Chapter Text
Jax's whole body felt numb, an uncontrollable wave of nausea sweeping through him.
He was going to be sick.
He felt his head begin to pulse and his vision start to blur. His throat closed up and tears forced their way into his eyes.
He hated it, he felt so weak, so stupid.
It had been days since he had freaked out at Pomni and he was doing his best to avoid her and everyone else for that matter, for eternity if he could. The look in her eyes was seared into his brain, worming its way into his dreams, warping them into nightmares. Their fight replayed in a constant loop in his head, causing him to wince at the memory of all the horrible things he had said.
That alone was bad enough, but then there was Pomni. She had tried so desperately to get through to him, to understand.
And he had pushed her away.
He had been needlessly cruel to her, he knew he had crossed the line. But what could he do about it? He was never one for apologies. Sometimes he felt an all consuming urge to burst out of his room, track down Pomni and beg for her forgiveness, once he had even got as far as going to knock on her door until he felt the white hot sensation of shame lighting up all his nerves and had to slink back to his room in defeat.
He wondered how long he would be able to sulk for until he was inevitably dragged out of his room and unceremoniously dumped into yet another of Caine's adventures. He should consider himself lucky that Caine seemed to have been laying off them recently. But how long would that last?
Eventually he would have to face them again, face her.
He felt bile begin to rise in the back of his throat.
Jax wondered what Pomni thought of him now. No doubt the others had been badmouthing him to her, behind his back. He wondered if she had started to sour towards him too, and felt a pang in his chest.
This was what he wanted, right? For her to hate him. It was for the best.
He numbly became aware that he had started to cry, the tears falling from his face onto the bed that he was hunched over. Jax furrowed his brow in annoyance and rubbed at his eyes aggressively, desperately trying to fight it. He attempted to stifle a sob, no use. The sound was ripped from him, sounding more primal than human. Then there came more, deep hacking sobs, stealing the air from his lungs.
He flopped down onto his back, arm coming out instinctively to cover his face.
This is pathetic. He was pathetic.
He wondered what they would all say if they could see him now.
____
Pomni had somehow found herself wrapped up in possibly the most intense game of Go Fish she'd ever played. Kinger was insanely good at it, catching her and apparently everyone else, off guard.
She had a sneaking suspicion that he had to have been cheating but she couldn't wrap her head around how.
"Zooble, do you have any- " Kinger pauses to rifle through his hand "Fours?"
"God[BEEP]!" Zooble exclaims, slamming down 3 of their cards onto the table in annoyance. "How are you doing that?"
"Doing what?"
Before Zooble has any time to retort, they were all rudely interrupted by Caine and Bubble materialising directly on top of the table they were using, causing Gangle to jump back and shriek.
"GOOD MORNING MY SENTIMENTAL SAILORS"
"Sailors?" Ragatha asks, looking nervous.
"THAT'S RIGHT! IN TODAY'S ADVENTURE YOU WILL BE SAILING THE SEVEN SEAS ON THE HUNT FOR TREASURE, FENDING OFF ENEMY PIRATES IN AN EPIC BATTLE OF WITS!"
"Oh no." Gangle mutters quietly.
"THINK OF THE STAKES, THE INTRIGUE, THE-" Caine cut himself off abruptly, doing a headcount. "Oops, one short."
Pomni's stomach drops.
He snaps his fingers and Jax appears in the centre of the room, limbs splayed out awkwardly, he looks up and scowls at Caine.
The atmosphere immediately sours. None of them have seen Jax in days, the few times Pomni had knocked on his door, there was no answer. Eventually she had given up, assuming he just wanted to be left alone. Or maybe he was trying to avoid her.
She catches Jax's eye and they both look away, the awkwardness palpable.
"AS I WAS SAYING." Caine continues, completely unabashed "TIME FOR ADVENTURE!" He summons a portal and waits for them expectantly.
"Yeah, no. I'm out." Zooble grumbles, pulling themself up and making a beeline for the exit.
Caine watches them leave, his jaw dropping "BUT ZOOBLE-" He seems to be struggling to find the words.
"Looks like this one's a bust!" Bubble chimes in, unhelpfully.
Caine floats around to face Zooble, looking like he's on the brink of tears. "YOU SEEMED TO BE ENJOYING THE PAST FEW ADVENTURES, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS ONE?"
Zooble sighs and reaches up to detach one of their antenna. "Water. I don't want to end up in the sea and watch all my body parts float away in different directions."
Caine seems to perk up at this. "OH, WELL THAT'S AN EASY FIX!" He snaps his fingers and Zooble's whole body goes stiff, the missing antenna reattaching itself to their head.
"TADA! I'VE TEMPORARILY MADE ALL YOUR BODY PARTS NON DETACHABLE. YOU'RE WELCOME."
Zooble inspects their body, cautiously attempting to tug at an arm. Eventually they look up with a mixture of annoyance and disbelief "You could just do that the whole time?"
"NO TIME TO THINK ABOUT THAT NOW, ADVENTURE AWAITS!" He summons a large gloved hand that pushes everyone towards the portal, ignoring Zooble's indignant remarks.
The difference in their surroundings is jarring, the noise of the circus now replaced by the squawking of seagulls, rays of sun shining down onto them from above, causing Pomni to squint. Blearily she becomes aware that she's standing on the deck of a pirate ship, with a figurehead of what appeared to be a strange combination of Caine and a mermaid carved out on the bow.
She looks over at the others and realises that they're all decked out in pirate attire in their respective colours. Everyone except Kinger has a striped bandana on their heads, and they all seem to be wearing lace up shirts with loose fitting sleeves, however, while Jax and Zooble are also wearing stripy loose trousers with eyepatches, the rest of them appear to be in brown corsets with asymmetrical layered skirts. Kinger on the other hand has a large red and gold coat draped over his body in place of his usual purple robe, with a matching pirate hat plopped on his head. Caine had clearly gone all out with the costumes this time.
Pomni noticed that they all also wore belts, some with cutlasses and others with small knives. She looked down and realised with a small pang of disappointment that she was given a knife. It was probably to do with how short she was. A cutlass might just drag along the floor if it was looped through her belt. Still though, she couldn't help but feel underwhelmed with her weapon of choice.
"Ooh, pirates, huh?" Jax perked up, inspecting his cutlass with a growing look of glee. "I call captain."
"What?" Ragatha shot back, annoyed. "That's not fair, you can't just call captain."
"Can too." Jax smirks.
"Uhm." Gangle starts "I think Kinger is supposed to be the captain, I mean, based on his outfit and everything."
Pomni notices that the corners of Jax's mouth begin to turn down in a frown until he catches himself and grins. She feels the pit in her chest deepen.
"Fine. I call first mate then, don't have a problem with that, do you Raggy?"
Pomni feels taken aback at how reasonable Jax was being, sure that he was about to blow up and take the role of captain from Kinger by force. Ragatha's shocked expression made it clear that she mirrored the sentiment, fumbling over her words as she turns around to Kinger who was happily looking off into the distance.
"Well, I mean- It depends on what Kinger thinks, right? Since he's the captain and all."
This snaps Kinger out of his daze and he gives a thumbs up. "Oh! Sure, why not? Jax and I make a great team."
Ragatha and Pomni share a look.
___
The first ten minutes or so are surprisingly uneventful. Jax convinces Kinger to let him be the one to divvy out the roles and he agrees almost instantly. Jax immediately sticks Gangle on cleaning duty, feeling unbridled joy from the way she squirms around uncomfortably, watching her struggle to swab the decks with her ribbon arms. Zooble eventually sighs and signs themself up for cleaning duty too, clearly in a misguided attempt at keeping Gangle company.
Kinger wants to have a go at steering the boat, a suggestion that makes everyone else feel sick. Good. Maybe everyone else having a bad time will cheer Jax up. It usually does.
Ragatha offers to go on lookout and Jax is glad to be rid of her, jeering at her as she scales the mast awkwardly, only stopping once she's out of sight. So now that just leaves him and-
Pomni.
She stands on the deck uncomfortably, tugging at the lace in her corset, Jax wonders if it's a nervous habit she picked up somewhere since he remembers her playing with her bells and pompoms like that back at the circus.
He clears his throat, not sure what to say. Pomni looks up, her huge doll-like eyes meeting his, peering into his soul. He didn't like that. The way she looks at him like she can see into his soul, it was unsettling. It felt like she was x-raying him. He looked away, unable to hold her gaze.
"Pom-" He catches himself. "Pomni." He chances another look at her and immediately regrets it when he sees the hurt in her eyes. She clearly caught onto the fact that he was about to call her by one of his stupid nicknames. He hates this. He should say something. Tell her now how sorry he is, that he didn't mean to hurt her that deeply.
"Guess you're on cannons with me then, huh. Ya better not mess it up. You're lucky I didn't stick you on cleaning." He pokes her forehead, trying to lighten the mood. Pomni just looks at him sadly.
He pushes the feelings bubbling up in him stomach back down. He couldn't do it, not now.
"Jax-" Pomni starts.
Oh no.
His insides squirm.
"Can I- uh. Can we talk after this?" She looks so hopeful, it makes Jax feel sick.
"Whaddya mean Pompom?" He deflects "We're talking right now." Pomni clearly registers the use of a nickname as Jax loops an arm around her, feeling her tensing up involuntarily. She pushes him away and takes a step back.
The rejection hurts. Jax knows he has no right to feel that way after what he put her through but that doesn't get rid of the sharp pain in his chest.
"You know what I mean." She says firmly, but not unkindly. "We should talk. About what happened."
Yeah. They should. He owes her that at least.
"Oh jeez, you're not still hung up on that are you?" He waves his hand dismissively. "Fine. You can grovel after the adventure."
She gives him a little smile. It's infuriating. She knows exactly what he's thinking and he hates it. How is he so easy to read.
"You doing ok?"
That snaps him out of his thoughts. Something must've shown on his face. He exhales and allows his face to relax, smile slowly widening.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Pomni opens her mouth to say something but before she can get a word out, the ship violently rocks from the impact of a cannon ball hitting the side. The impact knocks both of them over, leaving them to fall against the base of the mast in a mangled heap.
"Ragatha!" He yells up towards the heavens, untangling himself from Pomni. "You had one job. Now look, the side of the boat is completely destroyed." It's not. The enemy cannon ball bounced off it, leaving a small dent. Caine has some weird game physics. But Ragatha doesn't need to know that. "We're all going to drown because of you."
"W-what?" Comes her startled yell. "Oh jeez, I'm so sorry guys I had no idea!" She scales down the side of the mast far more successfully than she climbed up it earlier.
"I must've just been looking the other way when they showed up, I'm so sorry I-" She catches sight of the tiny dent and lets out a sigh. "Oh."
"Well, what are you standing around for?" Jax chucks a rope at her and points over at the enemy "Go and commandeer the ship."
He looks over his shoulder at Zooble who is desperately trying to placate Gangle. "You too, ribbons."
"What?" Gangle sounds aghast. "Why me? Why can't you go?"
"Because I'm going to be shooting at them, duh." He rolls his eyes. Riling Gangle up is so easy.
"What if you hit us though?" Gangle shrieks, earning Jax a judgemental look from Zooble.
"Relaaax, you'll be fine. Now off you go, don't want them to hijack us first, do you?"
"Come on Gangle. I'll go with you." Offers Zooble. The reach out to grab one of Gangle's ribbons and start gently tugging her towards the edge of the ship.
Gross.
"Get a room!" Jax shouts after them.
"[BEEP] off." Zooble yells back over their shoulder.
___
Pomni has never used a cannon before. The ones on their ship are more than twice the size of her and very intimidating. Luckily for her, they've already been loaded with cannon balls, if Pomni needed to carry one, she would probably be crushed under it like a bug. Still though, shooting cannon balls at the enemy ship was no small task.
She looks over to the ship, trying to adjust the position of the cannon and watches as Zooble begins to swordfight with a faceless NPC. They move with far more confidence and smoothness than usual and Pomni faintly remembers that it must be because Zooble's body isn't at risk of detaching. A second NPC lunges at Gangle and Zooble swoops in immediately, beheading it. Gangle watches, awestruck.
A shriek from directly behind her pulls Pomni's attention away from the scene and she realises with a jolt that some NPCs have managed to clamber over the side onto their ship. She reaches down to the sorry excuse of a knife hanging at her side and reluctantly holds it up infront of her, body tensing in preparation for their attack.
The NPC nearest to her draws its sword and charges towards her, before being intercepted by Kinger who's hat has slipped down, casting his face into shadow. The small amount of darkness seems to have given Kinger a shred of his sanity as he begins to fend off multiple NPCs at once, while also somehow having time to throw in a few flashy sword moves.
Pomni stares, her mouth agape. How on earth is he doing that. Was Kinger a fencer in his past life or something? No, he couldn't be. Pomni has a faint memory of him talking about computer science being his passion.
Kinger finishes the last two off and looks over at Pomni, pushing his hat up slightly.
"Oh sorry Pomni, did you want to fight those guys too?" He looks at her slightly remorsefully. "I'm sure you'll get a chance next time!"
"Kinger that was amazing." Pomni blurts out without thinking. "I had no idea you were so good at swordfighting!"
"Oh-" Kinger seems relieved that Pomni isn't too bothered about missing out on the fight. "I can't swordfight. I'm not all that athletic."
"What? But just now, you-" She gets interrupted by a tug on her arm, her grip on her knife tightens, Pomni tenses, ready to strike until she hears Jax sighing. Her stomach does a somersault.
"Come ooon. Help me blow that ship to smithereens." Pomni looks up and sees that the light has returned to Jax's eyes. He seems to genuinely be enjoying himself now that everything's started to kick off. The awkwardness between the two seems to have worn off momentarily too, which was a nice bonus.
Jax pulls her back towards the cannons and positions himself over one, closing one eye to check the aim of his cannon before firing. The cannon ball hits the enemy ship about 3 metres from where Ragatha is standing. She jumps back and Pomni can faintly hear her shouting "Jax!" and stamping a foot in frustration. Jax stifles a laugh.
"Oops." He shouts lazily. "Sorry dollface. My hand slipped." He looks over at Pomni, still smiling and she lets out a little giggle against her better judgement. The whole thing was just so ridiculous. Jax looks pleased.
"Your turn now Pompom."
"What?"
"You heard me." He looks amused. "I did assign you cannon firing duty after all. And since I'm the first mate, I have some authority." Jax's grin widens. "So get to shooting, kay?"
Pomni grimaces as she positions her cannon, double and triple checking to make sure that she wouldn't accidentally hit anyone. When she was entirely sure that her friends were out of the blast zone, she fires the cannon, the force of the explosion knocking her back. Jax quickly catches her, holding her under the armpits like a cat. He looks down at her smugly.
"Gee, you're so small you blow away in the wind." He notices Pomni's scowl and smiles wider. Jax looks up to survey the damage from Pomni's cannon.
"Oh hey look, you actually did a pretty good amount of damage. I'm impressed." He ruffles her hair like she was a child and she bats his hand away.
"Hey, get your hands off of me." Pomni grumbles, kicking her legs as she attempts to free herself.
"You're such a dork." He murmurs under his breath. Jax's eyes widen slightly, realising something and he pulls away, clearing his throat.
"Welp, these cannons aren't going to fire themselves, are they?"
What was that about?
____
It didn't take long until they managed to sink the enemy's ship. Jax loved the feeling of shooting the cannons, they served as a great release to all the pent up emotion he had been storing for the past few days. He hadn't expected to actually be having fun on this adventure, let alone to be back on speaking terms with Pomni so quickly.
The looming thought of the serious conversation he'd be forced to have with Pomni after this definitely put a damper on his mood but all in all, it was a net positive.
They regrouped in the centre of the deck, Ragatha dragging a large chest with her, very out of breath. Jax shoves past her and greedily opens it. It's full to bursting with different kinds of precious gems, coins and jewellery. He spots a golden bracelet and pulls it over his wrist, turning it to see the bracelet gleam in the sunlight. He looks deeper into the chest and spots a glittering tiara and a pearl necklace and pockets them.
"Jax!" Ragatha cries out, affronted.
"Whaaat? First come first serve. If you hauled that chest all the way here and didn't think to steal anything for yourself then that's your fault Raggy."
Gangle spots something in the chest and gasps, scurrying towards it and digging in. She pulls out what seems to be an anime figure made of pure gold.
"See Rags? Even Gangle's taking stuff from the chest now." Ragatha sighs and crouches down next to Gangle, rooting through the chest too. The others begin to follow suit and soon everyone is crowded around it, picking out various trinkets. Well everyone except-
Pomni stands awkwardly to one side patiently waiting for everyone to pick out their favourite bits. She's too nice. By the time she gets a turn there won't be anything left.
Jax slinks over to her and leans against the side of the boat. "Poms are you allergic to treasure or something? What's the point in hanging out here instead of looting it. That's like, the whole adventure."
She looks at the others, deep in thought. "Well I mean, I don't care that much about it. I might have a look for a necklace or something but I don't really mind. Besides, they look like they're having fun." Pomni smiles gently.
As he predicted, when Pomni finally decided she should have a look in the chest, all the good stuff had gone. There were a ton of coins and various gems but no jewellery.
Pomni looked slightly crestfallen, the expression causing a pang in Jax's chest. She quickly recovered though, deciding that "It's fine. I'll just get first dibs on the next one."
If there is a next one.
Jax sighs and puts his hand into his pocket, pulling out the stuff he stashed earlier, plopping the tiara down onto Pomni's head unceremoniously and handing her the pearl necklace. It's not like he was keeping them for himself anyway.
Pomni stared at the tiara in her hand for a moment, looking touched. Jax felt his face begin to warm. She gazed up with a softness in her eyes that Jax hadn't seen there before. He felt his face grow hotter.
He never did nice things for people, this felt wrong. And she was looking at him with that understanding stare and that always made Jax felt so exposed. He needed to save face, quickly.
"Well, I couldn't have you moping around for the rest of the adventure, could I?"
There's a moment of silence and Jax has a strong desire to hurl himself off the edge of the boat. Pomni breaks the silence by giggling. That makes Jax feel even worse.
"Hey! What are you laughing at?"
"You're so weird." Pomni gasps, she looks at his face then bursts into proper laughter. At Jax's expression she adds "Thank you, that was really sweet."
Sweet?
Jax could count the number of people who had called him sweet on one finger.
Still though, she did look cute in that tiara.
____
The rest of the adventure continued in the same fashion, more swordfighting and sailing. They did a lot more looting but to Jax's secret delight, none of the treasure they managed to pick up was even half as good as the first chest. He was glad that he had grabbed that extra stuff for Pomni.
She hadn't taken them off since he gave them to her and had started to loosen up a bit more, joking with Jax and even joining in a sword fight with her tiny knife. He was sad when the adventure finally ended. That was a first. Usually he was desperate to get back to the circus, but not this time.
A heavy feeling began to settle over him as he realised he had to talk to Pomni now.
Properly talk to her.
He felt sick. She was looking at him expectantly as the portal began to open. Fleetingly, Jax felt a strong desire to make a break for it now and leave his talk with Pomni till far, far later.
As he sauntered back into the circus, Jax felt a tug on his arm. He looked down and sure enough, there was Pomni. She looked exactly how he felt.
"Hey, do you want to come and have that talk in my room?"
Have that talk
That can't be good.
Jax's nausea started to spread, his head beginning to pound, vision blurring.
"Woah slow down there Pomni. At least buy me dinner first." It was a weak attempt to lighten the mood.
Luckily, Pomni's shoulders seemed to lose some tension and she punched his arm playfully.
"Yeah, yeah. Come on."