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Despite the fact that a majority of the circus cast enjoyed the occasional digital snack, the kitchen often sat desolate for weeks at a time. This was attributed to the fact that the haphazard selection of ingredients populating its cupboards only met the requirements for a painfully limited number of dishes.
The kitchen did however, consistently stock tea, which earned the neglected room two visitors late one night following the conclusion of Caine’s annual character awards show.
The shrill sound of a kettle’s whistle pierced the air, prompting Ragatha to turn off the burner and fill the two mugs that sat nearby on the counter. “So,” she ventured, glancing over her shoulder. “What did you want to talk about?”
Pomni awkwardly swung her legs in her seat at the kitchen island. “You know what? How about you go first?”
“Oh! Are you sure?”
“Yeah, if that’s alright with you.”
Ragatha dropped a tea bag into each mug and carried them over to the island, handing one to Pomni before taking a seat across from her. “Well uh…I’m not really sure how to phrase this without it sounding weird.”
“I can handle weird. Shoot.”
“Heh, think I’ve had enough of that for today.” Ragatha let out a sigh. “I guess I just wanted to make sure we were okay. That everything was alright between us?”
Pomni cocked her head to the side. “Um…I think so? Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know.” Ragatha rubbed her arm. “I feel like we’ve been kind of…drifting apart lately? I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to hang out with me, but I just…didn’t know if it was something I did.”
Pomni absently fidgeted with the string of her tea bag. “No, I mean, there isn’t anything I’m mad at you about. And I didn’t think we were drifting apart. Is this about the teams thing? I wasn’t even thinking about you and Jax being paired together, you just mentioned Kinger and I thought—”
“No, no,” Ragatha interjected, “that’s not it. Really. Given our options I think you pairing up with Jax had the least harmful outcome for all of us, right?”
Pomni paused her fidgeting. “Uh…yeah. Something like that. But if that wasn’t what you were worried about, what was?”
“I…” Ragatha sighed. “It’s just that I regret saying no to you when I did want to be your partner. I know it didn’t make sense for the two of us to be together, but I still didn’t mean to push you away like that. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t want you around.”
“Ragatha, there’s nothing to apologize for. You didn’t push me away. Like you said, the partners we ended up with just made the most sense given what we had to work with. You didn’t hurt my feelings, really. I’d love to team up with you for a future adventure when Kinger isn’t in danger of being bullied.”
Ragatha let out a relieved sigh. “That’s…thank you, Pomni. Sorry if I misinterpreted things.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad we could clear that up.”
“So…we’re good?”
“Yeah,” Pomni nodded with an assuring smile, “we’re good.” She studied Ragatha’s expression, and the smile fell slightly. “Was…that all you wanted to talk about?”
Ragatha sighed. “No…there’s something else. But I don’t really think it’s my place to have a say in it. You’ve made it clear that you don’t like being spoken for, and I want to respect that.”
Pomni frowned. “It sounds like it’s bothering you. You can tell me what it is, I promise I won’t get upset.”
Ragatha took a sip of her slightly not-quite-done-yet tea. “It’s Jax,” she admitted. “You’ve been hanging out with him a lot lately. W-which is great! I’m glad you’re making friends. I guess I’m just a bit worried.”
“Worried about Jax?”
Ragatha raised an eyebrow at the way Pomni perked up. “Um…no. Worried about you.”
“…Oh. Never mind.” She shook her head. “Go on.”
“I’m worried he’s trying to screw with you. To try and make you into another version of himself.” Ragatha glued her eyes to the table. “I know you can think for yourself, and I trust that you can, but he’s…you know…Jax.” Pomni simply nodded for her to continue. “You…aren’t the first person he’s tried to ‘befriend’,” she put the word in air quotes, “but his idea of friendship doesn’t exactly involve caring about each other. It’s more like him wanting to have somebody around who’s just as cruel and careless as he is to like…make him feel better about his own issues or something?”
“He wants to feel validated.”
Ragatha nodded. “Yeah, exactly. Anyway, I just…” she wrung her hands together, “I don’t want you to get hurt. That’s all.”
Pomni gave her a small nod and continued fidgeting with her tea bag.
“Um…you okay?”
“Honestly, no.” Pomni sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. “This is…actually kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. Jax. I…I’m worried about him.”
“You are?” Ragatha sat up a bit straighter and folded her hands on the table. “In what way?”
“He kind of…really freaked out on me today.”
“Yeah?” Ragatha frowned. “Do you mind me asking what happened?”
“I don’t even know,” Pomni grumbled. “Everything was going fine. I thought we were getting close, but then he just switched up on me and we…got into a pretty bad fight.”
“Crap. I’m sorry that happened, Pomni. Are you okay?”
“Me? Yeah, just a couple bumps and bruises. He didn’t even try to fight back.”
“Wait,” Ragatha shook her head in disbelief, “you mean you two got into an actual fight? Like a physical one?”
“Well…” Pomni rubbed her arm, “It was more like I got into a fight with him. I don’t know why I started it, honestly. I think I was so sick of him putting on this…façade of not giving a f[%$!#] even though he clearly does that I was just trying to get some sort of genuine reaction out of him. But he wouldn’t even give me that.”
“Oh man.” Ragatha drew in a deep breath. “Jax is…yeah. Complicated.”
“I noticed,” Pomni deadpanned.
“It was probably nothing personal. He’s always been that way. Well—” Ragatha paused to correct herself, “not always. But he hasn’t changed in a really long time. Don’t beat yourself up for not being able to get through to him. Trust me, you’re not the first person to try.”
Pomni fidgeted with her mug. “It’s just that…I feel like he needs somebody. I know there’s more to him than he lets on, and he’s clearly suffering. And I felt like I almost did get through to him! We were bonding! He told me a bunch of stuff about himself, he was actually nice to me if you can believe it, and I thought we were both having a really good time. And then he just…well…” Pomni sighed. “I don’t really know what happened. I think he got upset when he realized I saw him as an actual friend. And then it’s like he just reverted back to being his usual [%$!#]hole self, only ten times worse. And I don’t understand what I did wrong. I just…feel like I failed him, you know?”
Ragatha almost choked on her tea. “Actually…yeah. I do know what you mean.”
Pomni eyed her suspiciously. “Wait, did you two used to be friends?”
“We did,” she answered. “Well, sort of. It was more like I tried to be his friend, and he just…tolerated me. Until eventually he didn’t.”
“Was that back when he used to be different?” Pomni leaned in, curious. “What was he like?”
Ragatha let out a sigh and settled back in her seat. “He was…hurt. And scared. I mean, everybody is when they first get here. You just went through it yourself. You know what it’s like.” Pomni nodded sadly, and Ragatha continued. “I tried to be there for him, but he didn’t make it easy. It felt like a part of him wanted to connect and wanted help, but the bigger part of him, the one that was in control, was doing everything in its power to push me away. And eventually, I just…gave up and let him. But yeah. I feel like I failed him because he only got worse after that. I’m always stuck wondering if I had just gone about it differently or didn’t try so hard that maybe he’d be a different person today. If he’d be more…you know…real? Instead of being the mask he’s created for himself?”
Pomni opened her mouth to respond but furrowed her eyebrows and stayed silent.
“…What is it?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry.” Pomni smiled sheepishly. “I was going to tell you that there was probably nothing you could have done and that it wasn’t your responsibility to fix him, but that would just make me a hypocrite since I just spent the past week convinced that I could somehow fix him.”
“Trust me, I think I know the feeling,” she responded with a chuckle. Pomni gave her a half-hearted smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Ragatha frowned. “You said you were worried about him, right? What you described just sounds like typical Jax behavior if I’m being honest, but was there…something else?”
Pomni sighed and was silent for a long moment before responding. “He said…that right before people abstract, they ‘aren’t pleasant to be around’. What did that mean?”
Oh. They were getting into that subject.
“I think,” Ragatha started, “he was referring to the…changes people go through in the weeks leading up to their abstraction. These things don’t really happen out of nowhere. There are always signs, even if we don’t realize it until after the fact. It’s hard because they can present themselves so differently in different people. But the similarity we’ve noticed is that everyone becomes sort of unstable in one way or another.”
“Unstable?”
“Just,” Ragatha waved a hand through the air, “you know. Unhinged. Reactive. Not willing to open up to anyone.”
“So…like Jax?”
Ragatha froze, caught off guard. “Oh. Jax. Well…I guess, but that’s kind of just how he is.”
Pomni absentmindedly swirled her tea around in its mug. It clicked.
“Are…you worried that Jax is going to abstract?”
Pomni slowly nodded, her gaze not shifting. “He scared me today. Like…really scared me.”
“What happened?”
“He didn’t outright say that he was losing it or anything, but…” Pomni groaned in frustration. “It didn’t seem like he cared about himself at all. I mean…he didn’t even fight back when I was beating the sh[%$!#] out of him! And at one point he—he even grabbed my hand and pressed my gun to his forehead and told me to shoot him. He had one life left. I know it was just a game but…I don’t know. It was almost like he wanted me to want to shoot him. Like he wanted me to do it so he could prove to himself that I didn’t actually care about him, so therefore he didn’t need to care about himself either. Or care about me. Or care about anyone else ever. He was so upset, and he really seemed like he was at a…you know…breaking point?” she cautiously supplied. “I…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if he’s ever going to let me get close to him again, and I’m just…” she put her hands to her face, her voice wavering. “What if he does end up abstracting? What if it happens tonight? What if that was the last interaction I had with him?”
“Hey, hey…” Ragatha held up her hands. “Deep breath. You’re getting ahead of yourself. I’m sure he’ll be okay for now.”
Pomni sniffled and wiped the tears out of her eyes. “That’s…not everything. He also basically told me that he’d only been letting me think that we were friends because he thought it would be funny. And…because it would hurt me more when he eventually told me off. Which it did. It really, really hurt.” She let out a tense sigh. “Sorry. Guess I took you up on your offer to lend an ear.”
“No, don’t be.” Ragatha drew in an uneven breath and willed her hands to loosen their grip around her mug. “That’s a lot. I’m…actually really surprised he did that to you. And really pissed at him for it,” she quietly added on.
“Has he ever done anything like that before?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I mean, he pushes people away like it’s an Olympic sport. That’s nothing new. But to lead you on just so he could hurt you worse later? That’s a new low.”
Pomni shook her head. “No, but that’s the thing! He didn’t. I think he honestly wanted to get to know me, but it was like he got scared of getting too close all of the sudden. And then he just decided to blow up at me to get me to back off. But it hurt him too. I saw it in his eyes. Why would he do that?”
“Huh…” Ragatha pressed a hand to her cheek, thinking. “Well…remember what I was saying earlier about how it seems like he has two sides? The one that wants to connect with others and the one that pushes people away?”
“And the one that pushes people away is the one in control?” Pomni finished. “…Oh. Yeah. That…actually makes what happened today make a lot of sense.”
“I think he’s scared,” Ragatha continued. “I think you did actually manage to get through to him. Well…you got through to somewhere in that complicated brain of his. But it was more than anyone’s been able to reach him in years, and once he realized it, he panicked and just…reacted.”
“You’re probably right.” Pomni dejectedly swirled her tea. “But that means he’s definitely not going to let me help him now. You said he’s never acted like this before. What if it means he’s getting worse? What if he’s close to abstracting? I…what do I do?”
Ragatha finished her tea and set the mug aside, giving Pomni her full attention. “You know, Kinger said something interesting to me today. He said it doesn’t make sense to put effort into helping somebody if they aren’t willing to put the same effort into accepting that help. I’d…never thought about it like that before. I guess I always thought if I just tried hard enough, that I’d be able to help anyone with anything. And then I’d beat myself up when I…you know…failed.”
“But…” Pomni shook her head. “Jax needs help now! I want to help him. And I’m just supposed to, what? Give him space? Be forced to face him on tomorrow’s adventure and pretend like nothing that happened today, well…happened?”
“I don’t think you have to pretend like it didn’t happen,” Ragatha responded, “but yes. You should give him space.”
“But—”
“And then you should be there for him if and when he feels ready.”
Pomni’s eyebrows creased, conflicted.
“It’s pretty clear that Jax isn’t willing to accept help right now, so there’s no reason for you to waste all of your energy trying. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”
Pomni shot Ragatha a skeptical look. “I’m not gonna lie, that’s pretty rich coming from you.”
Ragatha let out a chuckle. “Yeah, I know. I realized it as soon as I said it. But…I do think I’m starting to change the way that I think about helping others. I thought I failed Jax all those years ago, but maybe I only failed myself by setting unrealistic expectations and then burning myself out when I tried to meet them. It made me feel miserable, and it certainly didn’t help Jax. I don’t want you to go down that path.”
Pomni sighed. “I’m just so worried about him. He really hurt me today and I know he puts everyone else through the wringer, but he still doesn’t deserve to suffer like this.”
“Of course he doesn’t,” Ragatha agreed. “But unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it right now. Again, you got through to him more than anyone has in years, and he still ended up pushing you away. It’s not your fault he didn’t accept your olive branch. But you were kind enough to extend it in the first place, and that’s what matters.”
“…What do I do, then?”
“You give him space,” Ragatha answered softly. “And then someday, if he’s ever in a position to let his walls down, you listen.”
Pomni took her first sip of tea. “Yeah.” She gave Ragatha a grateful smile. “Sounds like a plan.”