Chapter Text
The Circus woke us up with a trumpet blast and a banner that read: WELCOME TO CIRCUSEY VALLEY
Which, honestly, was already suspicious. Anything with “Circusey” in the name is doomed immediately.
Pomni rolled closer to me, pulling the blanket up over her head. "Noooo…"
I pulled the little blanket bug into me. "Do you think if we just stay here, he'll notice?"
She took a few seconds before answering. "…Yeah."
I kissed her head through the blanket before we slid out of the blankets and down to the floor like two sad, sleepy slugs. We threw on whatever clothes were nearby, and walked out to the main room. Walking was better than the stupid portals.
Caine popped into the middle of the room wearing overalls and a straw hat. “It’s farming day!” he boomed. “Till the soil, harvest your dreams, and don’t anger the crows!” Then he vanished in a puff of glitter, before we were sucked up into a portal and flung onto a big farm, covered in sticks and rocks. leaned up against the tiny farmhouse were various farming tools.
“Why the [BEEP] do we have to clear the farmland? He couldn't have given us pre-tilled soil?" I huffed. "What are we even supposed to grow here?"
Pomni elbowed me, smiling. She was now wearing blue overalls, a t-shirt, and a big ol' farmers' hat. She looked precious. “Maybe carrots. Or parsnips... Or - hey, is that a fishing pole?”
She pointed at a different rack of tools. My heart melted. Leave it to her to get excited about chores in a gardening-hell-dimension.
We'd all been given dumb little farming outfits. Mine was basically jeans and a plaid shirt. I could live with that.
Kinger clapped like a proud dad seeing his kids off to summer camp. “Teams!" He gestured at the dirt like it was sacred. “Pomni and Jax - planting. Ragatha - watering. Zooble - you can fish. Gangle, you’ll scare away the crows!”
Gangle’s mask tilted in horror. “What if the crows scare me?”
“Least they won't try to steal your eyes.” Zooble said dryly, already grabbing the fishing pole and walking off toward a river.
Pomni wanted to fish…
Pomni looked briefly disappointed before she grabbed a hoe, and started swinging. “Come on, farmer boy,” she called. “Don’t just stand there daydreaming.”
“Sorry,” I said, jogging over. “Distracted by my ridiculously hot farmhand.”
She turned a little red laughed and tossed me a bag of seeds. I immediately dropped them, because apparently, my hands were allergic to competence. She crouched down, scooping them up with a shake of her head and this fond smile that just… ugh. Made me want to propose with the single turnip seed I'd managed to keep hold of on the spot.
Once she'd put them all back in the bag and went to hand them to me, I ignored her and grabbed the hoe out of her hand. "Poms, clearly we know which of these two jobs I should be doing."
He giggled. "Hoeing?"
I tried not to laugh, keeping the most serious face I could muster. "Pomni, farming innuendos are a serious crime against agreculture."
Ragatha hummed happily as she watered the freshly planted seeds behind us, careful and gentle like she was tucking them in for bed. “There we go, little guys. Grow nice and tall for us.”
Cringe.
Zooble, meanwhile, was already wrestling with the fishing pole. “This game sucks,” they muttered, the line flying in six wrong directions at once. “Who designed this - oh wait, right. Caine.”
“I'm just…watching for crows…” Gangle muttered. She froze a second later. “Wait, do scarecrows get attacked?”
“Only in horror movies,” I said. “So… fifty-fifty chance here.”
She whimpered.
Kinger wandered by holding a chicken. None of us knew where he got it. “Look! Egg!” he said proudly. The chicken promptly escaped and sprinted across the field. Kinger chased after it, laughing. “Ah, she’s feisty, just like your mother!”
Pomni, sat on the ground, wiped sweat from her forehead and leaned against my legs, grinning at the chaos. “This is actually kind of fun.”
Fun. That was the word. Dirt under her gloves, hair sticking to her face, everyone else bickering - and she looked so alive. She always seemed to like the mundane adventures for the most part. She looked happy. Cue my heart pulling a triple backflip.
We worked until the field looked vaguely planted. Then Kinger called for a “family dinner” with the harvest - which was exactly three parsnips, some random spring onions Ragatha had found, one egg, and whatever Zooble had fished up (Spoiler: it was a boot).
Ragatha roasted the parsnips, arranging them on a plate. “It’s not much,” she said, “but it’s ours.”
Zooble slammed the boot, now charred, on the table. “Protein.”
Gangle gasped. “I don't want to eat a shoe…”
Kinger patted her shoulder. “Good thing we have a boot!”
Pomni was clearly trying not to laugh. I couldn’t stop staring at her, because in this ridiculous fake farm world where nothing made sense, she made everything feel… steady. Real. Like maybe if we kept planting, something good would actually grow.
Oh man, she was making me such a [BEEP]ing sap.
Later, when everyone was half-asleep from “dinner” (boot excluded), Pomni leaned against me and whispered, “We'd run a cool farm, I think.”
“Yeah?” I whispered back.
“Yeah.” She smirked. “You’d probably just mess around all day and let me do the real work, though.”
I grinned. “Hey, I’d help! I’d…" I smirked. "I'd water your plants.”
Her laugh lit me up more than any lightbulb possibly could. She took my hand under the table, her face resting in her other hand, still smiling.
"Come on."
I pulled her away from the table, dragging her behind me as I walked out the front door.
The sky above us was absurdly clear, stars scattered like someone had spilled glitter across it. Off in the distance, I spotted a big lake, a decent way from the house. It called to me like some kind of… cheesy romantic video game cutscene. Perfect.
Pomni tugged on my hand. “Where are we going?”
“Fishing date,” I announced proudly, as if I’d just invented the mere concept of romance. “Late-night fishing date. It’s tradition.”
Her eyebrow went up. “Tradition where?”
“…In the land of Extremely Cool Boyfriends, shut up.”
She rolled her eyes, but her grin gave her away. “Lead the way, then, Extremely cool boyfriend.”
We found a little dock jutting into the water. It looked suspiciously flimsy, like it was designed to collapse at the funniest possible moment. I grabbed the abandoned fishing pole Zooble had rage-quit earlier, dusting it off like it was Excalibur. “Behold, our mighty tool.”
"You're a mighty tool."
"That is so unbelievably rude, Pommy."
And also really funny, but I couldn't tell her that.
She sat on the edge of the dock, her legs swinging. “You don’t even know how to fish, do you?”
“Of course I do!” I lied with the most confidence I could and sat next to her. “You just… throw the string into the water and yell at the fish until they feel bad enough to bite.”
She laughed so hard she almost fell in. “That’s not -”
“Shhh,” I said, dramatically tossing the line into the lake. It made a sad plop two feet away from us. “…See? Fishing.”
She scooted closer, her shoulder brushing mine. “You’re impossible.”
“I’m resourceful.”
Silence fell for a minute, except for the soft ripple of water and the distant chorus of crickets Caine probably programmed in for “ambiance.” Pomni leaned her head against me, eyes half-closed, and I felt something tighten in my chest. Not in the heartburn way. In the I’d let her plant parsnips in my soul way.
After a few minutes of pretending I was a fishing prodigy, the pole jerked in my hands. “Oh! Oh! Babe, I got something!”
“Pull it in!” she said, sitting up.
I yanked the pole, probably too hard, nearly toppling backward. The line came up after a very short period of reeling, revealing the ugliest, tiniest, most cartoonish fish I’d ever seen. It blinked at us.
I didn't even know fish could blink.
“…What even is that…?” I muttered.
Pomni burst into laughter, clutching her stomach. “It’s perfect. Keep it.”
I stared at the fish. The fish stared back. “…He’s our son now.”
“Name him,” she said, grinning.
“Boot Junior.”
She snorted in an attempt not to laugh. But, unfortunately for her and very fortunately for me, she thought I was funny. "You're [BEEP]ing ridiculous.
“Ridiculously in love with you, yeah.” I said it before my brain could stop me, but the way her laughter softened into this small, shy smile made the embarrassing sappiness worth it. I leaned into my own disgusting cringe and kissed her.
We sat there for what felt like forever, just us, the lake, and Boot Junior flopping around in a bucket. No crows, no farming chores, nothing weird - other than Boot Junior. Just her leaning against me.
“Hey, Jax?” she murmured.
“Yeah?”
“Next time… let’s try fishing during the day. When I can actually see.”
“Deal,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “But only if we bring our son.”
“Boot Junior?”
“Obviously, do we have another son I should know about?”
She smiled. "Not unless you do."
"Nope. Gross."
When we finally returned to the Circus, Boot Junior still flopped happily in the bucket like nothing had happened. Pomni carried him like a proud mom, her smile stubbornly determined. I knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Pomni,” I whispered as we landed in the main room. “He’s not gonna let us keep him.”
She shot me a mischievous grin. “Watch me.”
Before I could even stop her, she marched right up to where Caine hovered, still wearing his dumb overalls. “Caine!” she said brightly.
“Yes, Pomni?!” His hat spun three full times before settling back on his head. "Did you enjoy the adventure?"
“We had so much fun,” she began, voice sugary sweet. “Like… so much fun. It was one of my favorite adventures ever. I actually… felt really happy today. And I think a big part of that was because of him.” She lifted the bucket up like a trophy.
The fish stared blankly at Caine. Caine stared blankly back.
I held my breath, because if anyone was insane enough to argue with a fish about its right to exist, it was Caine.
Then his grin widened, and his teeth sparkled. “Well! If this creature is what made your adventure truly memorable, then who am I to deny young love’s first pet?!” He snapped his fingers, and poof! a perfectly round fishbowl appeared in Pomni’s arms, complete with little fake castle and tiny bubbling treasure chest.
Pomni gasped like he’d just handed her the Hope Diamond. “Thank you!” she said, hugging the fishbowl close.
Caine spun in a circle, glitter raining down. “Enjoy your scaly bundle of joy! But remember - feed him, love him, and never - ever - teach him to play cards. They cheat.” With that, he vanished in a literal cloud shaped like a turnip.
I turned to Pomni, who was now staring at me with that same mischievous smile. “Wow. You actually did it.”
She tilted her head smugly. “Told you.”
Back in our room, we spent way too long finding the perfect spot for him - on the dresser, by the mirror, next to the bed, finally settling on the little table in the corner. Boot Junior swam in lazy circles like he owned the place.
“See?” Pomni said, hands on her hips. “Home sweet home.”
I slid an arm around her waist, tugging her against me. “You’re dangerously good at convincing people to let you keep things, I guess. You coulda been a killer criminal.”
Her grin softened. “Guess I just know what’s worth keeping.”
Yeah, okay. That one went straight to the chest.
I leaned down, kissing her once, twice, then again because I was greedy and she let me. She laughed against my mouth, her fingers curling into my shirt.
Boot Junior stared at us in the corner. Our very judgmental fish son.
“Not to brag,” I murmured between kisses, “but I think we just became the hottest parents in circus history.”
She blushed. Poms was awful at getting called attractive. So I was going to keep doing it until she got good at it. Or forever. Probably forever.
"Hey…" she looked over at Boot Junior. "Are fishbowls still animal cruelty in the Circus?"
"If we don't need to breathe or eat, I doubt he's suffering in there." He swam in a little circle. "See, he agrees!"
She smiled. "Well, I'd have given him a better house."
"I know you would've." I picked her up and hugged her obnoxiously, swinging her back and forth. "I love your squishy little heart, ya know that?"
She giggled relentlessly. "I'd love you more if you put me down!"