Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He had no idea what was going on.

Everything felt too heavy and disoriented.

Ever since Pomni joined the circus all he could feel was a burning sensation in his throat. At first it started out mild, heartbeat elevating, pupils dilating, but then one day his throat started to burn badly. He remembers the first time it happened, the absolute shock and confusion when he coughed and out came a few flowers and blood. He was alone in his room thankfully, but still had so many questions. He ended up researching on his own, not wanting to ask Caine by any means. He vaguely remembers hearing something about coughing flowers in one of those shitty mangas Gangle rambles on about constantly. When everyone’s gone, he sneaks into her room with ease and looks through her sketchbooks, trying to find any sort of answer.

He stumbles across some doodles from a manga that looks promising, Gangle seems to have drawn some sort of comic. He reads through it, gathering something about some character having a rare disease where they cough up flowers and the flowers grow in their lungs until it slowly overtakes them and kills them, the cause being unrequited love.

“Ha-hanahaki?” He reads aloud. Unrequited love? But he doesn’t like anyo-… and then it dawns on him. He didn’t think he was genuinely capable of feeling this way, but it’s the only explanation.

He lives with this realization for months, having to excuse himself whenever Pomni’s around, feeling burning in his throat, the constant flower petals overtaking his lungs. It was exhausting, still no idea how this disease is possible to have in the circus. However, what eats him up the most is the way his heart clenches for Pomni.

One day he was chilling with the whole crew, nothing out of the ordinary. Zooble being annoyed, Gangle drawing, Ragatha tryna include everyone, and Kinger being his usual silly self. Jax starts walking over to the couch to sit down, Kinger sees Jax’s foot and out of nowhere a loud “AHHHHHH” echoed across the room.

“Oh-sorry, I thought that was a tarantula,” Kinger exclaims.

And then Pomni laughed.

That sweet sweet laugh, closing her eyes and putting her hand up to her mouth and all.

And that’s when Jax’s throat burned up, his stomach started twisting and turning and he felt something about to spill out of his throat, the sensation too intense to ignore. Jax clasped a hand over his mouth, quickly excusing himself and rushing to the bathroom.

Everyone else looked to each other, extremely concerned for Jax as this isn’t like him. They all are unsure if they should go after him.

“Well that was oddly polite” Zooble remarks.

Ragatha nods along as to agree with Zooble, every part of her desperately wants to go check on Jax but she’s unsure.

Zooble notices her discomfort and looks at her.

“Hey, don’t worry too much I think he tends to just get sick when he’s scared, Klinger's scream probably just startled him is all. I’ve seen it happen before” reassures Zooble.

That eases some worry in Ragatha.
“Thanks Zoob” she says with a smile, deciding to stay with the rest of the group til he gets back, although everyone is still pretty concerned for him.

Jax rushed to the bathroom, quickly locking the door behind him. He barely even got a moment to process before aggressively starting to cough. He kneels down, pulling the toilet seat up and starts gagging into the toilet. After a minute of puking into the toilet, he lifted his head exhaustedly with a groan. When he looked down he felt anxiety flare in his chest. The usual scene awaits him, flower petals and blood scattered around but this time large chunks of blood cover the toilet digital water. He sighs.

“God you’re gonna die soon” he mumbles to himself, standing up with shaky legs and rubbing his eyes.

He takes a deep breath before turning the handle and returning to the group.

*

Jax, now with his usual mask back on, starts walking over to the rest of the group. He strolls back to the lounge area and re-joins the group, sitting down on a chair.

Everyone’s eyes follow him, not sure what to say. Ragatha ends up breaking the silence.

“Uhh, hey Jax, everything ok? Kingers' scream was sure startling huh?” Ragatha laughs awkwardly.

Jax blinks at her. He hazily turns his head.
“Huh? Oh, yeah haha” he laughs it off.

The rest of the cast all look over at Jax, expressions of shock and confusion fill the room.

“Jax..are you alright? I overheard Zooble say something about nausea? It's ok we won’t judge you if that’s your worry.” Pomni exclaims with a reassuring smile.

Jax’s heart clenches. Another round coughing starts up and he chokes into his elbow. He plays it off as just a usual cough, pulling back his arm, blood splotches get stuck to his fur. Ragatha being the closest one to him notices the blood, panic filling her body. She doesn’t want to alarm the others, she quickly turns her head as Jax wipes his arm and puts it behind his back.

Ragatha's hands fold in her lap, fidgeting with her hand slightly.

“Yeah I'm all good pom pom” he replies in his usual goofy masked tone. It sounds almost too convincing, convincing enough to fool almost everyone. The sight of Jax coughing up blood is still fresh in Ragatha’s mind, she makes a plan to ask him about it later when everyone’s gone. Even if Jax will brush it off and get annoyed, she has to know.

They all continue to hang out for the next little bit, Jax able to keep his usual persona but still averts his gaze from Pomni to avoid another incident. They're all laughing til the digital sun goes down, replaced by the digital moon. That’s the sign for everyone to start making their way to their bedrooms, even if not to sleep they all enjoy keeping some resemblance of life before the circus.

Jax stands up with a stretch. Everyone else starts heading to bed, Pomni and Kinger making casual conversation and Gangle excitedly showing Zooble her art she worked on during the chill time.

Ragatha stays behind, standing up watching Jax stretch. She braces herself, mentally preparing what she wants to say.
She reaches out her hand, about to say something before both her and Jax whip their heads around when they see Kinger sprinting towards Jax. Ragatha jumps back on impulse, while Jax hops back like he’d just seen a pile of corn.

“AYE AYE-“ Jax lets out as he jumps back frantically as a suddenly hyped up Kinger darts towards his direction.

“WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR HALL PASS?!” Kinger shouts out when he finally catches up to Jax.

Pomni goes behind Kinger, tryna calm him down as when they were talking earlier Kinger kept rambling on about a past hallway monitor position or something.

“Kinger, calm down you’re not in the hallways anymore” Pomni says reassuringly, at least she hopes she is.

Jax’s fur stands up from panic. He backs away, him now actually feeling a little nauseous from the scare. He backs up, feeling confused and overwhelmed from it all, at least Kinger’s outburst distracts from Pomni’s presence.

Ragatha watches the sight unfold, not too surprised from Kinger’s antics but still a bit startled. What mostly takes her attention though, is how after hearing Pomni comfort Kinger she feels something swell up in her throat. Any plan she has to talk to Jax gets pushed back because she immediately rushes to the bathroom, starting to cough.

Praying no one noticed her leave in such a hurry, she rushes to the nearest bathroom, quickly closing the door behind her and coughing into the toilet. She gags and dry heaves, looking down in confusion and horror as a flower and blood comes out.

“Wha- what the fuck???” she whisper shouts to herself.

Her mind races, is she sick? How is she bleeding in the circus? Jax coughed blood earlier is there something going around that Caines doing, but then how the actual fuck is there a flower in her system???

Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door.

Oh no.

Chapter Text

As the sound of knocking echoes throughout the bathroom, her blood runs cold with fear of who it could be.

She then heard an annoyingly memorizable voice come out.

“Jeez Rags what’s all that noise in there for” Jax asks, hiding the concern he feels. The way she ran to the bathroom was all too familiar to him.

Ragatha quickly starts hiding the evidence, wiping her chin and flushing the toilet.

“J-just a minute, all's good in here” she stumbles out.

Jax taps his foot nervously. He needs to know if Ragathas going through what he thinks she is, maybe then he’ll get answers to why the hell they're able to have hanahaki in the circus.

Ragatha gathers herself, and slowly opens the door.

Stepping out, she faces Jax. His face cold with knowing. Ragatha freezes under his intense glare.

“You feelin sick?” he asks sternly.

Her face twists to embarrassment. *He heard that?* “Uh, yeah a little bit, but I’m ok really Jax please don’t worry an-“

“How were the flowers?”

Ragatha practically chokes. How did he know??
Ragatha stumbles on her words, not sure how to respond.

“H-how’d you-were you spying on me??? I swear to god Jax if you don’t stop having secret keys and peep holes everywhere i’m gonna-“

"Rags-" he interrupts.

Ragatha looks at him blinking, “y-yeah?”

“Look you don’t need to hide or lie with me, I understand more than you know.” he trails off.

The wheels turn in Ragatha’s brain as she’s trying to think of what that could possibly mean and how in hell he knew she coughed up flowers.

“I still don’t understand!” she exasperates.

Jax stutters to get his next words out.
Ragatha's thoughts are interrupted by the sight of Jax zoning out.

Did he give it to her somehow?

"Jax.."

God this is all his fault-

"Jax...!"

He should really just fucking die right no-

"JAX!"

He flinches, turning back to normal. He shakes his head, sighing.

"..Huh??"

Ragatha stammers her hands.

"Is..that whats been going on with you?!"

Jax doesn’t respond…

Ragatha snaps, turning to jax fully faced.

"DOES THAT MEAN EVERYTIME YOU HAD TO LEAVE, YOU WERE- oh my god- no. No- don't. Dont tell me..."

*She looks up at Jax, and by his look, he knew what she was implying.*

"Im...im sorry, rags."

Now that takes Ragatha aback, Jax apologized?? Now this is concerning.

“I-I can’t believe it…we both have some weird disease, what the #%%^ does this mean?? We’re infected, do you think it’s going around the whole circus? We gotta warn the others- warn Caine and everyone and-“

“RAGS, no we can’t tell Caine, as far as I know it can’t exactly spread, I had a thought that maybe I gave it to you but that doesn’t make sense due to the origin of the illness” Jax interrupts, trailing off sounding uncharacteristically sciency.

“So…you know what this is? What is it and why do you have it?”

Jax sighs deeply. “Well, I don’t fully understand it nor know how it transferred to the circus, but I did look into it…come with me.” He motions for Ragatha to go and follow him.

Ragatha nervously but wanting answers more follows him. He leads them to the bedroom hallway, watching him stop at Gangles door pulling out a key from god knows where.

“NO absolutely not we are NOT snooping about in anyone’s room!!” Ragatha stands her ground.

“Cmonnnn don’t you want answers~” Jax reply’s slyly, masking any scared emotions he has. He knows it’s only a matter of time before this disease catches up to him.

Ragathas lips purse, obviously she wants answers but sneaking around in others rooms just feels so against everything she stands by. However though…she needs to know what she’s infected with..

“Ok, fine but be quick to show me whatever you have to show me.” she complies.

Jax smiles, turning the key into the lock and opening up the door.

*

Upon stepping into Gangle's room, Jax makes quick work of finding the sketchbook where Gangle drew the hanahaki information. Hanging it to Ragatha, she flips through it confused. She reads the comic/doodles Gangle had drawn, focusing on the words trying to ignore the guilt she feels for snooping.

Her eyes stumble across a panel of someone coughing flowers. This is it she thinks to herself. More reading, she puts together the cause of the disease…

“What?! But, this can’t be possible, I don’t like anyone, so how can I have this??” Ragatha stammers out.

“Look the facts are you have to like someone, the cause for all those flowers you’re coughing is literally unrequited love, so don't try to lie to me dollface.” He exclaims crossing his arms.

“But Jax i’m being serious!! I don’t feel any sort of romance towards anyone here as far as I know”

“Well there has to be someone, cmon nobody really? What about me~”

“Yeah no”

“Alright, long shot, and i’m assuming not Kinger?”

She shakes her head no.

“Okkkk Zooble?”

Another head shake.

“Errr Gangle?”

Yet another head shake.

“Pomni?”

Ragatha doubles over and starts coughing.

Jax’s eyes widened. His cocky side wants to say yupp there it is, but his initial feelings are one of shock. No way she likes her, they both like Pomni??
Silence fills the air as they both sit with the realization that Ragatha's feelings are for Pomni, and Ragatha didn’t even realize until now.

Jax initially isn’t even upset that she likes the same person he does, he feels more sullen at the fact they’re both infected with this.. somehow all this feels like his fault. Even if he had more jealousy, he knows he’s gonna die soon anyways.

Ragatha clutches the side of Gangle's dresser, pulling her hand away from her mouth to reveal a flower.

Jax stares down at her hand, letting out a big sigh.

“You really didn’t know huh? Eh well now both our secrets are out, you’ll get more used to it.” he says nudging her playfully, tryna pull her outta her trance.

Ragatha’s eyes fall onto him. She thinks about how long he’s been dealing with this…how long he’s had to hide this alone. She’s only coughed twice and she’s already exhausted. She doesn’t even think about the fact he also likes Pomni, all she can think about is how it all adds up now. The leaving abruptly, the tiredness, it all makes sense now and here he is still smiling? How can he continue with this act?? God she’s really failed him. Eh it can’t be too long he’s dealt with this though, him saying that they're in this together at least gives her some kinda reassurance, surely they’ll be ok eventually, maybe it goes away?

“Yeah, I guess we are in this together huh..thanks Jax” she replies with a smile.

“Yeah yeah enough of that, let’s get a move on before crybaby finds us.” he flicks his wrist and leads the way out of Gangle’s room.

*

Over the next few days Ragatha and Jax start hanging out with each other more, getting closer one would even say. It’s not that they’re completely buddy-buddy all of a sudden, but they’re seen together more and have more respect for each other now. It’s nice to have a mutual understanding with each other, and have someone help each other when the random cough attacks hit. It’s also easier to hide the flowers now.

“So you’re telling me that even if it’s a simple blink or head change than normal you’ll start feeling the cough coming? Jeez that’s actually wild Jax” Ragatha laughs as she walks alongside Jax down the circus hallway.

“Ha yup, pretty crazy honestly” he replies as they both step into the main lobby.

The others are all chillin and hanging out, everyone but Zooble especially wanting to comment on how Jax and Ragatha were laughing down the hallway with each other but they all choose not to say anything. Deep down there all happy the two are getting along, seeing Jax laugh is nice even if they don’t realize.

“Nah it wasn’t anything crazy, mostly did basic tattoo designs but I did have a few clients come in with murals they wanted me to do” Zooble explains with Pomni and Gangle listening in.

Jax and Ragatha step up to everybody.

“Oh wow, that’s awesome” Gangle replies to Zooble in awe.

“Ha, ol Zoobie never did anything tooo cool I bet” Jax comments teasingly.

“Why do I even bother” Zooble remarks with a sigh.

“I’m sure your art was actually pretty good, honestly a tattoo artist fits you from what i’ve seen” Pomni notes with a smile.

Aaaaand she just had to say that so cutely didn’t she? The little smile and sweet tone and all. Ragatha surprisingly doesn’t cough, but Jax can’t help it, no time to run he just has to play it off as one of his normal coughs.

Before his raised arm can even get to his mouth, a huge blood clot spills out of him as he lunges over. Ragatha quickly reacts, putting her hands on his back hesitantly but not sure what else to do. She wants to say something, but the others already saw and there faces are looking at him horrified.

“I-oh no-he’s fine everyone don’t freak out ok!” she comments, being a little too obvious.

Just his luck, flowers start to fall from Jax’s mouth, he coughs up a good few and they land in the blood he spilled on the floor.

Everyone freaks out, Gangle covers her eyes hiding her face into Zoobles shoulder. Gangle didn’t end up seeing the flowers, averting her gaze as soon as she saw the sight of blood, but the others all saw them. Zoobles eyes widened, the others definitely aren't sure what this is, but Zooble is. They’ve seen every one of Gangles sketchbooks through and through on her days of excitedly showing off her art. They’ve seen various anime tropes, fanarts, ect. Including the hanahaki pictures.

Zooble pats Gangle on the back, feeling bad leaving her only source of comfort but she wants to help Jax in whatever way they can. They slowly get up from the couch, walking to stand next to Jax.

Jax starts to sweat after his coughing fit, his eyes darting upwards. Shit, he’s about to faint. Zooble tries to warn him to sit down but it’s too late, his body starts to go limp and he starts to fall back, Zooble makes quick work of extending their arms and getting ready to catch Jax.

“Woah woah steady-“ they urgently try to get their arms straight enough to hold Jax.

“Oh #%%*, I-i’ll go get Caine” says Pomni rushing away quickly at the sight of Jax going unconscious.
As Pomni hurries as fast as her legs can, Kinger moves to help Gangle on the couch, even though it’s not dark, his fatherly instincts still kicking in a bit.

“Ok, let’s get him to bed” Ragatha requests to Zooble, her clothed hands shaking and wringing his unconscious body over her shoulder. Zooble nods, putting his other arm over their shoulder. They start to steadily make their way to Jax’s room.

As Pomni and the others are still outside, Ragatha and Zooble focus on their mission of getting Jax to his room. They open his door and are instantly concerned with how dark and dusty it is..Ragatha thinks she’ll have to talk to him about that later. They help him get situated in bed, he looks more pale and tired than usual.

“Ok..get some rest please, i’m sure sleep will fix you up” Ragatha mumbles, hoping sleep is all he really needs. Maybe she’s in denial, but she hopes he’ll be ok, she’d rather be the one to cough rather than him.

Ragatha and Zooble head out after a few minutes of making sure he’s ok, it’s tough to make sure he's alive since no heartbeats in the digital world but his chest rising and falling is a good sign. Caine comes back late as ever, nothing he can do now, he just suggests Jax to sleep a bit. Everyone has questions about the flowers and start harassing Caine, demanding some answer about how and what that means, and Zooble and Gangle give each other a knowing look.

“What? He coughed flowers too..?” pipes up Gangle shyly.

Ragatha wants to get the attention off of him and reassure everyone, partly to help herself and not blow both their covers of this disease, but mostly because she knows Jax wouldn’t want all this attention. Him being the only one who understands her, she’s grown way more fond of him, he’s even been nicer.

“Everyone, I can assure you Jax should be alright I mean idk what the flowers or blood mean (liar) but I’m sure some sleep will fix it, we can ask Caine more later but let him sleep for now don’t bombard with questions right now he can probably here us from his room if he’s up by now” announces Ragatha, making this speech up on the spot trying to sound as convincing as possible despite her growing anxiety. The others nod in agreement, worried but take Ragathas word for it. Zooble and Gangle whisper to each other on the couch, Ragatha ignores it. Her mind fills with fear of the fact they definitely know what this is…nothing she can do now. At least they're not the gossip types. Pomni listens to Ragatha, but her worry gets more prominent by the hour he doesn’t wake up. She needs to know now She doesn’t even know why it’s so intense, I guess seeing someone in the circus actually bleed hits her in a way she can’t process.

Jax sleeps for a couple hours before Pomni can’t take it anymore, Caine was no help and no one will answer her and how could Jax not explain that he’s clearly been sick??? And what on earth were those flowers?? She needs to know she’s worried, she opens his door with slight force to confront him.
Luckily for her, he seems to have woken up a few minutes ago.

Jax gets surprised a little bit, he doesn’t remember getting to his room and can barely put the pieces together of the last few hours, and seeing someone actually in his room he wants to scream and get her out, he never wanted anyone to see his room. Just his luck, when the door creaks it’s Pomni on the other side. If anyone was gonna confront him after he just regained consciousness it just had to be Pomni didn’t it? He sits up slightly, avoiding eye contact and preparing for whatever’s to come.

Chapter Text

Jax groggily wakes up, getting a few moments of peace to put the pieces together of what events just happened. Blurry memories of him coughing blood and then everything going dark after that clouds his mind. He rubs his eyes tiredly, not sure how he got to his room but too tired to care. God he just had to cough blood in front of everyone huh? He should’ve just died right then and there-

His thoughts are interrupted by the creaking of a door. Pomni walks in. The scene that unfolds in front of her is a tired looking rabbit with eye bags and looking disoriented. 

Jax sits up slightly, doing his best to put on his usual happy mask. He struggles to be energetic, averting his gaze as he reallyyyy doesn’t wanna cough again. 

“Hey Pom Pom~” pronounced Jax. 

“No no no you are NOT putting on an act with this, not this time!” Pomni declares. 

Jax tries to speak but Pomni doesn’t let him. 

“No! You are going to listen! You’ve pushed everyone away, everything down. Your feelings, your mood, your godforsaken illness apparently??? Yeah, you can push everything down but you’re not running away from this, so tell me what the %^#^ is going on with you??” practically shouts Pomni. 

Those words cut Jax deep, they feel like a punch to the gut. He looks at Pomni, holding his breath as to not cough or choke while he says any of this. 

He opens his mouth to speak, but he finds his throat hoarse. He realizes, I'm gonna die soon, what does it matter?

“Pomni, i’m too tired to fight you right now” he admits, voice weakening by the minute. His only strength left is not to cough blood or flowers all over the place. 

Pomni’s taken aback, left with no words. How is she supposed to reply to that? She fiddles with her gloves. 

“Alright…we don’t have to fight, but please tell me what is going on with you?” she begs. 

Jax stays silent, he can’t. Is it that he mentally can’t or physically? He doesn’t know, all he knows is that he can’t share about his illness, he’s basically made it a rule for himself not to let anyone know about his hanahaki. 

His silence speaks volumes. “Ok…fine if that’s how you wanna be, you know I care about you Jax and we finally were getting closer, but if you wanna just not tell us that you’ve been literally DYING than whatever…i’ll be back later” Pomni bursts out partly on impulse and runs out of his room. 

As soon as she leaves he exasperatedly starts coughing. He cups his hands around his mouth, lungs hurting and filling with deep coughs and pools of blood vomit out of him. He coughs flowers and petals into his hands, the coughs getting so intense it’s getting hard to breathe. He grips his ribs, getting out of bed slowly to sit on the floor, coughing blood all over the place. He vomits and vomits loudly, unable to contain it anymore, it’s exhausting but his body won’t stop. He grips his pant leg. This is finally the end,he thinks to himself. 

Ragatha hears loud coughing from the distance of her room. Caine had given everyone the day off as the shock of a circus member bleeding was even news to him. Ragatha was in her bedroom, trying not to worry too much about the whole fiasco when the coughing gets too loud to ignore. Her legs practically move on her own and she rushes to Jax’s room. She slams open the door and sees Jax bent over on his floor, coughing profusely and blood everywhere. 

“JAX” she screams in panic. Her body filled with adrenaline rushes over, immediately placing her hand over his back trying to comfort him as best as she can. She magically hopes her hand will maybe somehow fix him??

“Jax- please it’s gonna be ok you HAVE to be ok!! Just another coughing fit” she reassures him, and herself. She knows this is different though, she just doesn’t want to face reality. 

Jax’s body gets weaker by the minute. The coughing stops, but his body limps over and his body starts to fall back. 

Ragatha notices, and moves him to lay in her lap comfortably. She wraps her arms around him, panicking so hard her heart is racing. She can’t lose him, not like this and not to some stupid disease. 

“Jax, please hang on, you're going to be ok, you’re just exhausted cmon you’re ok, say something please!!” Ragatha spills out. 

Everything is starting to get more and more dizzy, the rooms spinning and his ears are buzzing, but he musters up some strength to listen to Ragatha. Poor rags, why is she so sad over someone like me? I’m an asshole? He thinks to himself. He feels tears fall onto his face. When did Ragatha start crying? Was she always crying?

Through Ragatha’s sobs Jax feels his body fading in and out of consciousness, he starts to feel his heart rate speed up. Wait, what is this….he’s been prepared and ready to die for months now since he started coughing flowers. Why is he suddenly feeling some panic now? Nononono. He realizes at this moment that he doesn’t truly want to die. In his hazy mind he thinks for a moment, about a lot of things. About his past, his circus adventures, about how he felt him getting hanahaki was what he deserved. But lately, even though he’s been closer to dying, he’s smiled and laughed more than he ever has. His dying brain makes the connection, he’s been happy lately because of Ragatha. He feels his heart speed up ever so slightly, a slight smile plastered onto his face. He thought he didn’t mind dying, and that Pomni would never love him back she he avoided her; he didn’t even see what was right in front of him all this time. He looks up at Ragatha, knowing he can’t stop the dying now and he needs to say something before it’s too late. 

He goes to speak but Ragatha shushes him. 

“Nono! Save your breath.” She croaks out, stroking his head. She starts to realize this might actually be the end..but she can’t let it be!! 

“I-%^%*” it’s not like Ragatha to swear but in this moment she’s completely running on adrenaline. 

“Okay…okay, if this is actually your final moments-“ her voice falters and she lets out a sob at saying that, but the truth finally hitting her “Then, then I wanna make it count!! I’m so glad I met you Jax, you helped me so much, it’s gonna be ok i’m gonna be here for you right now!!” Ragatha exasperates out. 

Jax’s ears are ringing but he can still make out Ragatha’s words. He can’t believe this, he must be hearing wrong. He’s helped her?? She’s glad she met him?? No way..all he’s done is make everyone’s lives worse…but even so it does make his heart flutter. He needs to say something now, maybe now she’ll let him say what he needs to say, her words make him even more sure he needs to say it. Took him long enough to realize it, it’s sad it’s finally out in the open when he’s on his death bed, but he thinks maybe in some weird sense it’s better this way. 

“Rags” he weakly croaks out looking up at her. “I-..i love you…”, he lets out his final words, he lifts his hand up and sticks out his pointer finger and thumb shaking them as a peace symbol, partly to give humor.  and then his eyes flutter closed. He takes his final breath, and he feels the peaceful wave of rest washing over him. He can’t hear anymore, he can’t see, he feels his thoughts stopping and his limbs freezing. And then it all stops. His pulse, his brain, everything. 

“Jax? JAX??” Ragatha screams in pure terror, shaking him, desperately trying to get any sort of movement out of him. “NONONONO PLEASE JAX WAKE UP, JAX PLEASE PLEASE” his heart stopped all too quickly, she frantically starts pushing her hands over his chest, not even sure what she’s doing but trying to do ANYTHING to bring him back. Weakly sobbing over his limp body, her shaky arms give out and she clutches his overalls. His last words hit her hard, through her sobbing she realized…she also loves him. And now it’s too late…she starts to scream. A blood curdling scream, one to disturb any of the circus members. 

They all run in at the chilling echo of Ragatha’s scream. Pomni’s the first one to pop her head in, having to halt abruptly and grab onto the doorframe to not slip. The sight that beholds her makes her skin turn even more white than before. Her breath catches in her throat, she wants to scream but her throat won’t even let her. The others are quick behind her and can’t even believe what’s happened. Zooble shuts down, putting there hand over Pomni’s shoulder and behind Gangle’s back, instinctively knowing Gangle was gonna start sobbing. Kinger just stays quiet, he’s seen this many times before, more than anyone but it still hurts the same. He steps back, doing his mental rituals so as to not go crazy. 

Ragatha’s head shoots up at the sight of everyone. She couldn’t even hear everyone run in, her sobbing taking her attention. 

“HEEEELP” Rags immediately screams, bellowing for the others to come and help. 

The others shuffle in, hesitant but also wanting to help. The sight of blood and flowers everywhere makes everyone’s stomachs turn, as if Jax laying there lifeless wasn’t bad enough. 

Gangle can’t make it too close to Jax’s body, Kinger stays behind to keep her company. Zooble and Pomni make their way to Ragatha and Jax…or rather Jax’s body. 

Pomni starts shaking and crying, grabbing Jax’s limp hand and holding it up to her face. The first friend she’s lost since she came to the circus, and it hurts so much more than she could have ever imagined. Ragatha and Pomni both being a sobbing mess over Jax, Ragatha seems to be taking a dangerous approach. She starts to dig her plush hands into her arm, trying to break open the stuffing as a sort of distraction because losing Jax was just too unbearable. Zooble notices immediately and takes quick action. 

“Hey, no none of that!!” asserts Zooble, gently pulling away Ragatha’s hand from her arm. Of course Zooble is also very strung up about this, losing any member in the circus is jarring for anyone but losing someone this way..even Caines not sure what to do. However, despite being deeply hurt like everyone else, Zooble's the one who can come to reality the most and is understanding that he’s really gone…and no one can do anything. 

The air in the room is tense, no one knows what to say or do, they should call Caine soon to take care of Jax but no one does yet, too afraid to break the silence despite it being unbearable. Zooble stands up, deciding to take a look around Jax’s room having never seen it before. Rummaging around Jax’s room antsy, Zooble opens his nightstand. The usual assortment of items lay, well normal for Jax, various random junk and prank accessories but seeming out of place is a letter. Zooble picks it up, written outside of it: DO NOT OPEN YET.

Curiosity peaks at them, and they gently open the envelope and a hand clasps over their mouth as they start reading. 

"I wish I could hate you but all I can hate is the fact I love any of you. I hate the fact that I worry about you guys waking up the next day instead of myself. I hate the fact I’d miss any of you. I hate the fact I'm worried about you guys being alone. I hate caring. I wish I didn't care. But in the end, it doesn't matter, huh? I hadn't initially planned on dying, because never did I think it was possible. But then, this happened, and I saw an opportunity. I couldn't just act mean anymore. I became distant. Somewhat kinder. Funnier. I wanted to have a mark on something I wont see, maybe I'd be good enough in something, even if I'm gone for it. I'm glad you guys care. I think so, lol. I could barely get out of bed, anyway. Im sorry for hiding this. Never give up, find an exit, even if it's me saying that. Anyway ew I never said any of this wdym"

“Umm guys..I think you should see this” Zooble utters. 

Chapter Text

Everyone’s hearts get caught in their throats as they read the letter. Even more tears and sobs fill the room, everyone staying close together and hurdling around Zooble as they clutch the letter tightly.

The next few days are filled with tears and grief, everyone mostly keeping to themselves, too tired to speak but also too scared to be alone.

Caine gives everyone the next few days off from adventures, himself also needing time to process what had just happened.

The day after Jax’s death Ragatha stopped feeling the flowers in her throat completely. After reading Jax’s letter to everyone, she decided they had the right to know. She explained that she too had been affected by Hanahaki, and confessed to Pomni. Pomni’s eyes widened, if Pomni hadn't been finding this out after Jax’s death she’d have blushed.
Ragatha then exclaimed that she hadn’t been coughing up any more flowers or blood recently, to her confusion and she blamed it on grief.

“Wait but, I obviously don’t know that much about Hanahaki but doesn’t the disease only stop when you either stop loving the person or they end up loving you back? I-…I don’t..its not the most appropriate timing obviously but Its not to say i’ve never not thought about us” Pomni trails off, “But, if you’ve stopped coughing when the love is technically required doesn’t that mean you either got over me or your love transferred over to another?” Pomni questions.

Ragatha sits silently for a good bit.

“But who else would I like?” she asks perplexed.

“Jax” Zooble spits out quickly.

“WHAT??” Ragatha shouts.

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious, I mean we all kinda have thought it, the way you two are always hanging out as of late and the way you look at each other” Zooble exclaims, talking as if Jax is still here.

Ragatha’s face contorts into one of confusion. Everyone turns to her nodding in agreement with Zooble. She processes everything for a second, everything adding up.

She burst into tears immediately after, realizing the two liked each other and now he’s gone.