Chapter Text
For someone who acted so well most of the time, it surely was easy to see through him when he suffered. Ragatha knew at a glance.
She had merely looked over her shoulder to check where Jax would sit, only for him to put himself as far away from the group as he could. The first red flag. The second one was that expression on his face. Ragatha hadn't seen him like that in ages. The third red flag was the fact that Jax stood up to go, or rather sprint, to the bathroom without a warning, only to return with a bright smile.
What had ultimately given it away from the beginning though was Pomni.
The jester had been tense before. She had also had panic attacks. Today seemed different though. Especially when she couldn't keep herself from searching for Jax the entire time.
Ragatha could barely wait until the end of the award show before she leaned over. “Did something happen?” A useless question when she had seen how Jax had left the building without saying another word to anyone here.
Pomni bit her lip, something she had seemingly done quite often today already. She didn't stop playing around with her fingers either, anxiety painted onto her face. “It...happened so quickly.”
That didn't really narrow it down. Ragatha could guess, but no scenario she could come up with seemed to match the intensity of the emotions tonight. “I see...” She hesitated for a moment before resuming. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Pomni glanced to the side as if to check if the others were listening in. They weren't, but still, she wasn't comfortable. Her expression was solemn as she replied with a whisper. “Not here.” It was bad then.
Ragatha felt her chest constricting, making it harder to breathe. “Okay, then... Do you want to come to my room?”
Pomni nodded weakly. She returned to fiddling around with her hands, barely able to hold them still. She looked like a frightened animal right now. As if every small sound would scare her.
Ragatha felt the urge to hug her or hold her hand, but she had realized that Pomni was hesitant about body contact by now. So, she merely joined the jester's side as they left the award room.
No one else seemed to have noticed the tension. Kinger was back to his usual persona, while Gangle was busy keeping Zooble in an upright position and giggling at their friend's current state. It was easy to just trail behind them and wish them a good night without having any of them ask questions. Ragatha was glad, as it gave her more time to figure all of this out.
Once they reached Ragatha's room, she opened the door carefully. “Here we are. Please step in.” She made way for Pomni to enter first, which gave her a chance to turn back to the hallway. She didn't allow herself to glance at Jax's door for long before following.
As the door fell shut, it suddenly felt very quiet. The entire fanfare of the award show still rang in Ragatha's ears, just like the many bullets from before. The end of this day carried a stark difference from most of it. In this room, none of the excitement or joy from before seemed to show.
Pomni had already walked over to the bed and sat down on it. She swung her legs around a little, her hands holding onto the edge of the mattress. Her gaze was firmly directed at the floor.
Ragatha's weak smile faded fully. She slowly approached and sat next to Pomni, a small distance left between them so that she wouldn't make her uncomfortable. “Tell me everything you want. Take your time.” She spoke as softly as she could.
Still, Pomni almost seemed to flinch a little. “It...” She closed her eyes while pressing her lips together. Then she drew in a sharp breath. “It was really weird.”
Every part of Ragatha wanted to ask, to beg Pomni to hurry up. But she wouldn't. For now, she had to give her friend time to put everything into words.
And this time, she had been right.
Pomni took a moment to compose herself. In the meantime, her eyes went everywhere but to Ragatha. The more she thought, the more upset she got. “One moment, everything was fine. Then it suddenly wasn't.” Her voice shook as her eyes turned glossy.
Ragatha leaned forward a bit, trying to hold back the frown that slowly settled on her features.
“We...fought Zooble. They had hidden in their room for a while and broke out. They got both of us down to one heart, but everything was fine then. When we got them, it was fine. When we won too, I think...” Pomni paused again. She shook her head to herself as the memories seemed to flash by her eyes. “I think...” She slowly looked up to Ragatha. “What made him mad was that I...tried to hug him.”
It seemed like such a small thing. Something careless that wouldn't warrant such a big reaction. But this was about Jax.
Ragatha felt a sting in her heart. She wasn't sure if this was jealousy or concern talking. Maybe it was a mix of both. “You tried to hug Jax?”
“Yes.” Pomni turned back, staring at her upturned palms on her lap. “He pushed me away, but that was fine too. I made some joke about shooting him to win the game, you know. He threw his gun away, so I stopped. But he wouldn't. Suddenly, he was...a different person. Insisting we weren't a team and that I should shoot him. Whenever I tried to ask what was going on, he got more upset. Then he said that...” Pomni froze in the middle of her narration.
Ragatha only tensed more.
Pomni clenched her hands into fists before breathing in deeply a couple of times. It didn't seem to lessen the impact that fight had had on her. “That we weren't friends. That we had never been friends. That nothing those past few days had mattered. That...he didn't care about me. Or anyone here.” Her hands fell open again, as if in defeat.
Ragatha wanted to say something, anything. But as she opened her mouth, nothing came to her. The more Pomni talked, the more her throat tightened and her heart ached.
'We aren't friends. We never were.'
Those words were too familiar.
Pomni shifted around a bit as if to calm herself down. She only got more worked up though. “I got mad and...” She abruptly stopped as she caught herself. Her hands flew up to pull at her face. “Oh, God. I brought up Kaufmo's funeral.” Her voice still trembled but grew louder.
Another name that made Ragatha tense.
Pomni sounded like she was about to cry now. She looked over at Ragatha as she continued, almost as if she wanted to be consoled. “I just wanted to see how Jax would react. If he would admit that he cares and that's why he didn't show up. Because he's scared of giving that away. But he just got super mad. It was the first time he scared me like that.” Her voice got louder as she spoke, only to break right at the end. She gritted her teeth for a moment. As she resumed, her voice was a mere whisper again. “I think he...thought I somehow blamed him for some of the recent abstractions.”
It made sense now. That one topic was always a definitive way of making Jax lose that cheerful facade of his.
Pomni had no knowledge of the backstory. She just knew that she had committed a blunder without being sure how it had come to this. Looking at her expression now, she blamed herself. She didn't deserve that guilt though.
Ragatha finally allowed herself to reach out. She was slow as she put her hand on Pomni's shoulder. She remained for a moment to give her a chance to pull back. When the jester didn't, Ragatha finally found her voice, even when it was weak. “It's not my story to tell, but... I think you should know. Jax...lost someone. Someone close to him. Way before all of you came here. Maybe that is why he reacted that way.”
Pomni wasn't surprised. Not after that incident during the stargazing adventure. But she put the pieces together more after all. She averted her gaze again. “Oh, God.” Her hands flew up to tug at her hat. “I feel so stupid. I attacked him. He just made me so mad, I couldn't-” She groaned loudly, only to drop her hands again. She stared at the ground before them while muttering the last part. “I punched him a couple of times. I bit him too.” Oh.
Ragatha hadn't quite expected a physical alteration, but it didn't surprise her either. Jax was someone who pushed and pushed you further. When emotions were really high, he would only bring the fuse to the flame. It seemed like Pomni had been at her limit, and whatever he had done had just been too much.
Ragatha knew that it would do little to calm Pomni down, but she wanted to help her. Putting on a little smile, she tilted her head. “Don't beat yourself up over it.”
“Yeah...” Pomni mirrored a just as weak smile, only for it to fade immediately. “But... I didn't mean any of it. And then he suddenly took a dive off the deep end. Started rambling. About how he doesn't care. About how we're just his playthings and he likes hurting us.” She let out a huff while shaking her head. “He didn't mean it. I know that. He just said it so I'd leave him alone. He couldn't even hide how deflated he was after. I don't know how that even happened. He just...switched up on me.”
Wait...
Those were also words Ragatha was familiar with.
In the beginning, it might have been a coincidence. But the more Ragatha heard, the more she felt like she had been transported back a few years. In her mind, memories of that conversation replayed and overlapped with what she was hearing now.
It was weird. Back when Jax had said it first, Ragatha had believed every word.
She remembered exactly how she had recoiled after being hit with those verbal bullets. She had still stayed there, her legs shaking. But as Jax had continued, saying everything he could to hurt her, she had eventually convinced herself that he truly hated her and needed her away from him. That he needed to process that Ribbit was gone on his own. So, she had complied.
But now, when she heard Pomni recount those same words... Somehow, Ragatha didn't trust them as easily. Not when even Pomni refused to believe them.
Ragatha found herself grasping the edge of her mattress, her mind jumping from one scene to the other. Maybe she was just fooling herself. Maybe she was just so desperately clinging to the hope that Jax could actually care about her that she found excuse after excuse. But wasn't making that assumption so easy?
Mere days ago, Jax had gloated about forming a 'blossoming friendship' with Pomni. He had tried so hard to be close to her, and it had seemingly worked well. Pomni certainly longed to be his friend. Why wouldn't he just keep reminding Ragatha of what she hadn't been able to form with Pomni? He had found her jealousy funny a couple of days ago. Why wouldn't he just enjoy Pomni's presence now?
Something had changed over the course of a week, and it hadn't been Pomni or Ragatha or anyone else. For Jax to suddenly act like that, there had to be some internal conflict.
And suddenly, it felt like the lies fell down like a house made of cards.
Ragatha was just blindly guessing. She knew that too. She was guessing and projecting her own hopes onto Jax. But if he was just acting like this because he wanted to push those who had come too close away from him, it would make sense. It was the only thing that made sense, even. It would also explain why Jax had become so horrible those few weeks after he had told Ragatha all those things. Because he had needed to prove himself.
Because he had needed them to believe that he truly saw his companions as nothing more than playthings. Because he had needed to believe that himself. Maybe that was the only thought that had allowed him to survive after Ribbit had left them.
Maybe Jax hadn't just shut down because of the grief back then. It could have been his protective mechanism too. If he told himself that he didn't care, the loss wouldn't hurt so much. If none of the people around were his friends, then losing them wouldn't kill him.
If he was just a sociopath who liked hurting people, then all of this wouldn't destroy him, would it?
In retrospect, the lie had been obvious. Jax had been friends with Ragatha before. Only Ribbit's disappearance had caused him to turn away from her. And when she had pushed nonetheless, asked if she had done something wrong, that was when he had cut her off completely. In that moment of grief and the desperate desire to protect what was left of him, it should have been clear that he barely meant half of what he had said. Especially when he claimed not to care about the deceased and painted himself to be the worst person alive.
And Ragatha, stupidly, had fallen for it.
Her head fell forward so that her hair covered her face. Ragatha's hands grasped her mattress tightly now. How had she been so naive? Why? If she looked into herself, she had obviously known that Jax cared about Ribbit. She had never believed that he had been indifferent, so why had she let Jax push her away that easily?
Looking at Pomni, she didn't seem willing to give up. She had seen behind Jax's facade and had recognized that he had attempted to push her away.
If only Ragatha had shown that fighting spirit in the past. If only. Her head was swimming at this point, barely letting her form a coherent thought. She took a while, and by the end, Pomni was already staring at her with concern. Ragatha still didn't feel ready to talk about this, but she doubted that she would ever be.
“Thank you for telling me, Pomni.”
Truly. Pomni couldn't imagine how important this conversation had been.
“You know...” Ragatha's hands came to her lap. She pulled at the seam in her fingers, if just to distract herself a bit from the numbing pain in her chest. She knew she was made of cotton, but somehow, she felt so hollow right now. “The switching up thing... It's familiar. He said that to me. All the things about him not caring and the sudden slip at the end. Almost beat for beat.”
Pomni was already looking over to her, expression filled with concern. Ragatha could see how she tensed up as soon as the words reached her. “Really?”
Ragatha took another deep breath before she slowly lifted her head. “Yeah. It isn't you...who did anything wrong.” And it hadn't been Ragatha back then either. “And...I think you're right. He got nervous when you came close.”
Pomni's eyes went wide. “He's scared of making friends, isn't he? That's why he keeps everyone away. That's why it was fine when we weren't close, but he had to push me away as soon as we became friends.”
“I think so. I...didn't...” When Pomni understood that so easily, Ragatha only became more upset with herself. She still went through each of Jax's hurtful words in her mind, coming to the same conclusion in the end. Ragatha grasped her hair, struggling to calm herself down. “Why didn't I get that? It's so obvious.”
It felt like bile was rising in her throat. So, she had been right after all. She had failed Jax when she could easily have seen through him. Someone who hadn't even been here for that long had understood. Ragatha had been here with him for years. Why hadn't she realized it first?
“Hey...” Pomni's voice reached her from the side. The jester reached over carefully, putting her hand on Ragatha's leg so softly that she barely touched her. “Don't blame yourself. Jax is hard to see through. I don't really understand him either. I just know that he's not a complete psychopath like he pretends to be.”
Ragatha allowed herself to glance at her friend. Now Pomni was trying to cheer her up. Was it that bad? “Of course, he's not.” Jax was a lot of things, but he wasn't pure evil. At least Ragatha thought he wasn't.
Her words made Pomni sit upright. “But isn't this good? At least we know what's going on with him now.” She sounded so hopeful. She was truly eager to help. But there was a flaw in that logic.
Knowing that Jax didn't hate them had never solved any issue.
“It also means that Jax is likely to shut down even more if we try to help. Especially if he holds a grudge. You saw how he is with me. He's not quite nice when he's mad with you.” Ragatha remembered how he shot her numerous times mere hours ago. How he hadn't hesitated to kill her first as soon as he held a gun. How he had emptied an entire magazine into her head. She also remembered how much glee he had chased and cornered her with. The very thought made her shiver still.
Memories of today swarmed her. Ragatha replayed those scenes in her head too. It was only here that she caught another mistake she would regret to the end of her life.
'I know exactly what you're doing with Pomni, and it'll never work!'
Maybe she had been wrong about that. Maybe Jax hadn't tried to corrupt Pomni at all. What if he had truly just been searching for a friend, and then Ragatha had assumed that he couldn't have such innocent intentions? It could have sent him spiraling even more. What if-
“Ugh...” Ragatha pulled at her hair with both hands. “All of this is a mess.”
When she looked up again, Pomni was just watching in concern. She waited for a moment as if she hoped for Ragatha to say anything else. Her gaze slowly wandered back down when nothing came. “It is, isn't it?” Now it seemed like Pomni, too, got more upset.
It was only here that Ragatha remembered what her role was. Hadn't Pomni come to her to be consoled? It wasn't her moment to cry now. “But...” She reached over to take Pomni's hand in hers. She waited for the jester to look up at her before she spoke. “You're right. We have a starting point now. This won't be easy. This won't be quick. But we know what to look out for now.”
That was only half-true. Ragatha had no idea where to go from here. She would love to have a magical solution for everything, but at the end of the day, Jax was still Jax. She doubted that he would listen to her even if she gave a heartfelt speech about wanting him to be happy. In fact, he would just get angrier if she admitted that she had seen through his facade now.
Jax's pride mattered to him. He wouldn't give that up easily. She wasn't sure if he even could at this point.
They both sat in silence for a short moment. Even without exchanging words, Ragatha could tell that Pomni thought about how to help Jax too. The determination that formed on the jester's face proved how important this was to her. How important Jax was to her.
Ragatha had to blink as she found her mind turning blank again. She could see the catastrophe coming from a mile away. It wasn't something she wanted to tell her friend, but she had to. “Pomni...” Ragatha squeezed her friend's hand before resuming. She struggled to keep her voice steady and with the appropriate sense of urgency. “If I'm right about this, Jax will become worse before he's better. Last time, after we had that...conversation... He was horrible for a few weeks, especially to me. As if to drive down his point. So...”
Even if she didn't say it all, Pomni seemed to understand. “I shouldn't take it to heart if he tries to push me away even more?”
“That's difficult when he knows just how to get under your skin. I know. But it's better if you at least know why he's doing it. And maybe...give him two or three days, just to let him calm down.” Ragatha had only seen him from afar, and that had been enough to make her scared for anyone crossing his path right now. Jax didn't manage his emotions well when he was upset.
Pomni seemed to think back to their last interaction too. She gave a small nod. “Okay.”
After that, they were silent again.
Ragatha could only speak for herself, but her head was so full of conflicting memories and ideas. It was difficult to follow one line of thought when a dozen others demanded her attention too. She decided that it was useless to try anything else today. She needed a night to reflect.
So, Ragatha gently squeezed Pomni's hand again and offered her a little smile. “I bet today was exhausting for you. You need a break after that. I'm sure we'll feel better after getting some rest.”
Pomni nodded in return. But instead of leaving, she whispered again. “Can I...stay here tonight?”
Ragatha could only blink. She hadn't thought that Pomni of all people would ask for something like that.
Maybe her hesitance had seemed like rejection since Pomni immediately took a step back. “Just if it's fine with you. I want to talk a bit more. But if you want to rest or-”
“Oh, no! Of course, you can stay! I told you I'm here for you.” Ragatha could tell that Pomni wasn't doing well today. She wouldn't ever consider just leaving her when she had come to Ragatha in the first place.
This was new to the both of them. That was abundantly clear as they made themselves comfortable in the quilted bed, just sitting there next to one another. But it was also clear that they needed this moment where they processed the day without the constant surprises the circus threw at them.
Pomni had wrapped her arms around her legs, her feet bopping up and down the entire time. She couldn't find the peace she had hoped for. She was the one who eventually broke the silence. “I keep remembering what he said to me. Every word.”
“It's okay. Tell me everything you remember.” Ragatha also wanted to know as much as she could. With how unpredictable Jax could be, it was important to find every crumb he might have left. And of course, to calm down those who had suffered because of him.
Pomni wasn't doing well at all. She really did remember almost every word Jax had thrown at her during that argument. And each of them seemed to torment her more as she had to repeat them. Pomni struggled to maintain her composure, but she came to her limit a couple of times. Still, she absolutely insisted that Jax did care. That he had felt guilty after claiming that he wouldn't remember her if she abstracted. That spouting all of those lies had just hurt him more in the end.
Ragatha tightened her hold on the pillow that rested on her lap. It was difficult to follow, but she focused on each word carefully, comparing it to what she remembered Jax telling her all those years ago. She only interrupted to offer words of encouragement.
Once Pomni was finally done with her story, she paused for only a moment. Then she started speaking again, about everything but Jax this time. About the circus, their friends and the rules of this world. About the gun fight, the lightning round and the adventures prior.
Ragatha spoke more here. She was happy to have a chance to talk to Pomni without any interruptions. Though, she wished that the circumstances were different. Like this, the pit in her stomach refused to disappear the entire time.
They kept talking until the morning arrived anyway.