Chapter Text
I waited until I heard Zooble’s “footsteps” leave the room, and kinda just figured Gangle and Pomni had left with them. Which meant it was finally safe to open my eyes agaiOH WHAT THE-
I sprang backwards, falling off the side of my bed. “P-Pomni?? What're you.. uh… what brings you here?” I attempted to sound like I hadn't just been jumpscared by the tiny jester, poking my head over the bed and placing my chin very nonchalantly on my hand.
“I've been here the whole time. You do realise it's only been, like, two minutes since we injected you, right?” Pomni was very clearly trying to hold in her laughter, then burst. She had this light, stupid little giggle that sent a tingle up my ears and down my spine. And under my hospital gown, my tail wagged just the tiniest bit at the thought of being able to make Pomni laugh.
“You look cute when you're ‘sleeping’ though..” Her giggles trailed off into a very light, almost inaudible whisper, then her pale jester face went very pink and she shifted her focus to the sink behind me. This also meant that her giant eyes were kind of just staring in my general direction. “Y-yeah, just- uh.. let's get you off the floor,” she stammered, still avoiding my gaze. I hadn't even realised I was still on the floor. Pomni reached a hand out to me, but I stood up before she could properly offer any help.
“You know, I’m really not feeling the effects of this ‘Covid-19’,” I took a few twirling steps to the printer room. “I’m gonna go take a look around this place. Wanna come?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I turned the handle of the printer room door, which warranted a (admittedly very cute but also mildly concerning due to its urgency) yelp from Pomni.
“JAX DON’T-”
A giant flurry of papers with weird nonsense printed on them exploded from the printer room, giving me at least 50 papercuts (if it weren’t for my hospital gown that number would’ve at least tripled) and bathing me in the scent of warm ink. “GAH WHAT THE HECK-” My own very shrill and embarrassing cry of surprise was cut off by about 10 sheets of paper with Obama on them magically forcing their way into my mouth. I promptly spat them back out, losing my footing due to more violent printer attacks and getting swallowed whole by the paper beast.
I opened my eyes very carefully, hoping more low-resolution Obama images wouldn’t give me some painful slice on my eyeballs. The mass of paper must’ve been at least a whole Pomni tall (meaning 4 feet, which is an incredibly NORMAL fact about Pomni that everyone DEFINITELY KNEW). It was surprisingly heavy, because my attempts to push it all off were in vain and just shoved me forcibly back onto the floor. I instead resorted to doing a half breaststroke thing through the printed sea, clearing away the paper in front of me with my hands.
What the heck was..? Due to the circumstances, I’d closed my eyes, and now I couldn’t see anything (not that I could when my eyes were open, due to the circumstances). I lightly tapped the thing in front of me to try and get a feel of what on earth it was, but the sheets of paragraphs on why Zootopia was the furriest-est movie ever that were surrounding me made it kind of difficult to differentiate the thing I was touching. So of course, being the incredibly smart and intuitive rabbit I am, I gave the thing a very hearty and sharp poke. “OW! WHAT THE- JAX IS THAT YOU?!?!”
I put on what could be considered the worst British accent in the history of ever and yelled, “NOTHATWASAGHOSTYOU’REDREAMINGSHUTUPWHOSAIDTHATNOTJAXTHAT’SFORSURE!!!!”
My arm retracted as fast as I could make it retract and I immediately started backwards-breastroking, doing a very violent and aggressive roundwards kick with my legs to propel myself away from Pomni.
She was laughing a much more bright and confused version of her previous fit of giggles, and my body froze up very abruptly, much to my dismay.
“Jax, what the f($@)k was that!? Was that meant to be like a-” her confused question was interrupted by her breaking out into another fit of bubbly little giggles, “-a British accent?”
My legs kind of twitched awkwardly instead of doing what I wanted them to be doing (which was RUNNING. AWAY FROM MY INEVITABLE DOOM. WHICH WAS POMNI.) and jerked like sad paralysed dogs. I could hear the wall of paper in front of me slowly getting cleared out as Pomni closed in on my twitchy frozen body. Was this some kind of stupid rabbit reflex? I was a complete utter FAILURE of prey. And Pomni was the incredibly scary predator. And honestly, I had literally no idea what I’d say or do when she inevitably caught me.
-•○♤○•-
“Jax, why d'you have your eyes screwed up like that? The paper isn’t like.. radioactive or anything.”
I opened one eye into the tiniest slit and saw Pomni’s face gently looking down at me. Then I furiously faceplanted into the floor and murmured, “Gmphmphmh.”
Pomni laughed her infuriatingly wonderful laugh again and said, “I don’t know, I don’t think I know how to ‘gmphmphmh’, so I’ll just stay here instead.”
We kind of just sat there in silence for a bit, until I unfaceplanted and said, “Could you uh.. You know, we need to try and get out of this.” I gestured to the swamp of white and black with my hand, which was when I realised Pomni’d been fending off multiple sheets of paper by awkwardly arching over me with her arms and legs spread out. “Uh-?”
I heard her chuckle awkwardly and say, “Uhm.. man-shield?”
I shuffled out of her protective body-bubble and started to worm my way through all the paper. “If we just keep going straight, we’ll probably make it back to the surface at some point.” Pomni did a forwards roll out of her awkward arch pose and started to pencil roll on her side through the sheets. I used my previous very effective breaststroking method but slower, to keep pace with the small rotating jester.
We kept going on for a while, until my right arm cut through nothing (aka NOT PAPER!!!!!) and I scrambled forward, feeling the beautiful cool air of the hospital rush into my face. Pomni’s face emerged from the horrifically tall paper mountain, and her pupils dilated to an alarming size almost as soon as the air hit her.
“I thought I’d literally never see another fluorescent light again.” I joked, doing a dramatic twirl under the bright white light. “All the bright kinda hurts my eyes though.”
Pomni laughed. “I mean, I guess our eyes adjusted to the darkness of Mount Obama.”
I paused. “You’re not. We’re not giving that a name. We should BURN it!”
“We’ll set the whole place on fire if we tried that. Then we’d all die or something. We can uh… shovel it into the corner. Easier than trying to throw it out the window or whatever other complicated ways there are to get rid of paper mountains.”
That sounded reasonable. Which obviously meant that the thing we should do to get rid of the paper was throw it out the window.
-•○♤○•-
“Man, I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten in a while.” I dropped the last wad of Obamas outside and closed the window. “Anything to eat around here?”
“Uhhh… I don't knowww… I think Gangle told me about some kind of common room thing that's got a fridge and a small pantry in it. We could go check that?” She pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to the door that was kind of next to my bed, though I couldn't see it when I was lying down.
“Yeah, that works. I could go for a sandwich right now.” Me and Pomni headed off to the common room. The lights were off, but the windows lit up the place on their own. There was a pretty big L-shaped sofa that looked like it could comfortably hold up to 7 people, a TV, and the fridge and pantry Pomni had mentioned, along with some other furnishings like carpets and tables and stuff.
I kind of momentarily forgot my initial objective of eating and flopped onto the sofa, trying to see how much of it I could take up by laying sprawled on my back.
“Good news, there's a sandwich!” I heard Pomni call out from the fridge.
I sat up and perked my ears. “Cool. What kind? I can't stand tuna and sweetcorn. Disgusting.”
“That's the.. weird news, it kind of just says ‘Sandwich’ with a… mahjong piece emoji..??” Pomni walked over and placed the sandwich box onto the table in front of me.
I turned it around and read the ingredients, screwing my face up more as I went along. “64% bread, 36% ‘E41 D.A.B.T.D.S.I.B.B.I.W.O.I.D.W.M.L.A.A.A.O.J.C.B.A.B.T.B.H.T.O.W.S.A.A.B.I.A.N.T.D.T.O.H.C.V.W.G.S.B.T.H.M.B.U.O.N!!!’. What the heck is that?” I opened the box and took a bite of the sandwich. “The taste isn't helping me guess either. Actually, there isn't any taste at all.”
Pomni peered at the sandwich in my hands. “You can't even taste the bread?”
“Nah.” I took a quick sniff of the sandwich and raised an eyebrow. “Can't even smell it because my theoretical nose is blocked or something.” I parted the two pieces of bread and looked at the filling between them. Which was kind of just… brown. There wasn't even any other way to describe it. It was just brown.
Pomni looked thoroughly confused. “Can I uh… taste the sandwich? Just to see whether the whole flavorless thing is a you thing or..” She looked like she kind of regretted the question and half-expected me to hiss at her and run under my bed back in the main room.
“Yeah, I'll just rip off half or something.” I tore the sandwich in two and gave her the part I'd eaten. Her face kind of contorted into this awkward grimace as I did so, then I pulled the half-bitten sandwich away from her and have her the untouched piece. “I wouldn't eat your half-eaten sandwich, so you don't have to eat mine.”
Pomni gave me a relieved look and took a bite, then her eyes widened. “Jax, this I'd beef. And it's spicy beef, too. It's actually really hard to not taste this. Maybe it's just your Covid…?”
“Eh. Could be. Anyways, it's getting late. I think I'll go lie down now. See ya.” I got up and left the common room, flopping into my bed and smacking the light switch next to me off.
-•○♤○•-
About five minutes after closing my eyes, I was woken up by the most microwavey metaphorical fever spider that scuttled up my back and gave me a violent metaphorical bite of heat right on my face. I could basically feel my face turning oven-filament marigold until it became too much and I threw myself off the bed, scrambling back onto my feet and trying to make my way to the sink through the wall of heat that was very aggressively punching me.
I turned on the tap and slammed my head into the cold water, drooping until the only reason I was still partially upright was because I had my face submerged in water.
Then because this circus and I are absolutely the best friends on earth, I got stabbed by the most stingy horrible chill that anyone has had the privilege of feeling and fell to the floor in exhaustion.
I layed there on the floor for a bit, remembered I left the tap running, then blacked out.
-•○♤○•- (switch to Pomni's PoV)
“Good Morning Ja- OH MY GOD??!?! JAX WHAT-HUH?!?!?” I sprang forward and heard the others rush behind me before skidding to a halt. It was then that I realised the whole entire room was kind of flooded, and Jax was laying in the Family Guy dead pose, dripping wet everywhere except for his face, which was so red and hot that he'd probably just evaporated all liquid that tried to come into contact with him.
I rushed over, wading through the flood and pressing my hand on Jax's chest. I heard the others splash up to me, staring at Jax's sad wet body.
“He's not… breathing.” I turned to everyone behind me. “Is that a thing that we do?? Do we breathe??????”
“Well, technically yes?” Ragatha offered. “His chest should at least be moving.”
I paused for a second, feeling his chest that was definitely not moving. “It's not- he's not- can you guys help get him onto the bed?” I was trying my absolute hardest to sound calm, but everyone just looking at Jax was making it incredibly hard to not start bursting into tears or something.
“Ok,” Gangle finally broke the silence, wrapping her ribbon arms around Jax and hoisting him up. Zooble especially looked very flustered, then helped keep Jax's lolling head up. Ragatha held up his very long legs and Kinger gave everyone reassuring pats on the back as they placed him on the bed.
I hooked him up to the heart monitor and felt my own heart drop further than the Titanic. He had a BPM of one. “HOW THE F(&@)K IS HIS HEART BEATING ONCE PER MINUTE?! THAT ISN'T EVEN POSSIBLE?!”
Then the monitor beeped.
And a little message popped up above his head, reading,
“Well done, my little superstars! Jax is dead!”