Chapter Text
It was an especially lonely night in the circus when Pomni left her bedroom, eyes fixated on the door across from hers.
She was sworn to secrecy, but she and Jax had an agreement that if she was having a particularly hard night, she could come to his room for a sleepover.
It was something that had been established since her second or third day at the circus, she had offhandedly mentioned having terrible nightmares, and he proposed the idea under the guise of making sure she "didn't abstract before things got interesting."
For a few weeks they were having sleepovers almost daily, but as she settled in and her nightmares lessened she stopped coming over as often. This, coupled with his embarrassment when she was spotted leaving his room, made sleepovers basically a thing of the past.
That led her to tonight.
That night hadn't been very hard for her, but she sought him out anyway, because she if she was being honest she missed it.
She missed talking with him and joking late into the night, lobbing pillows at each other to try to decide who would get to sleep on the bed and who would get the floor, asking stupid "would you rather" questions until they both fell asleep. She didn't know how, but he always managed to make those awful nightmares completely fade away just by being himself...
So there she was, in front of his door.
She knocked once, then paused for a beat and knocked three more times in a special pattern they had agreed upon to let him know it was her, though this time he didn't open the door.
She knocked again in the same pattern, and still, no response. She frowned, but didn't think much of it and just assumed he must've already been sleeping...until she heard rustling coming from behind the door.
Usually at this point, she'd just leave him alone. If he didn't want to open the door for her, fine, whatever, but their agreement stated he'd open the door no matter what if she knocked during the night so something had to be wrong for him to be awake but not opening up for her.
Luckily, he had told her where he hid his spare room key in a half-asleep stupor.
The door unlocked with a soft click, and with her hand on the doorknob, she announced, "I'm coming in, okay? I'm worried about you." Once again, no response. This was the final bit of confirmation she needed to fully commit to invading his privacy.
The door creaked open, but she couldn't even catch a glimpse of the rabbit before a plastic chair was flying past her head and into the hallway. Luckily it didn't hit her, but it got pretty close. "Jax, what the hell?!" She shouted, ready to scold him for being an asshole, only to freeze as her eyes rested upon him...
...or at least, she was pretty sure that was Jax, but it was hard to tell at that point.
Everything below his waist was replaced by the body of an abstraction, four legs and a thick body made up of sharp black corners and glowing eyes, but above that was a more humanoid torso. Abstraction ran up his arms, sharpening his fingers into claws, and it took hold of his ears, only leaving his chest and face unaffected by abstraction. Even then, his eyes were wide and glowing, pupils missing, and teeth sharp. He'd vastly grown in size, too; now towering over her, his hands big enough to easily crush her head if he wanted to.
When he noticed her, he got in her face and screamed wordlessly, his original voice barely audible behind layers of glitching.
She closed her eyes, backing away as she braced herself for whatever would happen next but after that...he just stayed there, up close, like he didn't know what to do now that she was still there.
He wasn't trying to hurt her, he was trying to scare her away.
Even like this he would rather push her away than physically hurt her, but she held her ground. As long as he wasn't fully abstracted, there was still time...or at least that's what she told herself.
"Jax," she spoke, gently but firmly, "everything's gonna be okay."
His expression seemed to soften a bit at her tone and he backed off, staying close but no longer in her face.
She hesitated briefly, then reached out but he retreated into his room before she could touch him, as if he was scared of her. She followed him inside and closed the door behind her to prevent the possibility of anyone leaving their room and seeing this. She doubted he'd want that.
"It's okay," she said again. "Breathe," she took a deep breath, exaggerating the puff of her chest and the relaxing of her shoulders to demonstrate for him.
The abstraction just stared at her, unmoving, but she could see his breathing slow slightly. She gave him a soft, reassuring smile. "Good, keep going," she encouraged as she approached him. Now that he was a bit calmer, she tried to touch him again, but he immediately lashed out, violently pulling away from her and screaming again as he backed himself further into a corner like a scared animal.
"Okay, no touch, I understand," she held her hands up by her chest in surrender to make it clear she got the message "but you don't have to scream at me, a head shake would work fine" for all she knew it could be his only form of communication, so she tried not to hold it against him, but she'd really prefer if he used his words.
Pomni didn't want to make him more uncomfortable by getting closer when he was obviously very stressed so she took a seat on the floor and let him approach when he was ready.
He stared at her for a beat or two, then copied her and sat down, though he still towered over her.
"Can you talk?"
Jax didn't answer verbally, but gave a slight nod of his head.
"Okay..." She played with her gloves anxiously, unsure of where to take this conversation. It was kind of hard to think of conversation topics with the elephant in the room...
"Does it hurt?"
And Jax nodded.
"Scale of one to ten?"
Jax looked down at his hands, held up seven fingers, then added one more after further consideration.
Eight out of ten...no wonder he was so irritated.
"Do you...even want me here?" She asked hesitantly. She kind of invited herself in after he tried to scare her away twice, definitely didn't give the impression that she was wanted there "I'll leave if that's what you'd want."
The abstraction immediately reached out as if to grab her and keep her there but stopped just shy of touching her and pulled his hand back.
"You can touch me," She thought that would be obvious given her previous unsuccessful attempts at making contact.
Even with this reassurance, Jax continued to hesitate, grabbing his own wrist and holding it to his chest to physically hold himself back.
"I don't..." He began, though it was barely intelligible beneath all the glitching "want to hurt you"
She supposed that was a valid concern when glitches could spread between players, but from what Kinger told her, abstractions could be touched as long as they were relaxed.
"You don't have to hurt me as long as you just..." She began, slowly reaching out towards him for the third time, and he shyed away, but it was nowhere near as violent, "stay calm."
Finally, she made contact, placing a hand on one of the only non-abstracted parts of his body, his cheek. She held it there experimentally and Jax closed his now numerous eyes as he leaned into the contact. He clearly wanted to be touched, he had just been too scared to let her...
She smiled to reassure him, saying "See? It's okay" before moving her hand away "I'm going to grab your hand now."
Jax seemed unsure about this, watching with what she assumed was a worried expression as she moved her hand down towards his, but he let her grab on.
It was a unique sensation to be sure. She could feel his glitched body uncomfortably buzz under her, bordering on painful, but nothing unbearable.
"Do you...want to talk about what happened?"
Jax shook his head.
"That's okay, we don't have to. I'm here for you...and I'll stay as long as you need me to" now that he was calmer, she brought herself closer to him and rested her head against his body. He let her, though he still seemed a bit anxious which was probably contributing to the pain she felt. She endured it though, it was a comfortable pain.
"...it's weird to have you so quiet y'know?" She said, breaking the comfortable silence settled between them "theres nothing wrong with it, it's just not something I'm used to...is it because it's hard to talk or hard to think of words?"
"Words" he answered, and she nodded. She couldn't imagine what went on inside the mind of an abstraction but it probably wouldn't be calm given how they acted. Not a good environment to try to talk in.
"You don't have to talk...do you want me to keep talking?"
Another nod. "I like..." And he paused for a moment to try to think of the right words to use "your voice"
She smiled.
"I like your voice too."
Jax's expression was hard to place, but he seemed...happy to be with her.
Then, a knock at the door, and Ragatha's voice was heard soon after "Is everything alright? I...heard someone scream..."
Jax startled, which gave Pomni a slight shock. It wasn't anything big, the equivalent of a static shock at the absolute most, but it had glitched out her shoulder which only got Jax to panic more because he saw the injury and assumed it hurt more than it actually did.
Damn it she had just got him calm.
"Sorry sorry sorry" Jax instinctively reached out to fix it but in his panicked state he shocked her again, making the injury worse. He shrieked as he pulled away then put as much distance as he could between them by backing himself into that corner once again.
They were back to where they started, with him staying at least a foot away from her like he was contagious. Great.
Ragatha knocked again. Pomni groaned and picked herself up.
"I...I should probably go answer that...and I'll have Caine fix my shoulder while I'm out" she paused "um...do you want me to ask if Caine can fix you too?"
Jax immediately shook his head "cellar"
"He won't put you in the cellar...or I mean he shouldn't...you're not a full abstraction."
...but did she really want to risk it?
She looked up at Jax, pressed into a corner, sharp ears pinned to his head in fear, and let out a sigh.
No, she didn't.
"Okay, I won't tell him, I promise."
With Jax at least somewhat put at ease, she stood up to answer the door and was met with the friendly ragdoll as she expected. "O-oh! Pomni! What are you doing in Jax's room?"
Another part of their agreement was to keep it a secret. Luckily it wouldn't be too hard to tweak her story to omit that detail.
"I heard some weird noises coming from Jax's room so...I came in and..."
She stepped out of the doorway to let Ragatha see her glitched shoulder "he...Jax abstracted..."