Chapter Text
“I’ll take Rags, you go Kinger!”
“Rightio, evil bro!”
Ragatha ran. She felt more desperate than when she was a rebellious teenager trying to run away from her mother. She was frantic. She could only hear her heart beating in her ears.
“I need a gun! Need a gun, need a gun!” She was talking to no one in particular, it was more of a way to calm herself. She saw a revolver on the ground and swiped it as fast as she could, hearing Jax rapidly approaching. Jax. That goddamned rabbit. She wouldn’t admit this out loud, but she despised him. She loathed him. She resented him because he didn’t have to pretend to care about everyone. Sure, she cared about Gangle and Zooble and Pomni and Kinger, but sometimes it all just got overwhelming. She wanted a break more than anything. Jax was the main thing keeping her up at night. It totally wasn’t her mother’s voice in her head, berating her, admonishing her for letting her mask slip the other day at Jax in front of Pomni.
And Gangle was the one with the mask. Ragatha felt as if the character model would be more fitting for her.
Jax was behind her now, standing only a few feet away. Ragatha was so mad at him, so desperate to not get caught, to not lose another adventure to Jax, that she pulled the trigger. It would be just her luck that instead of a bullet piercing through Jax’s chest like she hoped, all that came out of the gun’s muzzle was a cartoonish flag with the phrase ‘BANG!’.
“C’mon, man..” Ragatha sighed, defeated. That is, until she remembered who was standing a few feet in front of her. Before she could do anything, Jax ran at her, doing some sort of flip that she was sure could only be because of the wacky violence, and shot her directly in the head. It may not be permanent, but damn, it felt awful. She quickly respawned farther away from Jax, and she ran. She got that feeling again. That one like she was prey for someone more powerful than her, someone better than her, chasing her down until she was caught in their jaws. She wasn’t sure if she was referring to Jax or her mother.
She called out for Kinger, reminding her of how she used to call out for her Father for help. For someone to come and protect her, to take her pain away. “I could really use another one of those butterflies!” She shouted, holding on to the rapidly thinning threads of hope that the chess piece with Alzheimer's would hear and understand her enough to come to her aid.
“Howdy Howdy.” Jax popped up in front of her so fast it would make anyone dizzy.
She screamed. She fell backwards onto the checkerboard linoleum floor, stammering. Trying to say anything that would make her get some sort of advantage here. To finally, finally not be the one in the vulnerable position.
“I know exactly what you’re doing with Pomni... and it’ll never work!” She hesitated. She thought this would get a rise out of Jax. It did not. He stopped what he was doing and looked at her like she was just spurred out garbage. She wasn’t sure that she had even said actual words. She was starting to doubt herself. Jax had this way about him, just like her mother did, that made her feel horribly self-conscious about every little mistake that she had ever made in her life.
“Huh?” His posture and his grip on the gun loosened.
“Y’know..” Her voice cracked. It didn’t do that too often. It sounded real. It sounded like she was losing those walls she had worked so hard to put up. “Getting close with Pomni…” She started again while standing up. She didn’t like feeling helpless. Sure, she’d rather it be her than anyone else in the fun assortment of colorful characters that her friends were, but if she could give herself any power back, she would. “To.. corrupt her?” It sounded more like a question than she meant it to. She hated sounding uncertain.
In response to the anxious word vomit spewed all over him, Jax just pointed his gun at Ragatha. “Wait! Nonono! Waitwaitwait!” Ragatha pleaded as he shot her. In a moment of desperation, she stuck her finger in the barrel of the revolver pointed at her. To her surprise, she didn’t feel another digital gunshot ripping through her stuffing. She opened her eyes when she heard the sound of an explosion. In front of her was Jax, covered in gunpowder, with three hearts above his head. Two red and one grey. Her voice was meek as she thought out loud again. “Oh, wow. Didn’t actually think that’d work.” And then Jax moved like a rabbit outrunning a fox. Ironic, wasn’t it? Then she was shot in the face multiple more times. Right before she was teleported into what she hoped was the digital afterlife, she saw his face. She couldn’t even begin to describe it.
She saw emotions. On Jax. She had said something that hurt him, like she wanted. She just didn’t expect it to feel so awful. Maybe this was what Jax felt like behind closed doors. Maybe this was what Jax deserved. Maybe this was a step too far, and he would be gone tomorrow. Then she was gone.
The room she was transported into looked like something you would see on a soap bottle. It was blue, and in the dead center was an aquarium with a bunch of fish inside. She was alone. It was quiet. And for once, she could think.
Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing.
–
Jax knew. He knew how Ragatha felt about him. About what he’d done. He wasn’t an idiot. Sure, maybe he lacked emotional availability, but anyone could see how she felt if they looked hard enough.
Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe he should’ve stopped looking at her more intensely than the others the day that Ribbit abstracted. He knew it wasn’t a maybe. He should’ve stopped caring. But he didn’t. It killed him that he cared. What she said to him made him feel something that he repressed a long time ago. That was when he realized that she was right. He was only hanging out with Pomni to get someone on his side. He wanted someone to tell him that he was right. He wanted someone to do what Ribbit did for him. What Ragatha did for him years ago. He missed Ribbit. However, after that little interaction that just happened, Jax was now realizing that he missed Ragatha.
It made him sick.
–
Pomni told Ragatha what happened with Jax. The Jester told Ragatha every little detail of the conversation. The way he looked, the way his ears drooped at the end, the way he didn’t fight back, the way he had told Pomni that he didn’t care about anyone. That Pomni was never his friend.
Ragatha wasn’t an idiot. She knew when she had overstepped. She was raised to be proper, to have good manners, to always be a lady. She knew that earlier today, she was more desperate than she should’ve been. More brash, more unapologetic. She messed up. After her talk with Kinger, she reflected on a lot of stuff. She had given up on Jax. She meant to give him space, but she gave up on him. After Ribbit abstracted, he locked himself in his room and didn’t come out for weeks. She just waited. She had waited for him to come out of his room, being the same Jax that she was used to. The same Jax she used to pull into corners, ask if he was okay, and hold him when adventures got too difficult. But he wasn’t the same man anymore. He was different. Cold. Bitter. The air around him seemed darker at some points. And Ragatha, young, naive Ragatha, had let him go through it alone. Kinger was right. It all clicked. He stopped putting effort into their relationship because she stopped putting effort in when he needed her most. He told her to leave, and she did. She always did what she was told to.
She fell to the ground. In front of everyone. The weight of her realization hit her so hard that she fell. Pomni and Kinger crouched to help her up automatically. Gangle squeaked, as she often does when scarred. Zooble stared. They always seemed to read Ragatha well, but they weren’t close enough with Ragatha to ever bring it up.
“Are you okay, Ragatha?” Kinger asked, pulling her up. She wanted to vomit. She needed to get to Jax. She needed to lay herself out for him, let him berate her and scream and yell and cry until the years of repressed emotions finally snapped. She wasn’t there for him when Ribbit abstracted. She would be there for him before he does.
“Where. Is. Jax” She blurted, startling herself. Nervous eye contact was exchanged between the supporting cast.
“Ragatha, he’s okay. He just needs… space.” Pomni was convinced this was normal. That Jax pretended to befriend every newbie, just to turn around and say that nothing mattered. But Ragatha knew better than Pomni. Ragatha knew what Jax saw in Pomni. Ragatha knew Jax saw Ribbit.
“I’m not doing this again. I’m not letting Jax shut himself in again. Where is Jax.”
Pomni sighed before pointing in the general direction of the bedrooms.
Ragatha bolted so fast that she was sure she left behind a cloud of smoke. She ran like her life depended on it.
Maybe because it did.
When she reached Jax’s bedroom, she was greeted by the 2D drawing of his signature grin. Thankfully, it didn’t have a red cross through it. She wasn’t too late. She knocked. She didn’t hesitate like she usually would have. She was more sure about this than anything else in this digital hellscape.
“Jax,” She pleaded. “Answer me.”
Nothing. Ragatha felt herself shrink at the silence.
“I’m not leaving. You either answer this door, or I stay out here.”
Ragatha wanted to scream. She wanted to find Caine and rip him limb from limb. She wanted to fix it.
“Go away, Ragatha.” Jax sounded deflated. Ragatha felt her throat tighten.
“I’m not leaving you. Not again. I won’t lose you.”
There was a beat.
The tension in the air was so thick that if someone tried to walk into the hallway it would feel like walking into a brick wall.
Then, Jax’s door opened. And he let go.
“Not again? NOT AGAIN?” Jax was enraged. Ragatha had never seen him this upset. This wasn’t the Jax that she knew. This was who Jax was behind all of his little boxes that he put people into, behind all of those insults and assaults, this was Jax. “YOU THINK THAT YOU, RAGATHA, OF ALL PEOPLE CAN COME UP TO MY DOOR, BANG ON IT LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW, AND CLAIM THAT YOU’RE ‘NOT LEAVING ME AGAIN’?” He swallowed. “YOU DON’T GET TO PLAY MOM HERE. I’M NOT GANGLE OR ZOOBLE OR POMNI. I don’t care about you. End of story.” Jax was heaving. He felt like he was going to pass out. He was about to slam the door in Ragatha’s face when she caught the door. Jax shot her a look that not even a psychologist could read.
“You don’t get to do this. Not after what you did.” Ragatha cringed at his tone a little inside. She wouldn’t back away.
“I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for you.” She simply responded, flatly.
Jax looked like he was about to punch her so hard it would kill them both. “For me? You think that just because I had a ‘rough day’ that I’m gonna cave and let you in again?” This was real. This was raw. “I don’t know if you remember, Ragatha, but last time that happened you left. Not me. You.”
That did it. Ragatha wasn’t silent anymore. She would take the insults and the yelling, but she would not let him think she didn’t regret what she did. “It was a mistake!” She practically shrieked. “I shouldn’t have left you alone! You said you needed space and I believed you. I was so wrong, Jax. I didn’t want to push you away by forcing myself into your space. I’m forcing myself into your space now. Treat me like you would’ve if I came to you, Jax. Scream at me until there’s nothing left.” Ragatha shook as she spoke. It was like every word that she had just said was forced out of her body without her own permission. She had meant every word she said.
“I’ll ruin you, Ragatha. I’ll hurt you so much that you won’t ever want to see me again. I’ll make you run away. I’ll tell you things that you’ve been avoiding your whole life. I will break you.” He warned.
“Break me, Jax.”
It wasn’t Ragatha who broke.
Jax pulled her into his room and slammed the door. He started screaming everything about her that popped into his head. “I hate you. I hate you so much. You are the biggest hypocrite I've ever met. I genuinely wish you would abstract. I hate that you’re just like your mom.” That one stung. Really bad. “You’re everything I’m not, and I hate it. I hate us. I hate that you aren’t standing up for yourself right now. Why aren’t you saying anything? Yell at me, push me, do something. Don’t just stare like…” Jax paused. “Like you know what I’m feeling. Don’t look at me like you care, Ragatha. Please. Don’t make me feel like you care again.” Jax slumped onto a swivel chair in his room and held his head with his hands. “I hate that you make me want to open up. I hate that you make me want to care, when we both know that I shouldn’t.” His foot was thumping. His ears were twitching. He was practically on autopilot right now. “I hate that I’m not man enough to admit that this wasn’t your fault.” He looked up at Ragatha. Ragatha was just sitting there, staring. “I hate that this isn’t making me feel better. I hate that I even felt bad in the first place. I hate that I let Pomni get close. I hate that I let you get close. I hate that I want to be close with you.”
It was silent. A minute passed, then two.
“I hate that I miss what we were. I hate that you’re looking at me like I’m not the worst man that you could ever meet. I hate that I’m opening up to you right now. All because you came to my door. F#%k, Ragatha, why did you have to come to my door?”
“Because I care, Jax. Because I care what you think about me.” She breathed. Jax was staring at her now. Eyes wider than she had ever seen them. “Because I care that you hate me, that you think I’m the biggest hypocrite that you’ve ever met, that you wish that I would abstract, that you think I'm just like my mom-” She hiccuped. She didn’t realize she had been crying. Ragatha wouldn’t let it stop her. “Because it matters to me what you think. It matters that you think that I’m everything you’re not, It matters that you hate us. It matters that you hate it when I don’t stand up for myself, when I just sit there and don’t fight back. It matters that you don’t want me to look at you like I care. Everything you said just now matters, Jax. Because that’s how you really feel. Because you needed to yell at me for not being there all of those years ago when you lost him.” Jax cringed. “Because you needed to hurt me. You needed to be mean, so I wanted you to be mean to me. Because I needed you to know that I’m not running away anymore. I’m not running from us. F@%k, Jax, I needed you.”
The truth hit Jax in the face like a brick. Ragatha hadn’t even kissed it. She wasn’t running away. If he wasn’t already in a chair, his knees would have given out. Ragatha needed him. The ragdoll that would never, ever admit to needing anything had genuinely admitted that she needed him.
“Do you still need me?” And this time, Jax felt like the words were being forced out of his body without his permission.
Ragatha glanced at him. She had more emotion on her face that Jax thought was possible for a ragdoll. Ragatha looked like she had been hit by a train. She was hit by a train chalk full of emotional insults and words he didn’t mean. Jax kicked himself. He meant some of the words. “what.” Ragatha choked out.
“Do you still need me, Ragatha?”
“I’ve never needed someone more.”
Jax tackled Ragatha. To anyone on the outside, it looked like Jax was just tackling her like he did sometimes on adventures. But this was different. Jax flung at her like she was all that he had left. The sad part about that was that she was the only thing he had left.
She held him as he sobbed into her. He was finally letting it out, and Ragatha wasn’t leaving. “It’s okay Jax,” She started. “I’m not letting you go.”
Jax let out every emotion that he had at that circus since he first arrived. He let it all out, and Ragatha held him the whole way through, rubbing circles on his back. When he had let it all out, he looked up at her, and Ragatha had never seen the look on his face. It looked like it cared.
God, Ragatha hoped that it cared.
“Do you miss what we had?” Jax asked. It wasn’t a tease. This wasn’t new for Ragatha, just long forgotten.
“Do you want me to miss it?”
Jax chuckled quietly. “Can I say yes?”
Ragatha smiled at Jax. A real, affectionate smile. One that Jax hadn’t seen in years. “Only if you promise me to not bottle it up anymore. I can’t lose you, Jax. You mean too much to me.”
“Say the same about yourself, and we have a deal.” Jax shot back.
A deal. Ragatha could abide by deals.
Ragatha kissed Jax on the cheek. “You’re on, loverboy.”