Chapter Text
Caine had outdone himself with the latest adventure, crafting a breathtaking winter wonderland of snowy mountains and shimmering northern lights. Near a cozy log cabin, the rest of the circus group rested, clad in warm, authentic winter designs. Jax, however, was thoroughly unimpressed. To her, this serene mountain resort was painfully mundane—nothing but a boring, slow-paced vacation. Standing far from the hut, her bare paws sunk deep into the powdery drifts, she stared into the horizon with half-lidded, cynical eyes.
Suddenly, her peace was shattered when a snowball smacked directly into the back of her head. Turning around with a flare of indignant fury, she barked, "HEY! Who the hell—"
She cut herself off when she spotted the culprit: Ribbit, her frog-like friend, all elbows and momentum, like she'd been assembled a beat too fast. Shaking the frost from her periwinkle fur, Jax's snort morphed into an involuntary grin. "That's a headshot. Five points, froggy."
Bending down to scoop up a handful of white slush, Jax launched the counter-offensive, igniting a merciless snowball war. Cold lumps flew wildly, catching them in the face and slipping down their collars in the pursuit of victory.
"Nuh-uh! You missed! There's no snow here, see?" Jax argued, desperately holding back a laugh. Shaking a clear spot of snow off her shoulder while Ribbit wasn't looking, she motioned for the frog to come take a closer look. As soon as Ribbit stepped within arm's reach, Jax lunged forward, grabbing her by the shoulders and dragging them both down into the deep powder.
They tumbled into the white drift with a sharp cackle from Jax, sending a cloud of frost billowing into the air. Jax couldn't care less about the freezing cold or the snow seeping into her overalls; this sheer, unadulterated chaos was infinitely better than acting like a lost NPC.
"You can't do that, Ribbit!" the frog protested, chuckling from the ground.
"Oh, shut it!" Jax retorted, her grin widening. Using her momentum to pin the frog down, her square black irises scanned Ribbit's face with a mischievous, predatory glint. "I can do whatever I want! It's a free country... well, a free simulation, but you get the point! Besides," she added, her voice dropping into a mock-serious drone as she packed together another projectile, "you're the one who started this war. You don't get to complain about the tactics once the first shot is fired. That's just bad strategy, froggy."
Without warning, she slammed the snowball directly into Ribbit's midsection. "Take that! And that! Prepare for total annihilation!"
Sputtering, Ribbit quickly retaliated. "Oh, it's on!" she shot back, throwing a tightly packed ball directly at the light pink pocket on Jax's chest.
Jax's eyes widened as the snow impacted her overalls, the cold dampness instantly seeping through the fabric. She barked out a laugh despite herself, her ears twitching with excitement. "Oh, you're gonna regret that," she said, a sharp-toothed grin spreading across her face. "You're gonna pay for that, you green beanpole!"
Ditching standard snowball sizes, Jax packed together a massive, dense chunk of ice, flattening it out with her gloved hands. Aiming low to knock the wind out of her opponent, she shouted, "You think you're so clever, don't you? Just because you've got those big pie eyes and a smug little smirk! Let's see how much you're laughing when you're buried under a mountain of frost!"
She lunged to smother Ribbit in a flurry of white powder, challenging her to fight back. But the frog scrambled up with surprising speed, becoming a green blur that barreled straight back into her. The impact sent Jax flying backward, hitting the ground with a sharp, indignant, "Oof!" as the air left her lungs.
For a moment, the world was a dizzying spin of blue sky and white slush. Then Ribbit's weight settled on top of her, pinning her down. Jax lay there, her chest heaving, staring up with wide yellow eyes.
"You absolute menace!" Jax sputtered, a suppressed laugh bubbling beneath her shock. She didn't try to push Ribbit away immediately, choosing instead to lie in the cold as it settled around them. "That wasn't a tackle, that was a hit-and-run! You're using those long limbs to gain an unfair advantage! Is this your grand plan? Just tackle me until I give up? How original! You're a real tactical genius, Ribbit, really. Caine should give you a medal for 'Most Aggressive Use of Gravity.'"
Her hands moved to grip Ribbit's arms, trying to pry her off—though not pushing her away for good. Her eyes darted toward the distant hut, wondering if the ever-observant Ragatha or the neurotic Kaufmo were watching their skirmish. Turning her sharp teeth back toward her captor, she challenged, "Well? Don't just sit there like a decorative lawn ornament. Are we fighting or having a nap session? Because if it's a nap, you're doing it all wrong."
Ribbit smirked down at her. "Why, you scared of a frog?"
Jax let out a scoff that was practically a snort, rolling her eyes. "Scared? Me? Please. I've seen Gangle's face when her mask breaks—that's scary. You're just an oversized piece of pond scum. I'm not scared of a frog, Ribbit. I'm waiting for the right moment to crush one. There's a difference between fear and tactical patience. You wouldn't understand. You're too busy acting like a caffeinated toddler."
Digging her gloved fingers slightly into Ribbit's arms, the rush of adrenaline made her feel more alive than she had all morning. Leaning up until her face was inches from Ribbit's, her irises narrowed as her expression shifted to pure mischief. "But if you really want to test that theory... let's see how brave you are face down in the slush."
Jax bucked her legs upward to flip Ribbit off, but froze mid-struggle. The winter light caught Ribbit's face, revealing an unmistakable tint of color creeping up the frog's cheeks.
A slow, wicked grin spread across Jax's face. This was better than any snowball. This was leverage.
"Oh?" Jax purred, her voice dropping into something far more dangerous than her usual sarcasm—unhurried, almost lazy. She didn't stop trying to push Ribbit off, but she leaned in closer, her nose nearly touching Ribbit's, her teeth glinting. "Well, look at that. The big, brave frog, going a little quiet all of a sudden. Not used to someone getting this close, are you?"
She poked Ribbit's cheek with a gloved finger, her expression a mix of mischief and a rare, fleeting flicker of genuine interest. "You're turning a very interesting shade of green meets pink. It's almost cute. Almost. Don't tell me you're actually shy. That would be a disaster for your reputation."
"N-no," Ribbit stuttered slightly. Desperate to escape the proximity, she threw a handful of snow straight into Jax's face and rolled out from under her.
"Gah!" Jax yelped, blinded by the gritty powder coating her eyelashes and nose. Sputtering and wiping her eyes, she sat up quickly to launch a counterstrike, but paused when she heard the tiny tremor in Ribbit's voice. The anger evaporated, overtaken by triumph.
"Oh, don't you 'n-no' me!" Jax called out, standing up and brushing off her overalls with exaggerated, dramatic movements. "You can throw all the snow you want, but you can't hide that voice. You're practically vibrating."
She stalked after Ribbit, her legs easily cutting through the drifts like a predator who'd found a highly entertaining new toy. "What happened to all that 'fearless frog' energy? Did you lose it in the snow? Or did you just realize how close a 'scary' bunny actually is?"
Ribbit stopped dead in her tracks, nearly tangling her own limbs as she spun around with glowing red cheeks. "I am not vibrating, you menace!" She tried crossing her arms to look imposing, though her hands trembled slightly from the sudden adrenaline. "And it wasn't a 'closeness' thing, it was a... a something else!"
"A 'something else'?" Jax repeated, planting her hands on her narrow waist and tilting her head with unmasked amusement. She took a slow, deliberate step forward, closing the gap just enough to be annoying. "Wow. Very specific. Very helpful. Truly, your communication skills are top-tier, Ribbit. A regular philosopher."
She let out a sharp, barking laugh. The chance to tease someone until they practically short-circuited was far too tempting to pass up. Leaning in slightly, she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "So, what's this 'something else,' then? A sudden allergy to bunnies? A fear of periwinkle fur? Or is it just that you can't handle a little bit of intensity?"
She circled Ribbit like a shark, her bare paws making soft thumps in the snow. "Because from where I'm standing, you look less like a menace and more like a tomato about to pop. It's actually kind of hilarious. If Gangle saw you right now, she'd start crying just from the secondhand embarrassment. Come on, spill it. Don't be shy. We're all alone out here... well, mostly. Unless Caine decides to pop in and ruin the mood with some nonsensical fanfare."
Ribbit looked away, crossing her arms tighter. "It's nothing. Plus, I'm cold."
Jax rolled her eyes so hard they nearly got stuck in the back of her head. "Oh, 'it's nothing.' The classic, go-to nothing," she mimicked, delivering a perfect mocking imitation of a defensive teenager. "You're a terrible liar, Ribbit. If lying were an adventure, you'd still be stuck at the starting line waiting for Caine to tell you where to go."
She watched the frog seem to shrink into her own skin. "Cold? Please. You're a frog. You're supposed to be semi-aquatic or something. Built for dampness," Jax teased. Yet her eyes softened just a fraction—a change so small only someone staring intensely at her would notice.
Taking a step closer, her shadow fell over Ribbit. "But fine. If you're gonna be a dramatic little puddle, we can play along." Without waiting for an invitation, Jax reached out and grabbed Ribbit's arm, her gloved hand surprisingly firm. "Since you're clearly too 'busy' being cold to continue our war, let's get you back to the hut before you turn into a green popsicle. And don't think this means you won! You're just retreating. It's a tactical retreat. Very professional."
She started tugging Ribbit toward the warmth of the lodge, a smirk still playing on her lips. "And if you start stuttering again, I'm telling everyone you're actually just a very large, very nervous grape."
As they walked, Ribbit suddenly lunged forward, jumping squarely onto Jax's back.
"Whoa!" Jax's breath hitched as the sudden weight slammed into her spine. The impact sent her stumbling forward, her paws skidding through the snow as she fought to keep her balance. She let out a startled grunt, her ears flopping wildly with the momentum. For a split second, she looked like she might face-plant into a drift, but she stabilized herself, arms flailing before she gripped Ribbit's legs to keep the frog from sliding off.
"Are you insane?!" Jax yelled, though the absurdity of it made her voice crack with a laugh. She stood there, hunched slightly under the weight, her fur bristling from the sudden contact. "You were just complaining about being cold, and now you're using me as a personal heated blanket? You're greedy, you know that?"
She started walking again, though her gait was now more of a clumsy, heavy stomp. Despite the biting sarcasm and mock indignation, she didn't try to shake Ribbit off. If anything, she adjusted her stance to make sure the frog was secure, her hands gripping tightly.
"You're lucky you're light, or you'd have snapped my spine like a dry twig," she grumbled, though her smirk was wider than ever. She could feel the heat radiating off Ribbit's blushing face through her back, and it only fueled her mischievous mood. "Is this your new strategy? Instead of tackling me, you just piggyback your way to victory? Bold move, Ribbit. Very froglike."
She turned her head slightly, a glint of pure, chaotic delight in her eyes. "Don't get too comfortable, though. Once we get back to the hut, the bunny ride ends, and the retaliation begins. You're basically a sitting duck now."
"You're warm," Ribbit responded, holding on tight.
Jax let out a huff, halfway between a groan and a genuine chuckle. "Oh, so now I'm just a portable radiator? Is that all I am to you?" she grumbled, though she made no real move to loosen her grip on Ribbit's legs.
The feeling of Ribbit holding on—those long limbs wrapping around her—sent a strange, tiny jolt through Jax's chest. It was a sensation she usually tried to avoid, a moment of closeness that felt a little too much like the stuff Ragatha would do. Sickeningly sweet, almost. She shook her head, trying to dismiss the fuzzy feeling of someone actually wanting to be near her. Annoying. Distracting. And yet—something.
"Fine, fine! Keep clinging on like a parasite," Jax muttered, her voice lacking its usual bite. She started walking faster, more purposeful, heading toward the main tent. "But don't think this earns you any extra points. You're still a shivering mess, and once we're inside, I'm charging you a warmth tax in the form of extra spaghetti."
She tilted her head back just enough to catch a glimpse of Ribbit's face, eyes narrowing with a playful, sharp glint. "And if you keep holding on that tight, people are gonna start thinking we're actually friends or something. We wouldn't want that, would we? Total disaster for my reputation as the resident menace."
As Jax delivered her warning, Ribbit shifted her hands from Jax's shoulders to the top of her head, gently rubbing the soft fur of her ears.
Jax froze mid-step. The world seemed to stall for a microsecond. Then a low, rhythmic sound bubbled up from deep in her chest. It wasn't a laugh, and it wasn't a grunt. It was a distinct, unmistakable purr.
Jax's eyes went wide, practically vibrating in their sockets. Her entire body went rigid, her ears standing straight up like two stiff sausages. For a moment, the cool, indifferent persona she worked so hard to maintain shattered into a million pieces.
"Wha?! Stop that!" she hissed, though the effect was completely ruined by the purring only getting louder as her brain struggled to process the sensation. It felt good. Dangerously comfortable. She tried to shake her head to dislodge the hands, but her neck had turned to jelly. The more Ribbit rubbed, the more the sound rumbled in her throat—a traitorous little melody of pure contentment.
"Ribbit! Cease this madness immediately!" Jax barked, her face heating up—a sensation she wasn't sure she was even supposed to be capable of. "I am a menace! A rebel! A cruel, sarcastic bunny! I do not purr like some domesticated house pet!"
She let out a sharp, indignant huff, but didn't pull away. If anything, she leaned back into the touch just a tiny bit, her legs stumbling as she fought the urge to melt into the snow right there.
"If you tell anyone about this," she whispered, her voice dropping low, threatening, yet strangely soft, "especially Ragatha or that neurotic Kaufmo—I will personally ensure your next adventure involves being chased by a swarm of centipedes. Do you hear me? This is a secret. A highly classified, top-secret, don't-you-dare-mention-it secret."
The chaotic energy of the day had finally simmered down, leaving the circus inhabitants to retreat to their respective corners of the madness. Jax leaned against the wall of the corridor, arms crossed, her expression back to its usual bored, condescending indifference. She was trying to shake the lingering, embarrassing memory of that purr, acting as if she hadn't just been a vibrating pile of mush under a frog's hands.
She saw Ribbit approaching, and her eyes narrowed slightly, a sharp, knowing glint returning. "Back for more, are we? Don't tell me you've run out of snow to throw," Jax teased, her voice regaining its usual edge.
But then Ribbit spoke. The way she leaned in, the coy tilt of her head, and that specific, suggestive question caught Jax completely off guard.
"Can we go to your room?" Ribbit asked coyly.
Jax's ears flicked upward, and for a split second, her cool facade cracked. She blinked, mouth slightly agape, before quickly snapping it shut into a lopsided, defensive smirk.
"My room?" Jax repeated, her voice jumping an octave before she forced it back down into a smooth drawl. She let out a short laugh to cover the sudden flutter in her chest. "Wow. You really don't waste any time, do you? One minute you're using me as a heater, and the next you're trying to invade my personal space."
She pushed off the wall, her tall frame casting a long shadow in the hallway, and began walking toward her door—the one with her own cartoonish avatar on it. She didn't walk away, though. She slowed her pace, glancing back over her shoulder at Ribbit with a look of pure, mischievous challenge.
"Are you sure you can handle it in there? It's not all pink overalls and sarcasm. It's a lot of personality," she teased, reaching into her pocket, the jingle of her room keys punctuating her words. She stopped fully in front of her door and turned to face the frog, a slow grin spreading—less bully now, more partner in crime. "Well? Don't just stand there looking all cute and suspicious," Jax prompted, her voice dropping to a low, daring whisper. "Are you coming, or are you gonna stand there and let the tension build until someone abstracts from the sheer awkwardness?"
Jax stood in the doorway, hand still on the handle, watching as Ribbit made herself right at home on the bed. The sheer audacity of it—just waltzing in and sitting down like she owned the place—was enough to make Jax's ears twitch in irritation.
Then the words came out. "Aww, you think I'm cute?" Ribbit said smugly.
Heat climbed up Jax's neck fast, flooding her fur with color. It was a betrayal of her entire existence. She was supposed to be the one making people uncomfortable, delivering the stinging barbs—not the one being teased like some wide-eyed newbie.
"Shut up!" Jax snapped, though the bite was entirely missing from her voice. She shut the door behind her, the sound echoing a little too loudly in the small room, and turned to face Ribbit. She tried to pull her usual mask of bored condescension back on, but the color in her cheeks gave her away, making her look less like a menace and more like a flustered mess.
"I didn't say 'cute'! I said 'annoying'! There's a massive difference!" she lied, her voice a little too high-pitched to be convincing. She crossed her arms tightly over her overalls, trying to hide the fact that her hands were trembling. "You're just an overly confident nuisance who doesn't know how to respect personal boundaries."
She paced a short distance away, her legs making the small room feel even tighter, unable to look Ribbit in the eye. Focus locked onto a random spot on the wall, she added, tone turning sharp again as a defense mechanism: "And don't get used to it. Just because you're in my room doesn't mean we're having a 'moment.' You're just occupying space. Like a very large, very loud piece of furniture."
She finally risked a glance back at the bed, narrowing her eyes as the smugness tried to fight its way back to the surface against the stubborn warmth still sitting in her cheeks. "So what, you gonna sit there and mock me all night, or did you actually have a reason for this little invasion?"
The hours bled into one another, the clock in the corner of the room ticking away in a way that felt both meaningless and strangely rhythmic. For once, Jax wasn't performing. The sharp, biting sarcasm she usually used as a shield had softened into something more conversational—still cynical, still a little rude, but lacking the jagged edges meant to draw blood. They talked about things that didn't matter, and things that felt like they might, drifting from the absurdity of Caine's latest "adventure" to the weird, hollow feeling of being stuck in a cartoonish void. Jax found herself actually listening without looking for an opening to make a joke or a way to deflect; she was just there.
As the night progressed, the conversation slowed to a comfortable hum, then to a quiet murmur, and finally to a heavy, peaceful silence. Jax was leaning back against her headboard, legs stretched out, when she felt the weight shift. Ribbit, exhausted from the day's chaos and the emotional whirlwind of the evening, had drifted off, her head settling heavily into Jax's lap.
Jax froze. Her first instinct was to recoil, to make a loud, dramatic comment about personal space, but the words died in her throat. The rhythmic, soft breathing of the frog against her thighs was grounding—a sensation of warmth and presence that felt dangerously real in a world made of code.
She looked down at Ribbit, her expression uncharacteristically soft, the usual mischievous glint in her eyes replaced by a quiet, contemplative stillness. She didn't move, terrified that even a small shift would break the spell and send the intruder scurrying back to her own room. Slowly, almost tentatively, Jax reached down, her gloved hand hovering for a second before she let her fingers rest lightly against Ribbit's shoulder, a gesture so subtle it was almost a secret.
"You're such a nuisance," Jax whispered into the quiet room, her voice barely a breath. There was no venom in it, only a strange, quiet sort of acceptance. She leaned her head back against the wall, her ears drooping slightly as she let her eyes close, content to just exist in the quiet, lulled by the warmth of the person who had finally managed to break through her carefully constructed walls.
Morning in the digital circus didn't really exist in any meaningful sense—no sun to rise, no birds to sing, just Caine's arbitrary lighting cues deciding when "daytime" began. But something in the room had shifted anyway, a soft gray-gold glow easing in through the window like the simulation was being uncharacteristically gentle for once.
Jax woke up first. Or she assumed she did—it was hard to tell, sprawled as she was against the headboard with a lapful of frog and a suspicious ache in her neck from staying so still all night. She should move. She should absolutely peel Ribbit off her lap, reclaim her personal space, restore the natural order of things.
She didn't move.
Instead she found herself watching the slow rise and fall of Ribbit's breathing, the way her wide mouth had gone soft and unguarded in sleep, none of the usual coy tilt to it. It was, annoyingly, kind of adorable. Jax scowled at the thought the second it arrived, as if scowling hard enough might delete it from her memory banks.
"You're staring," Ribbit mumbled, not opening her eyes.
Jax nearly launched out of her own skin. "I am not staring. I am supervising. There's a difference."
"Mm. Supervising what."
"Whether or not you drool on my nice overalls. Very important job. Someone's gotta do it."
A slow smile spread across Ribbit's face, eyes still closed, and she burrowed a fraction closer instead of pulling away. "Liar."
"I don't know what you're—okay, fine, maybe I was staring a little. Sue me. You've got a weird face when you sleep, it's very distracting."
"Weird how?"
"Weird soft. Weird quiet." Jax's ears twitched, betraying her before her mouth could catch up. "It's unsettling. I prefer you insufferable and awake."
Ribbit finally cracked one eye open, peering up with an expression far too knowing for someone who'd been asleep thirty seconds ago. "You could've just said it was cute."
"I could have. I chose not to. That was a choice I made on purpose."
"Uh-huh."
Rather than dignify that with a response, Jax reached down and flicked one of Ribbit's long ears—and immediately regretted it when Ribbit let out a happy little chirp and pressed further into her hand instead of away from it, unbothered and trusting in a way that made Jax's chest do an uncomfortable little flip.
"Okay, no, don't do that, that's cheating," Jax said, though she didn't pull her hand back. If anything, her fingers found their way behind Ribbit's ear and stayed there, absent-minded, like they'd decided this was simply where they lived now.
The purr that answered wasn't Jax's this time. It was low and warm and entirely Ribbit's, and it startled a genuine, unguarded laugh out of Jax before she could stop it.
"Oh my god, you're doing it too? Get your own bit."
"You started it yesterday," Ribbit said, smug even half-asleep. "I'm just returning the favor."
"I did not start anything, I was the victim of an unprovoked ear assault—"
"You liked it."
"I tolerated it. Under duress. There's a difference." But she kept scratching anyway, and the smile tugging at her mouth was doing a very poor job of looking like duress.
They stayed like that a while, tangled up in blankets and unspoken things neither of them felt like naming yet, the room quiet except for two small, ridiculous, competing purrs. Eventually Jax's stomach ruined the moment with a loud, undignified growl, and Ribbit dissolved into giggles against her shoulder.
"Shut up," Jax grumbled, ears warm. "I'll go make food. Don't get used to this. This is a one-time thing. A limited engagement. A—"
"A tactical retreat?" Ribbit offered sweetly.
Jax pointed a finger at her, trying and failing to look stern. "I hate that you remember that."
She untangled herself with far less urgency than her earlier threats suggested, and before she made it two steps toward the door, a hand caught her sleeve.
"Hey," Ribbit said, softer now, all the teasing sanded off her voice. "Thanks for last night. The talking part. Not just the nap."
Jax opened her mouth, already loading up something sharp to lob back and defuse the sincerity of it. But she caught the look on Ribbit's face—open, a little hopeful—and the joke died somewhere on the way out.
"Yeah," she said instead, quieter than she meant to. "Yeah. Anytime."
She practically fled the room after that, ears bright pink, muttering something about pancakes. But she left the door propped open behind her—just a little, just enough—and if Ribbit noticed, she was kind enough not to mention it.