you catch a break?" Zooble groans from the corner. "NOPE, TODAY YOUR ADVENTURE IS A TEAM ADVENTURE-"

"Yup, nope, got to stop you there." Zooble gestures over at the bright purple rabbit. "Not going to be on a team with him"
Jax smiles and waves at zooble from where he was standing, which was over by the pillar.

"WELL ANYWAY, OUT ADVENTURE IS A BOX THAT NOBODY CAN SEE OR HEAR INSIDE, AND THIS! IS A LOADED GUN!" Caine held out the gun as if it were his cane. A small "Wut" came from pomni as gangles mask slid off her face and shattered to the floor. Caine snapped his fingers, repairing gangles mask as it lay now unbroken at her ribbon feet. A few beats of silence pass before Caine starts up again. "1 OF THE 2 OF YOU WILL ENTER THE ROOM, THE 1 OUTSIDE HAS TO TRUST THE ONE INSIDE THAT THEY EMPTIED THE CHAMBER, AND THE ONE INSIDE WALKS OUT AND HANDS IT TO THE ONE OUTSIDE. THE ONE THAT WAS ON THE INSIDE HAS TO TRUST THAT THE ONE OUTSIDE WONT POINT THE GUN AT THEM. ITS A TRUST EXERCISE!!!" Confetti sprinkles around them as he finishes. Zooble begins to leave, "ZOOBLE WAIT. WHATS WRONG?" Caine says waiting for a response. Zooble sighs, "this adventure sounds like a lot and I don't wanna do it" pomni chimes in to defend zooble "yeah! Me and zooble constantly say we like more chill and relaxed adventures. The suggestion box was also nice!"

"THE SUGGESTION BOX JUST CAUSES INTERPERSONAL DRAMA, and me no likey." The dentures says and he pouts and turns away. "SAY THAT TO HIM!!" zooble yells frantically while waving their hands in the direction of Jax, in which he blows a kiss to antagonize zooble.

"Zooble, why is all you do is complaining? I never know what you want!!" Caine says, clearly show the was upset. Zooble groans, especially as Jax walks up and flicks their intena. They then glance at gangle which flips a switch in their brain, "you really wanna know what I want? I want the ability to have s★x."

Jaxs mouth falls open as zooble says this, already knowing that zooble was trying very hard not to look at gangle. "No way." He laughs, "are we finally having this conversation!?" He says before his mind wanders to pomni, he never thought about her like that, her being in his sheet- NOPE, LETS SHUT THAT DOWN.

caine looks at zoobles, tilting his head like a confused dog, "I don't know what that means but okay!" Caine snaps his fingers and nobody notices anything changed. "ANYWAY, LETS BEGIN, JAX YOU GO FIRST!" caine shoves the revolver in jaxs gloves hands, Jax snaps out of his thoughts (*cough cough* POMNI *Cough*) and looks at the revolver. "Wait what, I wasn't paying attention.." he says dryly, Caine flys over and grabs his eyes, the visual flys through his vision, after that, Caine flys back to give Jax room to do what Caine planned.

Jax looked at the gun, calculating. "Ah.." he lifted it and shot ragatha square in the temple. Caine looked at him in disbelief, then blandly. "Or, yeah we could just shoot each other." He spawns a pile of guns already being teleported to places around the circus. "Are you serious?! Heres guns, have fun?!"

"I never said have fun"

"It just seems a little aimless.."

"Use the sites"

"Caine!?"

"UGH, FINE. WE ARE BRINGING BACK PARTNERS. GANGLE AND ZOOBLE. POMNI AND JAX. RAGATHA AND KINGER"

Jaxs eyes widen as he looks over at pomni who is already staring at him. He chuckles a bit as she smiles.

Ragatha looks at pomni and sighs in disappointment. She looks at the man letting a caterpillar inch across his finger as he watches, seemingly amazed and doesn't notice that ragatha has hopped back in fear.

Gangle smiled widely as she made her way to zooble, which zooble was pleased at the arrangement.

"NOW, THE GUNS ARE SCATTERED AROUND THE MAP, YOU ALL HAVE 3 LIVES EACH. ENJOY!" Caine flies up and pops like a bubble as they all are teleported to a random part of the circus.

★★★★★

Jax and pomni look around to find that they are in the hallway, they search for some guns and pomni finds a small pistol and Jax finds the same revolver that he used to shoot ragatha. "Who you gonna kill first pompom?" The same nickname has been used multiple times in the past, "maybe you" she says while smirking.

"An honor, truly." He says while dramaticly leaning on a box and putting the back of his gloved Hand to his forehead as he glanced at her.

"Tsk, Kay bunny boy" she said while pointing the gun at some cans that randomly appeared. She aimed and shot one can down with ease. Jaxs heart skipped a beat at that, he found that so attractive, her confidence, the way the she held the smoking gun. She smiled and shrugged. "What's done is done."

He smirks and shoots, hitting it but not making it fall, she walked over and corrected his finger placement, he tried again and he hit it and it knocked down that can. "D★mn, didn't know you were good with a gun like that pom!" He smiles wider, she shrugs, "wouldn't you like to know bunny boy." He felt like his heart might be beating so fast that he could have a digital heart attack. But he didn't know why..

★★★★★

The chaotic duo go looking around the circus before hearing a familiar yelp as the sound of a gun being shot. They rush over and pomni sees kinger run away from ragatha was headed to hide. Pomni ran after kinger with her short legs, so Jax ran after ragatha..

"Howdy howdy!" He says while dropping from the ceiling. "AH, I-I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH POMNI!!!" she shouted in a panic.

What in the hell was this girl on about??? "Huh?.." he tilted his head to the side and he stared at her. She looks around nervously before gaining courage, "you are gonna manipulate her like you did with kafmo.. and ribbit..."

Jaxs pupils dilate as the name rings out of her mouth. His ears flatten against the back of his head as he starts clicking the pistol, he shoots her and fluff flies every as she soon disappears. She only had one life? Zooble probably shot her earlier. He could care less, but he stood there, clicking the trigger on the empty gun over and over and over.

It was his fault.

Pomni walks down the corridor of colors and spots Jax, she stands up straight and stops behind him. She sees him clicking the empty gun over and over, not being able to see his face, she assumed there was a big grin plastered on his face. "Bud, I think shes gone." Pomni chuckles softly as she begins to lean on the wall, Jax with his iconic grin turns to her. "Dollface is gone, what about the nutcase?" Pomni smirks, "1 life to go for him"

Jax smiles wider, "let's get this adventure over with." He says as the tigs the jesters hat off her head off, "hey!- wait that can come off?" Jax stares at her hat in his hand, then her, then the hat, he places it on his own head, while his ears go in the empty space, he moves his ears and the hat looks like it has a mind of its own.

Pomni laughs at the stupidity of it and jumps just barely high enough to snatch it right off his head.

Chapter Text

As they waltz down the hall figuring out what to do next, pomni and the hare walk down a open room with doors lining the wall, the whole circus is.. a lot.. but this was calmer.

"Alright, I gotta ask" pomni says, breaking the comfortable silence. "What's with the corn thing?" Jax rolls his eyes and chuckles, "what corn thing?" He asked, even if she didn't see what happened with the corn she could still tell he was lying just because of his hand figiting but the side of his leg.

"Don't play dumb, you literally jumped out of your chair 2 times because of it!" She holds up 2 fingers and waves them back and forth, catching the attention of his eyes.

"Pfft, name them." He says confidently like that would help.

"The bar with kingers 'corn cob blitz' and the softball game while you were wearing the dress." She says smartly as she stares into his soul like she just uncovered blackmail, which she did.

"Damn it.." he looks away, not angry at her, how could he be angry at her? Angry at himself for showing fear, he isn't supposed to be scared, just make something up.. "uhhh, I don't know, it has all these little pods, looks kinda like an eggsack or something.." he shutters at the words that leave his mouth. "It's gross, it makes my skin crawl. Egh" he spits hatefully at the image placed into his head.

"Ah, wait do you have trypophobia?"

"Trypo-huh?"

"Trypophobia, the fear of lots of little holes."

Images of multi different colored eyes stare back at him, ribbit... Only Jax knew why he was scared of little holes, the pitch black, the dip as the eye shines before it stares back down on him, chasing him. He didn't run, he wish he was sent to the pit with ribbit. God damn it...

"Whoa!- ack..." Jax rubs his head and pushes himself off the tile floor, "what was that for?" He sneers at pomni, but not angry. She smirks but there is a hint of concern behind it. "You weren't answering me, so I tripped you." She says proudly.

Jax sit up and rubs his face before looking at her and both chuckling. "But seriously, you alright there?" Pomni asks, her voice laced with pity. Egh, he hates pity.. "just peachy pompom." He smirks and shoots a playful wink her way and she rolls her eyes. "Jax, stop defectin-" they both stop as they feel a presence.

"I'm right behind you, aren't I?" The old man's voice says from behind Jax, they whip around and start firing bullets to the dark room which kinger had retreated to.

They step into the room and close the door behind them as they lock themselves in the room with a crazy old man with a gun.

Sounds like a great idea!