Chapter Text
“What would you do if I abstracted tomorrow?”
Jesus, not again with the mind games. Does she want him to care? To give a shit? He doesn’t.
“I’d move on, and probably forget about you.” He feels his trademark grin slide on his face.
But you won’t a little voice in his mind rings out. He silences it, then kicks it twice for good measure. He will.
“Oh, yeah, okay.” Her voice is so tiny. Shaky, small, fragile. As though a single breath could knock her over, like a house of cards. She is so small. “I understand.”
No you don’t, he wants to scream. Grab her face and tell her he cares, because god he does. But he does not. Jax does not do feelings. He does not do emotions, or touchy-feely or anything of that sort. He is a man, and real men don’t cry. And yet a tiny tendril of guilt, slimy and repulsive worms its way into his chest.
The gun in her hand glints as it shifts in her hand. He can’t see her face, but he can tell she stares at it. Turns it over in her mind, examining every inch and facet. The way the light hits the barrel. The lone bullet that still remains. It’s the solution, isn’t it? Violence. He likes it, this is the first adventure he’s truly been able to just let loose and have fun in a long time. And yet, the way she holds the gun sets every instinct in him aflame. His whole body is tense, rigid, ready to leap for the damn gun and wrench it from her gloved hands. He watches, intensely, analysing her every movement. Every breath she takes, every exaggerated blink from her mismatched eyelashes. He needs to de-escalate, to stop her from staring at the gun like it was the solution to a never-ending problem.
It wasn’t his fault she took his words so seriously. It wasn’t his fault she took his words to heart.
He is simply a truth teller.
But still she holds the gun, as though ready to raise it to her temple. Fuck.
Just apologise. The voice in his mind suggests. But how can he apologise when he didn’t make a mistake? He has nothing to apologise for. He rolls his eyes, “Jeez, you really can’t take a joke can you?”
He sees her tense; her elbow move. He freezes, ready to jump in at a moment’s notice. Why does he care so much?
She does not raise the gun to her temple. Instead, she lets it drop, metal crashing onto tile in a heart-shattering, gut-wrenching clatter. He stares at the gun, ears flattened. It’s better than watching her retreating figure, arms wrapped around her red and blue patterned suit, holding herself together.
The gun does not answer his questions. It simply lays there, quiet, unassuming. It just is. Moments pass. Minutes, or maybe even hours, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that after a while, the gun disappears, and he can hear the surprised clamour of voices as the rest of the circus appear from wherever the hell Caine kept them.
He shakes himself out of his stupor, slinking back towards his room. Maybe he can just close his eyes for a few minutes and forget about all of this bullshit. The bright colours taunt him; normally they’re overwhelmingly bright but today they seem downright garish. He longs for the muted purples of his room. With a groan, he forces one comically oversized foot in front of the other.
He gets to the handle before he finds himself whisked away to the awards show, stuffed in one of those stupid folding seats that flip up the moment you try to adjust yourself. He’s too tall for the chairs, and too tired to give a shit about it. He lets his knees press against the seat in front until they ache and go numb.
He hates award shows. Presentations. All the jazz that involves him being cramped inside a too-dark theatre listening to droning speeches and endless awards that he never receives. They are mind-numbingly boring, too dim and silent to do anything but think. He hates the sensory nightmare that is the circus, but he’d take it over having to recall what happened earlier. He stares at his hand, breathing heavily. He can still feel the pressure of pushing Pomni away, weighing down on his palm like a lead glove. The tiny thread of guilt worms its way further around his chest, squeezing his heart, catching in his throat. His eyes burn with unshed tears.
Your fault. The voice in his mind reminds him. He shoves it back down. It rears its head. He feels his lip tremble, leg twitch. Real men don’t cry. But it’s all Jax wants to do. His vision blurs and his breath catches, all he sees is the look of hurt on Pomni’s face. The wide eyes, pressed eyebrows. The shock, the betrayal. The pity.
He needs to get out of here. He barely makes it to the bathroom, drowning out the sound of Caine presenting awards with running water from the faucet. The sound of isn’t exactly the most soothing, but at least it’s something to focus on. He drags himself up, staring at his reflection. Limp, pathetic floppy rabbit ears, fuzzy purple fur, jaundiced yellow eyes. He looks like a character straight out of a video game. He looks stupid.
He stares, breathing deeply in a desperate attempt to clear the fog surrounding his mind. To push the thread of guilt deep, deep down. It’s a problem for later. He sighs, splashing water on his face. Just have to smile, that’s all. No matter how hard he tries, the smile just does not look right, too wide, too small, too long.
He stares at his reflection. “Tch. Figures. Can’t even smile right.”
His reflection stares back. Vaguely, he recalls Ragatha telling Gangle how to ‘smile correctly’. Eye crinkles or some stupid bullshit like that. He’s a rabbit, his face doesn’t exactly crinkle. He still tries it however. Surprisingly, it works. The grin is passable, normal, especially if seen from a distance. It doesn’t look quite as crazed.
He forces the grin on his face, and returns to his seat. He glances down towards where the rest of the circus sits. Zooble is out of it on the stupid sauce, Gangle is sketching something and Kinger is well, Kinger. Ragatha simply sits and stares, posture prim and proper. Like a goddamn plastic doll. And Pomni? Pomni has not moved in the two hours they have been stuck here. But pretending like he feels for them, for her is not worth his time. When Caine dismisses them all, he all but runs for his room. He’s so fucking exhausted, all he wants to do is flop onto his bed and go dead to the world.
Naturally, he cannot sleep.
Even after counting each tile on the ceiling three times over, sleep still does not come. With a groan, he rolls over, dragging himself out of bed. The air in the room is stuffy, cloyingly sweet with the artificial scent of bubblegum and sugar that perforates every inch of the tent.
Outside is scarcely better, but at least the cool breeze that rustles the leaves helps to mask the scent. He tugs open the wooden door, eyes purposely avoiding the southern corridor, filled with row after row of crimson crosses. Pomni’s stupid massive pinwheel eyes stare back at him from her door. She still hasn’t said a word to him.
He groans, rolling his eyes. “Pull yourself together.”
He can feel the gentle weight of the entrance flap of the circus tent through his gloved hand as he drags it open. The cool air hits his bare arms. For whatever reason, the copious amounts of fuzz and fur that covers him seems to do nothing to protect against the cold, bar swaying in the wind. He scrunches the grass with his toes. It’s cool, slightly damp with dew, vivid green dulled by the night sky. Faintly, he can smell the earthy, musty scent of the lake and the ever so faint scent of popcorn from the fairgrounds. It smells familiar— like a summer’s day or a picnic in the park. Above, clouds drift lazily against an ocean of indigo, the cool blue tones of the Moon illuminating the ground as she slumbers. Stars twinkle in constellations, glinting with possibility. The daylight cycle at least provides some sense of normalcy, some way of counting the time spent. More than that, it was an excuse to escape from the circus and its members for at least a few hours for ‘sleep’.
He drags his hand over his face, sighing deeply. “God. What a day.”
The cuffs of his pyjama pants trail in the damp grass as he makes his way to the hill overlooking the lake.There, he flops onto the grass, gazed fixed to the sky, back slowly getting soaked by the wet grass. He’s forgotten to bring a blanket with him, but fuck it, the day can’t get any worse.
It’s calming out here, with just the wind and the trees, watching the clouds drift and birds fly. He faintly recalls the constellations, but here he does not recognise any of them that litter the sky. It is as though somebody with the vaguest idea of what stars in a constellation should look like was instructed to recreate the idea, the result a clumsy assortment reminiscent of a children’s drawing. A triangular, misshapen mass that appears to be an attempt at Orion points itself towards the circus, as though Orion himself is drawing an arrow directly at the yellow and red tent. Jax reaches out an arm to the sky. A firefly drifts past, circling briefly around his outstretched hand before flitting away at his movement.
Figures. Even the bugs don’t want to be around him.
With a groan, he pulls himself into a seated position, legs stretched out in front of him. Stupid Caine and his stupid clothing choices. He’s forced into an embarrassingly childish pyjama set for the night, pale pink pants decorated with repeated rows of white bunnies and orange carrots, shirt adorned with a large fluffy rabbit clutching another carrot. The outfit isn’t even fit for a five year old at Easter. He glances down, watching the waves gently lap at the shore, hand in head.
‘Okay, yeah. I understand.’
Betrayal.
Hurt.
Pity.
The blank stare as she walked.
Her retreating shadow.
She didn’t look back; not this time.
The noise as the gun clattered to the floor.
That’s what he wanted, right? Distance? She was getting too close. All he was going to do was hurt her. It was better this way, to never let her get close enough to get hurt in the first place.
“Shoot me.”
The small, awkward smile she gave. “I don’t really want to.”
She refused to shoot him, refused to hurt him, refused to listen when he told her they weren’t a thing. Because they weren’t, she was delusional and he was doing it for shits and giggles.
Well, he feels like shit. That made him giggle. Mission accomplished, right? He is not sad and he is not upset. He is a man and real men don’t cry.
The small voice in his head pipes up again. Why won’t you admit what you feel?
Because it’s an overreaction, he reminds it. This time he stuffs it in a box and shoves whatever he can find over the lid. It cannot come out now.
“Tch. What are you doing, Jax? Sitting out here.” He drops his head to his knees, between his hands, dragging his fingers through his fur. “Losing sleep over this bull[$&!%].” The wet back of his shirt clings to his spine.
He pulls himself up to his feet, swaying casually. “Welp, back into the hellhole I go!” He grins, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. He can see the gradual lightening on the horizon, as the Moon sets and the Sun rises. She’s a bitch, he hates her. At least the Moon keeps her mouth shut.
He shoves his hands into his pockets, whistling a merry tune as he makes his way back into the circus tent. He is happy. He knows he is happy. Even if his shoulders sag, and his ears droop, he has nothing to be sad about.
He reaches his door, eager to change out of the fuzzy pyjamas before anybody catches him. Surreptitiously, he glances around the corridor. He catches sight of Pomni’s door again; faintly through the heavy wood he can hear her voice.
“For [$%#^&]’s sake, get a grip. You’re fine, you’re fine, you are fine. Just- stop overreacting.” There is a pause, and a very faint thud. “I mean, sure, he held a gun to his head and told you to shoot, and sure you debated offing yourself, but hey ain’t that normal?” There is another thud, and a muffled crashing, as though something fragile has been thrown. Her voice is strained, an octave higher than her usual squeak, lined with the sounds of nervous laughter. His ears flick backwards as a loud crash echoes throughout the circus from Pomni’s room. “[@%$^]!”
Several doors open at the noise. Before he can duck inside his room, Zooble catches sight of him, and by extension, his pyjamas. They look him up and down and raise an eyebrow. He responds with a charming hand gesture.
Ragatha is the first to move, knocking on Pomni’s door with cautious grace. “Pomni? Is everything alright?”
Jax shuts the door before he can see or hear whether Pomni responds. Pomni will be fine. She will be better off without Jax, because Jax just causes pain and suffering wherever he goes.
Like what she’s experiencing now? The tiny voice in his mind has broken free of its prison.
Yes. He thinks back. Exactly. Pain and suffering. Nothing more.