Archive of Our Own

There was a time when the sight of Jax would have brought her joy and good-natured exasperation. There was a time where Jax knew her, saw past her smiling facade, learned which smiles were fake, which laughs hid pain. He knew the deep pain she held from the years of being stuck in the circus, watching her friends abstract one after the other, and knew not to push too far with his jokes. There was a time when they were close, when they would spend nights chatting in each others' rooms, go to each other when they felt like everything was hopeless. There was a time when Ragatha trusted Jax - and he trusted her, too, beneath all of the joking and teasing.

And then Ribbit abstracted. And then he pushed her away forever.

The current Jax wouldn't do such a thing as be nice to her. He wouldn't do such a thing as check up on her after she mentioned her mother in the bar, taking her harried smile on face value. He would poke and prod, cruel words like knives flaying into her flesh. Nothing was real, according to him. Nothing mattered - the knives buried into her heart merely cutting into stuffing, no real flesh and blood. And he sinked further and further into this delusion, and no matter how hard Ragatha tried she couldn't save him. No matter how much she endured, it wasn't enough. And she felt angry and hurt and abandoned, but she couldn't show it. Not when it might push Jax away further - push everybody she cared about further and further.

And then, the gun adventure had occurred. And then Pomni had managed to draw him closer, for the first time in forever.

"Ragatha!" 

Pomni's desperate cry spurred her to action. Caine, still on stage, grew puzzled when Ragatha ran in the direction of the bathroom. Something must be wrong - but she couldn't have imagined what it was.

Jax was curled up on the floor, in Pomni's arms. His head rested on her shoulder. Jax had patches of his skin turning black and glitchy - eyes appearing on his arms, fluorescent and multicoloured.

He was abstracting.

Ragatha felt like the world was collapsing under her feet. When Jax had opened his eyes, spotting her - the black spikes got worse, and when Ragatha took a step towards him he only scrambled farther from her. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she realised that her presence was only making things worse.

So she did the only thing she knew she could do in this situation - she turned and ran.

"Ragatha, don't leave!" Pomni calls after her - far too loudly, and Ragatha whipped around to warn her.

"Lower your voice," Ragatha orders. "If Caine sees even a partial abstraction, he'll send him right down to the cellar, even if he can be saved!"

Pomni's eyes widen. "B-But-"

"I'll distract Caine," Ragatha decides in a split-second. "You stay with Jax. Don't leave him behind, and keep your voice down. Keep doing what you're doing."

Pomni looks so lost, and for a second Ragatha feels guilt for pushing so much on her shoulders. But then Ragatha spots Jax still looking at her with that horrified expression, and knows what she has to do.

"I trust you, Pomni. Okay?" Ragatha says softly. "Do everything in your power to keep him here."

And she flees, rushing back to the event hall. When Caine asks questions, Ragatha spins lie after lie to keep him distracted - even asking him to add more awards. Inwardly, she knows that once a change of venue occurs Caine will see Jax and that would give everything away, so she does everything she can to prevent that. Gangle grows more and more confused, and even under the influence of the stupid sauce Zooble's put off, but Kinger takes this opportunity to start talking all of a sudden, and whatever he's rambling about is distracting enough that neither of them get the chance to call her out. It's an hour later, when Caine is beginning to get suspicious, when Pomni and Jax emerge from the bathroom in one piece. No extra eyes. No glitches. No abstraction.

Pomni shoots her a shaky smile, and Ragatha heaves a sigh of relief. Jax's eyes are glued to the ground.

"Where were you two?" Gangle asks, and there's a long second where they both freeze and Ragatha can't think of an excuse. But then Zooble lurches forwards, his eye still dripping pink, and talks up.

"Were you two...makin' out?" Zooble says, slurring his words, and Gangle gasps, covering her mouth.

"What? No." Jax glares at Zooble. But at least he's saying something.

"Nobody wants a straight couple, right?" Pomni chuckles, nudging Jax a little. It sounds like an inside joke she's not privy to, but she doesn't get the confirmation because Jax just turns around and leaves. Not turning back once, when Ragatha and Pomni call after him.

It's after the award ceremony ends, and Caine disappears, that Ragatha and Pomni exchange looks. They're just about to head off together when Gangle stops them, asking to talk. Zooble comes along too, although the stupid sauce's influence hadn't fully worn off, so the four of them sat in Pomni's room, listening as she spoke.

Jax, Pomni told them, was different this adventure. More friendly. More chatty, as they gunned down Ragatha and Kinger. Singing with Pomni at one point, which Zooble grudgingly confirmed, still annoyed by his loss. And then she'd hugged Jax - and then he'd pushed her away. Getting worked up, telling him that they were his playthings, and he gets enjoyment out of seeing them suffer. That there was nothing more to him.

Ragatha's heard the 'playthings' spiel a few times, but she didn't expect Pomni to hear it so soon. The two of them...really had hit it off, she notes. So he must have been truly genuine with her for that short while, if it meant that he's pushed her away so hard. But for her to catch him abstracting...

"How did you know?" Ragatha asks her. "Did he tell you anything before he left?"

"He didn't need to, I could just see it on his face." Pomni frowns. "After we won, he started acting off, and I didn't understand why. So when he disappeared, I knew I had to follow him, in case...something happened."

Ragatha nods tightly. "I'm glad you went after him," is her strained reply.

Pomni only shoots her a sad smile in response.

Ragatha does not sleep that night. She lays awake in her bed, remembering the events of the day. And she tries to imagine a world where Jax abstracts. 

It would be Pomni who finds him in the morning, screaming for help. Ragatha would already know what's coming, but she would run anyway, desperately hoping she would be quick enough, only to see a spiking black mass covered in glowing eyes.

Jax would probably attack her, just like Kaufmo did, if she tried to get too close. Fling Pomni away, too, and run rampant through the halls until Caine found him. But a part of her wondered...what if she closed the door and kept him in the darkness? What if they could have a final moment with him, before Caine realised what was going on and threw him down the hole? Ragatha tries to imagine what happens afterwards, but it doesn't work. Like a broken record that won't play past a certain point, only repeating the same short section - Pomni's scream, Ragatha running through the halls, their last moment in the darkness...and...and...

She's still shaking. The adrenaline that had hit the second she'd opened the bathroom door and laid eyes on an abstracting Jax kept her anxious. And, all of a sudden, she knows that she can't leave him alone that night. Not if she's going to wake up and see that next morning.

He's awake, when she sidles into his room late at night. Trying to talk to him. And the conversation, starting fine enough, starting normal and quiet, eventually goes downhill.

Very downhill.

"I see through you, Ragatha," he accuses. "Your little 'kind' act has always been nothing but a sham - and now you're just taking advantage of this whole situation to show everyone how good you are, how nice you are to look after poor Jax, all on his own after-"

"I-It's not an act! I'm just worried about you, Jax..." It's been a while since he's been this angry. Ragatha ignores every nerve in her body screaming at her to escape and tries to stand tall. "Y-You're my friend-"

"When will you get it through your thick skull that we were never friends?!" Jax, in a few movements, closed the distance between them. Ragatha backed away, but she soon found herself backed up against a wall. "Why are you still hanging onto a connection with people that never even mattered so you can just keep bothering me?!"

"B-But Kaufmo and Ribbit mattered to me!" Ragatha retorts. Which is wrong, bringing up their names is wrong, even alluding to them is wrong because it only makes him fume more, but she's already knee deep in this pit and there's no getting out. "T-They were our friends! I know they mattered to you, too - and you mattered to them-"

"If you really were their friends...if they really mattered to you...then why aren't they here?"

His words are like a dagger to her heart. The tears in her eye spill over. "I...I t-tried-"

"If they were so important to you, then how is it that the last person they saw is you-"

"It wasn't my fault," she says, too quietly.

"-and after then, they were gone, both times?" Jax laughs, sounding crazed, and Ragatha fears for a second that he's going to start abstracting again. "God, if you were ever trying at all, then you're doing a pretty poor job! You've let, what, six people abstract on your watch for the nine years you've been here?!"

"Y-You're not going to push me away," Ragatha tells him, trying and failing to wipe away the tears falling from her eye. "I won't let you abstract. Not you too, I can't lose you too..."

"Lose me?" 

His voice is deceptively quiet - yet when Ragatha looks into his eyes, there is no softness or kindness there. Only emptiness. 

"There's nothing to lose, Ragatha. No friendship, no relationship, no bond or anything at all. There never was."

Ragatha can't say a word, can barely breathe from the tears falling down her cheek, and all she manages to do is jerkily shake her head - that it can't be true, that he must be lying just to protect himself again, that he doesn't really blame her for what happened to Kaufmo and Ribbit. But he doesn't acknowledge it, continuing to stare at her with that dead look.

"If you really want to help me so bad, then get out and leave me alone."

He walks away from her, turning his back. Silently, Ragatha exits the room. And something in her heart dies.

She doesn't really tell them about it the next day. Rather, Jax is relentless enough with his bullying and cold words that they quickly put the pieces together.

"It's my fault," is all Ragatha says when they ask her about what happened between them. "I...pushed too hard. Tried to get too close. I knew I probably should have let him come to me first, haha..."

Her laugh sounds empty even to her own ears, and from the corner of her eye Ragatha thinks she spots Gangle wince a little at the sound of it.

"Are you okay?" Pomni asks quietly.

Ragatha smiles. "I'm all good. I just need to be alone right now."

She goes to her room. They do not follow her.

And after she's cried out all her sorrows, it is not Pomni and Zooble's reassurances that come to her mind. Or Gangle, trying to reach out to her only for Ragatha to brush her off. Maybe another time she would be beating herself up for brushing the three of them off, but another person's words were on her mind.

Kinger. In the aquarium, after they'd lost their respective gunfights. Saying that relationships were two-sided, that giving someone space isn't the same as giving up on them. That there are ways to show she cares without ruining herself over it.

Ragatha closes her eyes. From the beginning, Jax had been like a black-hole, pulling her into her orbit. He'd been magnetic when they'd first met - kinder, yet always holding everyone at arm's length a little. Now...he's more destructive, even though he might be on his way to imploding, taking her with him if Ragatha's not careful enough to keep her emotions in check. In the past, when Ragatha found herself wanting to give Jax space, she failed time and time again. But this time...she finds herself seriously considering Kinger's advice.

Because even if her attempts are useless, and Ragatha has truly failed in keeping the people around her safe, she knows that she's tried. Nearly killed herself trying, cried herself to sleep on nights he was cruel, only to extend her open arms again in the morning. Letting him cope in the only way she knew how to help - absorb all the punches, take the brunt of his annoyance, try to distract him when he was bullying Gangle too much. A stress toy used as a way for him to let out his pain, and then a rag-doll for the few times he felt ready to open a tiny part of himself up to her. And eventually she does something wrong - talk too much, talk too little, not talk at all, and all of a sudden she's ruined everything with her big mouth, over-correcting when he withdraws. Talking and talking herself into a pit for him to kick her down and cover it up with mud.

It's familiar, in a way she hates to think about. A way that makes her think of her button-eye and knitted body and wonder just how much Caine knew about their lives to design her like this. A way that keeps creeping into her mind, because didn't she leave home to get away from this, only to fall into the circus and find herself right back where she started?

Kinger, with his sudden lucidity at the aquarium, had provided her with a possible answer. Giving Jax space...wasn't the same as giving up on him. But a tiny part of her, remembering silent dinners at home, berating and guilt tripping, wondered if giving up on Jax was really so bad.

She quashes the thought in an instant. Sighing, she covered her face with her hands.

Isn't it stupid? Jax is all alone in his room, but all Ragatha can do is think about herself. Jax is the one who needs help, right now. Jax, now than ever, needs her to be as welcoming and kind as she's always been. Jax may not survive if she acts otherwise, so Ragatha will have to plaster on her smile and continue how she always has.

If only she could ignore this burning in her chest.

Surprisingly, Gangle's waiting outside her door first thing in the morning. She doesn't know how long Gangle's been standing there because Ragatha didn't hear footsteps or anything, so when she flings open the door and comes face to face with her mask Ragatha shrieks, causing a stuttering string of apologies from her. They walk to breakfast together. 

On the way there, they walk past Pomni and Jax on the far end of the corridor. Pomni, glancing at them, shoots them a quick wave and a smile. Jax, on the other hand, turns and glares, a look that Ragatha feels like is piercing into her very soul. She can feel Gangle hide behind her a little, one hand curl around Ragatha's left arm, and when Pomni nods her head in their direction, Jax rolls his eyes, pushing past her and walking away.

Ragatha doesn't know when she's stopped breathing, muscles taut and hands balled into fists until she feels Gangle's hand brushing her arm. She jumps, and immediately her hair falls back down. Seeing Gangle's nervous expression, Ragatha manages a breathy laugh and flexes out her hands.

"G-Gangle! Sorry, I was just lost in thought a little!" Ragatha says. 

Gangle's frown deepens, turning back to Pomni, who's quickly following after Jax. "I...hope Pomni's doing okay."

"...Me too."

Ragatha notices, as they go to eat, that Zooble isn't around, which is probably why Gangle is with her instead. Even so, Gangle is in mildly high spirits, so their conversation over their food is somewhat cheerful, slowly mellowing into a peaceful silence. At least, peaceful for Ragatha, until all of a sudden Gangle slams her notebook shut and stands ramrod upright.

"G-Gangle...?" Ragatha's spooked by the sudden intensity in those black eyes.

"...About Jax," she starts, and a horrible feeling crawls into Ragatha's stomach. "A-About your conversation w-w-with him before-"

"Don't worry about that, Gangle! It's my fault, I think I might have brought up things I shouldn't have...! Pushed him a little too hard. But I'll handle it, I promise!"

Ragatha's smile is plastered on wide, and despite her best efforts she can't help but remember her thoughts last night about Kinger's words. Gangle, not fully convinced by Ragatha's forced cheer, hesitates a little, but then, summoning up all her courage, she places one hand on Ragatha's shoulder. "...I understand, Ragatha."

"Huh?"

"I...understand how you feel." Her expression clouds, and Ragatha doesn't quite know what she's talking about. "And...maybe you should talk to Pomni about it. I think...s-she would understand, too."

And before Ragatha can say anything in response, Gangle hurries off.

Zooble was sitting on the couch, deep in thought. Seeing Ragatha, all he does is raise his head a little in response. They're clearly troubled, so Ragatha seats herself by his side and gently enquires how he's feeling.

"I don't know how to feel," they eventually confess.

Ragatha maintains her polite smile. "W-Well, I'm sure everything's going to work out eventually! He just...needs a little time."

Narrowing his eyes, Zooble looks like they don't quite buy that. "I hope so," is what he ends up saying. "He's a jerk and all, but it's not like I want to see him abstract, you know?"

Ragatha nods sympathetically.

"...And how are you holding up?" Zooble says, all of a sudden. It knocks Ragatha off-guard, and a part of her wonders if she really looks like a mess.

"Oh, I'm fine!" The lie slips off her tongue easily. Her mind's brought to her reaction to Jax, the something in her expression she couldn't quickly mask enough, that he spotted something was amiss. "It's...well, you know. It's been a while, since we've had another one of these. I really should be reacting better."

Another abstraction. Or near-abstraction. From Ribbit to Kaufmo was a long stretch of time, so in hindsight she should have expected something like this eventually. Sometimes the abstractions were close together - the early ones were like that. People getting too close, too quick - too eager to ground themselves in one person to keep themselves sane, only to break down when they inevitably couldn't help anymore or abstracted first. Other times, tension would smoulder for years. Guilt, bitterness and resentment would build, until one day something would give. Ribbit would abstract. Kaufmo would follow, after years of jokes slowly turning bitter. And now, Jax.

She tries not to think of how she sees herself in both of these situations. Tries not to think of the people she's held in her arms as they went, attempted and failed to calm from the other side of the room, opened a door to see a spiky blob of eyes...

"Another one of these...?" Zooble narrows their eyes. "You mean another abstraction?"

"Oh, d-don't worry about that! I'm just," Ragatha searches for a way to word herself that would assuage Zooble's fears, "remembering things. Nothing important."

"...The other abstractions you've seen. Well - near-abstractions," he says at last, sounding lost in a way they rarely do, "have they ever...come back for good, after something like this happened? After...eyes started appearing on them? Is it possible?"

And Ragatha thinks of a few long, dark nights, where Jax's words had cut too deep and nobody had come looking for her. Thinks of limbs growing heavy and an unbearable fogginess between her eyes. Eyes slowly opening on the curve of her arm, starting from her shoulder and trailing all the way down to her wrist. And remembers how she, between shaking sobs, had pulled herself back from the edge.

"It's possible," Ragatha tells her. "It's not easy. But...definitely possible, for someone as stubborn as Jax."

Zooble nods hard. "And you're sure...?"

She doesn't have a prognosis for time in terms of years. She knows how much worse she feels these days, compared to when she first joined. She knows that sometimes, with the adventures, and arguing with Jax, his words like knives in her heart, it's difficult to keep going. 

But Ragatha, despite everything, is still here.

"I'm sure."

It is Pomni who approaches Ragatha, not the other way around. Intercepting her on the way to her room, Pomni awkwardly calls her name. Asking to talk. In either her room or Ragatha's, and Ragatha at this point doesn't trust her room to be free of centipedes so they both go to Pomni's room instead.

As they walk in silence, small talk fading away, Ragatha's mind drifts. She remembers seeing Pomni earlier - and remembers how she felt, seeing Jax glaring at her. How she stopped breathing.

Ragatha knows the last time she's felt apprehension that crippled her entire body, making her quiet and placid, eager to please. It was the same thing that, during their talk after the award show, Pomni had told her to try and stop. Be a jerk once in a while - really be a jerk, not the way Pomni encouraged her before only to shoot her down afterwards. That incident had grated on Ragatha for hours afterwards, and she'd happily accepted Pomni's apology for that. And now Pomni was tiring herself out worrying about Jax, following after Jax, and-

It's a horrible thought, and it's not a comparison Ragatha should be making, not when Jax hasn't done anything at all on the level she has, but-

It reminds Ragatha of herself, when she was much younger and in the real world. Following after someone who spun lies and bended situations to make Ragatha always at fault - every crying outburst, every screaming match something that Ragatha caused. Look at what you made me do, she would say, and Ragatha, small and scared, would sit down and take it, ever the stress toy.

And Ragatha had tried to teach herself it wasn't her fault - that the overpowering anger and resentment she felt was okay. It was okay to be a jerk sometimes, in Pomni's words, without becoming like her, but even so the guilt was crippling, heavy enough that Ragatha almost felt herself collapse under its weight. Heavy enough to be coaxed back into the same cycle of apologising and being a stress toy and being a ragdoll and- 

Pomni taps her on the shoulder. This time around Ragatha doesn't jump nearly as much, and calms when she realises they're in front of Pomni's door. Ragatha doesn't even get the chance to chastise herself for her thoughts before Pomni swiftly closes the door, leading them further inside Pomni sits on the side of her bed, and Ragatha joins her. She looks...troubled, and Ragatha hopes she's not the one stressing her out in that way.

"What happened after you tried to talk to Jax before?" Pomni asks. Straight to the point.

Ragatha manages a half-smile. "Oh, nothing too bad. He was just in a foul mood. Did he say something about it?" she responds.

"Kind of? He...asked after you a little. Said he thought you might have walked back in at some point. Although it wasn't really asking outright, just a throwaway comment. But he tried to take it back after I pushed him on it, so...in a way, I guess?"

Right. Their usual dynamic, push and pull, requires Ragatha to come back eventually. For him to push her away again, but then act a little softer the next time they meet. Soft enough that Ragatha thinks she's doing something. And then something happens again. And then it gets worse again, and he doesn't change.

Ragatha sighs. She knows he's not doing this just to be spiteful. It's not like he's made it his life's mission to make Ragatha as miserable as possible just to relish in her pain. Even so...

"Are you...okay?" Pomni asks. "Out of everyone here...you knew him the longest. If...If I can't do it...if I can't save him...are you going to be okay, too?"

"I'll have to be," Ragatha replies, because that's her only option.

"But - really. You've been...off since the awards show. Gangle thinks so, too. She said I should talk to you...that you were acting off during breakfast today?"

Gangle? And Ragatha thought she only wanted to be around her because Zooble was busy. "Oh, it's nothing important! J-Jax is probably-"

"Jax is fine for now." Irritation flashed on her face for a moment, before she closed her eyes to take a deep breath. Opening them, she sees Ragatha worried. "He'll be okay after a few hours, we...well..."

"Had a little argument?" Ragatha finishes, and predictably Pomni nods.

"It's Jax being Jax," she says, a little grudgingly. "And whatever he's doing is going to be ten times worse, because people are not pleasant to be around-"

"Before they abstract," Ragatha finishes. "Huh. He told you that, too."

"I-" Pomni looks a little taken-aback. "He's mentioned that to you before?"

"Well, I told him," Ragatha corrects, "after a little incident where..."

No. Ribbit's issues aren't worth getting into right now. "...nevermind. Don't worry." Ragatha shakes her head. 

"I think I get it, though." Pomni tells her. "Everything he said to me, back when we had the gun adventure...I don't think that's how he truly feels inside. No matter what he says or does to us...we can't forget that he's the one who needs our help."

Pomni's words don't sit right with her. Maybe it's because Ragatha's tried and it hasn't seemed to do a thing, or that she never had the luxury of taking her emotions out on everyone else when she felt like she was falling apart, but either way, looking at Pomni, resolute and determined, Ragatha's not reassured at all.

Pomni looks up at her. "But I didn't actually come here to talk about Jax. I came here to talk about you. You know, about what I said during our conversation before?"

"That I can be a jerk sometimes?" Ragatha grins.

"That you can tell me anything," Pomni corrects softly.

Ragatha considers it. For a long moment. Trying to work through the emotions she's feeling and why she's feeling them now, trying to explain that she's not a bad person for feeling this way, she's not evil or spiteful, just...tired. A deep exhaustion that spanned nine years - no, an exhaustion that had begun from the moment her mother laid eyes on her and decided to do her wrong to this very second, sitting upright on Pomni's striped bed, trying to fold and push her churning feelings to be as palatable as possible.

But Pomni, entering the circus when Kaufmo abstracted, had only known Jax for a few weeks. Would she fully understand the churning guilt and resentment in Ragatha's heart?

Gangle was wrong, Ragatha thinks. Maybe Pomni wouldn't understand. And probably not Zooble, either, as although Jax argued with him a lot Zooble gave as good as he got, the only one in years to properly stand up to him. If Kinger was lucid, there would be a chance...

Maybe Gangle? Gangle, with her clouded expression, her quiet intensity as she talked with Ragatha. The victim of Jax's bullying for months on end. Is this what she truly meant, hand on Ragatha's shoulder, when she looked her in the eye and told her she understood?

"Ragatha...?"

She's been silent for too long. She forces her smile, and with a sinking feeling in her chest fears she's not convincing enough.

"I'm really okay. Well - as okay as anyone here can be. But if he's asking after me...then I'll visit him later," Ragatha says at last.

In times like these, when she feels low, Ragatha always finds herself gravitating to Kinger's pillow fort. Muscle memory from better times where he hadn't quite lost his mind. Years ago, when it was just the two of them, they would sit in his pillow fort and talk for hours. She hated being alone, and although it was hard to tell when he wasn't sane, she thinks Kinger enjoyed her company, too.

He's insane, now. Babbling about butterflies and bugs when she quietly walks in, so Ragatha curls up on the pillows without a word and allows his rambling tirade become background noise.

The questions she has for Kinger aren't ones he could answer. Not when Kinger had loved Queenie with all his heart, and from his description of her, she was a wonderful woman. Her abstraction, Ragatha had pieced together, was more to do with Kinger's worsening insanity instead of anything she had done wrong herself. So questions like did you ever fight with Queenie or did you ever feel angry that she left you behind or did she ever do anything to push you away wouldn't help her, only reopening wounds for Kinger that might never close.

As he had told her, Kinger had a resilient mind. Resilient enough to last years and years in this place without abstracting. Maybe if Ragatha had the ability to disconnect from reality, the same way he does when insane, she might feel less of the pressure. But then she thinks of how confused Kinger is when he is lucid, trying to put together the missing pieces of his memory, and realises that it's no blessing he's this way. 

Ragatha tries to come up with what he would say if he was of sound mind. Probably, he would tell her to keep going. Keep trying to speak to him, that the worst thing she could do is make someone feel like they're not wanted or loved. And Ragatha would just nod, because Kinger would most likely see Jax as Queenie in this situation, and potentially Ragatha as himself. See her as someone capable of avoiding the mistakes he made, and saving someone where he couldn't.

"Do you think...Jax is capable of being saved?" Ragatha wonders. "That...he's ever going to go back to how he used to be?"

Kinger goes silent. Ragatha remains in her curled up position.

"...I'm tired, Kinger. I'm so tired. I just don't know how I'm supposed to continue. Am I just wasting my time...? Are we all going to abstract anyway?"

When there's a longer silence, Ragatha realises with a jolt of shock that maybe he was sane and listening after all. Rushing to her feet, she tries to take back her words. "I-I didn't mean any of that.! I was, um, I wasn't being serious-"

Kinger stares at the wall of his fortress. When he doesn't move, Ragatha quietly moves closer to him. "Kinger...?"

He turns, eyes facing opposite directions. "Huh?"

"Did...did you hear any of..."

He looks at her blankly. Then his eyes light up. "Oh! Ragatha, I didn't know you were here! Would you like to help me count my chickens before they hatch?"

...He's not there. The crazed look in his eyes doesn't match the Kinger she knew. She doesn't know if it's relief or crushing disappointment she feels, but either way Ragatha finds herself backing out of the fortress. "...No thanks, Kinger. I've got things to do."

As much as she wished it was true, Ragatha was not a person of infinite patience. She was not someone with infinite compassion, or infinite self-control. Maybe a better person would have these qualities, or maybe a better person would handle their emotions better, but all she knows is that after the third instance of opening her bedroom door to find centipedes crawling out, and Jax laughing at her screams, she found herself seething.

He sure is going back to normal, Pomni tells her with a strained smile, even though his idea of normal has somehow always been her getting bothered in some way. She doesn't return the smile, kicking out the numerous bugs as Zooble and Gangle leave, shooting her sympathetic looks. She seeks out the last centipede, and for good measure kicks open the door of his room and heads in to hide it inside.

His room is pink, and it is pretty. She never really knew why. Long ago there had once been a brief explanation that just because he was a man doesn't mean his room couldn't be pink, something about peak masculinity, but even when they were close this topic was never something he wanted to discuss. Jax raises his head from a cotton-candy coloured pillow, turns enough so he can lock eyes with her, and glares.

"What are you doing?" he asks, but he doesn't get a chance to say another word before Ragatha flings the bug in his face, catching him off guard. He tries to get it off, and in the midst of the struggle she thinks it even gets in his mouth before he kicks it aside and stomps it to dust. "What's wrong with you?!"

"Stay out of my room." Ragatha glares at him. "And keep those centipedes away from me."

"Relax, it was just a little prank-"

"I don't care about your stupid pranks," she snaps. And forces herself to take a deep breath, which only seems to amuse him. "I just want my room to be left alone-"

"I am leaving you alone," he says casually. "You're the one who walked in here."

...She did walk in here. Now she's standing squarely in the middle of his room, and although he's a little annoyed Jax isn't telling her to leave either. Maybe it would be a good opportunity for them to talk again? As much as she's been avoiding him...Ragatha knows that it can't go on forever. "...Look, about our conversation before-"

"Nope. Get out." His amused expression drops in an instant.

"I just wanted to say-"

"Leave." 

"B-But Pomni said you asked after me?" Ragatha said, voice wavering a little. "Well... I-I'm here now. And if you want to talk-"

"What part of leave me alone do you not understand? What part of 'no friendship, no relationship, no bond at all' is so difficult to-"

"Because I don't want you to abstract." 

The force in her voice gives Jax pause. 

"Because we do have a bond. We do have a relationship," Ragatha continues carefully. "Five whole years, we've known each other for - that can't all be for nothing. I know it isn't nothing. And so do you, even if you act otherwise."

Jax waits for her to finish, and foolishly, she thinks that he'll give her a serious answer. But the look on his face, she realises, is more akin to boredom.

"Are you done?" He rolls his eyes, and again Ragatha feels hurt. "Look, I get that Pomni's sent you on some mission or whatever-"

"I'm here because I want to be, Jax. Why is that so hard to believe?"

"Because you threw a centipede in my face," he says angrily.

"That's only because you hid thirty of them in my room!"

"It was just a joke," he says, rolling his eyes, "why do you have to be so unreasonable-"

"I'm not the one being unreasonable," Ragatha retorts. "Not when you're the one who won't leave me alone, night and day - constantly picking on me!"

"Maybe you just need to grow thicker skin."

"Maybe you just need to apologise."

He narrows his eyes, sizing her up. "Apologise?"

Ragatha nods tersely. "You heard me."

"Then I apologise," he says sarcastically, "for ruffling the feathers of poor, poor Ragatha-"

"Jax," she warns.

"-who can't take a joke or get over her stupid fear of centipedes-"

"Stupid fear? You're the one who's afraid of corn, of all things," Ragatha says, shaking her head.

He freezes a little, and Ragatha only now realises the harm in what she'd said. Because his fear of corn comes from the eyes of how abstractions looked - a far cry from a silly fear of bugs. She opens her mouth to apologise, but the angry look on his face tells her that it'll already be futile.

"I-I mean, um...! I didn't mean to imply-"

"Of course you didn't." He glares at her. "Of course you didn't mean anything - little Ragatha, always so caring, trying to look out for other people - why are you even here, anyway? Is this just so you can get Pomni's attention - trick the newest person here into believing you really mean what you say?"

"It's not a trick-!"

"Oh, sure, you're here to save me with your stupid saviour complex, all so you can keep convincing everybody you're actually a good person." Jax laughs harshly, and she can sense they're going down the path they were in their previous conversation. Jax spouts out a number of lines to push her away, and Ragatha keeps her distance, acting like it doesn't wound her at all for him to tell her this. She can't take it anymore. "You're no saviour, Ragatha, so why don't you-"

"Will you stop feeling like every little thing I do is some kind of attack on you?!" Ragatha explodes. "I told you, I didn't mean it! Not everything is about you!"

"...What?" He's more confused than anything, but Ragatha isn't done yet.

"Not everything I do is some kind of scheme to drag you down and manipulate you!" she continues. "Why do you assume that I'm just fake and pretending and out to get you - what if I care about you?! Why is that so difficult to believe?!"

"You care about me?" He scoffs. "Right, as long as it makes you look-"

"It doesn't matter how I look," she says through gritted teeth. "It doesn't matter what they think - as long as everyone's safe-"

"Which has worked so well in the past," he says mockingly.

"And it's better than pushing everyone away and acting like they don't even matter!"

"Don't tell me we're starting this again," he says, frustrated. Still feigning that nonchalance - that carefreeness, that their world doesn't matter and the people around him doesn't matter and she doesn't matter - and Ragatha wants to tear down that mask with both hands, shatter it into pieces until it crumbles to dust. "So I'm the bad guy for not playing along with your little facade - that everyone here matters so much, that you're looking out for everyone out of the goodness of your own heart-"

"What I'm saying," Ragatha corrects harshly, "is that pushing everyone away and acting like they're not real people doesn't help anybody! You lash out at everything around you because of all the pain you're in, all the suffering you're feeling, but you're not the only person who feels this way! You're not the only person who struggles - all of us struggle, I struggle-

"And now you're making this all about yourself?"

"I suffer, too! Every funeral, every abstraction, six people I used to know gone, and - a-and - the world doesn't revolve around you! You're not the only person here who hurts - you're not the only one here with a soul, so stop acting like your actions don't affect others, like they don't matter-"

"I-It doesn't matter," Jax scoffs. "This world is not real! Nothing matters, not you, not me-"

"Not Pomni?" Ragatha challenges wildly. Where there's no further reaction, she decides to dig deeper. "Not Kaufmo? Not Ribbit?"

And she's struck gold.

"Don't," he warns, but Ragatha ignores the warning.

"Not Ribbit?" she repeats. "Ribbit, who always spent so much time with us - you, in particular - did she never matter to you? The stargazing, the tea parties, was that all fake? Was she never real to you?"

"Y-You..." His face contorts into a sneer. "Y-You don't even know what you're talking about!"

"I don't know?" Ragatha is incredulous. "I've been stuck in this place for twice as long as you have - how could I not understand?! This world - the graphics, the fake food - the adventures, the death, not being able to drown, not being able to truly die - do you think it doesn't drive me insane? Do you think I don't want to get out of this place - that I haven't gotten close to abstracting before too, that I don't know what it feels like?"

She shouldn't be saying this, a voice in the back of her head warns her, but she's too tired and angry to listen. "You think I haven't seen the illusions, the bright colours, how - how calm it feels when you get close? When you're slipping away...and all of your issues disappear from your mind...and you feel like you could fall asleep forever and nothing would hurt anymore? You...you really think I don't...?!"

A desperate laugh escapes her lips. She clutches her head and laughs, all so that the tears in her eye wouldn't escape, because Ragatha is resolute she won't make a fool out of herself by bursting into tears now. "But I never took it out on anybody else. I never m-made the people around me suffer, I never tormented them! I never p-punished them for the crime of trying to get close to me, or bullied them because they reminded me of someone close to my heart! Even when I was feeling down, I never dragged anyone else down with me! But the only way you cope in this place is to make sure I never get back up!"

She's lightheaded, the room spinning, yet her eyes burn and her chest heaves, as she unleashes all the anger she's kept locked up inside. "You chose to push everybody away the second you decided that none of this was real! You chose to push yourself further down the pit you're in now!You're the only one to blame for where you are now, so don't sit here and tell me nothing matters and we have no bond because you'll only be repeating the same mistake that made Ribbit abstract! Didn't you learn after what happened to her - or did their abstraction really mean nothing to you after all? Was she just another character to shove into an archetype, all so you could convince yourself that this world wasn't real - that her impact on you wasn't real - that your impact on her, leading her to her fate, wasn't real either?!"

The last sentence burns her throat on the way out. She knew their devastating impact, yet she still shot them out like a dagger to his heart. It strikes, and he goes rigid, shoulders tensed, as he looks at her almost helplessly. And Ragatha watches the look on his face, watches the pain, and is about to find another cutting statement when she catches herself savouring the moment. Almost enjoying making him hurt for the first time in forever, and Ragatha realises she's acting just like her-

Ragatha claps a hand her mouth, guilt overwhelming her. The silence is deafening.

Jax opens his mouth, fingers digging into a tight fist. He huffs a desperate laugh, which splinters into something almost like a sob before he clamps a hand around his mouth, moving it away and squeezing his fingers into a fist like he's trying to crush his pain like dust in his grasp. He stares at her with that piercing gaze, and Ragatha cannot shield herself from it.

"So you really were fake after all," he forces out between gritted teeth.

Ragatha is a statue. Ragatha is made of stone, shame rooting her to the ground and pulling her taut. Ragatha feels so hopelessly cold, save for the burning of shame in her cotton-cheeks. Her fingers twitch. Her breathing stops.

And then - she takes a step backwards. Jax watches her, pupils turned into pinpricks in a sea of pale-yellow sclera. His fist, pressed against his closed mouth, starts to shake. Neither of them say a word. Another step backwards, a third, fourth and fifth, until Ragatha is standing in the doorway. And Jax still stares and stares with that haunted look in his eyes.

I'm sorry, is what she needs to say. I didn't mean it. Please, let me help you. I just want you to be okay. Please, let me in.

Instead, her fumbling fingers find the doorknob, and she slams the door shut.

She does not breathe until her lungs burn and her chest grows heavy. She does not blink until her eyelid grows tired. She stands and stands for what must be millenia, until she's able to take one more step backwards, and it's too big and she stumbles a little to her right to balance herself -

- and Gangle is there, watching her.

How long had she been waiting? Ragatha for the life of her can't fathom how long she was frozen outside that door. Gangle could have spoken to her, called her name, but Ragatha would never have noticed a thing. Turning to get a better look, Gangle looks distressed, and icy fear climbs up her throat.

"Gangle," Ragatha breathes, shaking. She prays with all her might that Gangle had just arrived, that she hadn't heard a thing. That the distress on her face was due to Ragatha's oddness, and not anything prior.

"Ragatha, I..." She trails off.

"What's wrong?" Ragatha blinks, trying to get herself back to normal. Gangle looks like she's having a little crisis. 

"I..." When Ragatha takes a step towards her, she tenses. "...I n-never knew you could yell that loud."

The breath is stolen from her lungs. No, no, no no no no-

"R-Ragatha!"

Gangle calls after her, but she's already running - opening her doorknob fast, searching for her key in her pockets - where is it, where is it, how to lock herself away from the world forever, how to escape this situation. It is no use - Gangle is too fast, ribbon hands wrapping around one arm as she heads further into her room - pulling her as Ragatha tries to escape.

"Ragatha, w-w-wait, I-" Gangle stammers, trying to pull Ragatha towards her. "R-Ragatha, stop!"

Gangle's grip is surprisingly strong, so when Ragatha ends up retreating into her room, she only pulls her along. "I-I didn't m-mean - I...I'm sorry..."

Trying to come up with some kind of jumbled apology, Ragatha feels that same familiar pressure between her eyes - that splitting pain like her skull's going to shatter in a million pieces, and she can already start seeing the colourful illusions appear very faintly in the air-

"Y-Your arm!"

Ragatha looks down at her free arm, sees the blackness, sees the eyes, and panics. "I'm fine," she says automatically, legs feeling like jelly.

"D-Don't go - Ragatha, please-"

Hearing Gangle's panic, Ragatha attempts a smile, but it comes out forced and wrong. "T-This has happened before, I just need to - t-to calm down, b-breathe, r-remind myself-"

That she's still a person, that she's still here, but she starts to hyperventilate, and Ragatha's vision blurs-

"Then breathe." Gangle releases her arm to place both hands on the sides of Ragatha's face. "F-Follow after me - breathe, Ragatha, please d-don't abstract..."

Gangle breathes deeply, exaggerated in a way to get Ragatha to mimic her. Closing her eye, Ragatha follows along mindlessly, breathing and exhaling until her full-body shaking lessened to trembling, the pressure between her eyes lifting. When she opens her eye Gangle is still watching her arm with that same expression. They watch as the darkness fades away, eyes closing.

"S-See...? Good as new." She lifts it in front of her face. "N-Nothing was wrong after all! It was just...a little slip!"

Gangle stares at her, wide-eyed. Ragatha's attempts at reassuring her failing miserably.

"I'm sorry," Ragatha says immediately. "Gangle, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said all of that to Jax, I didn't...I didn't..."

Mean to hurt him, she wants to say, although those words would be a lie. She meant it - blaming him, bringing up Ribbit just to spite him - just to make him react, do something that wasn't just act like nothing was wrong. But it was evil and it was cruel and how could she yell at him, how could she-

"...I understand, Ragatha."

"Understand?" In her state of mind, Ragatha doesn't fully register what she's talking about. Only that she keeps hearing this from Gangle.

"About Jax," Gangle tugs on her arm, and Ragatha nearly slips over. "About...resenting him." she mutters, letting go of Ragatha's face. "About...not knowing how to feel, that he might abstract and disappear forever."

She...was expecting something else. Criticism. Judgement. Disgust. Instead, Gangle takes a cautious step away, looking almost ashamed of herself.

"E-Even now, he's s-still...really hard to talk to. He still makes fun of me all the time...even when I tried to speak with him before to see if h-he was okay."

"He's been struggling," Ragatha says automatically, causing a weary sigh to erupt from Gangle.

"I know," Gangle groans, burying her head in her hands. "I kn-know he's struggling, I know that. Everyone knows th-th-that he - I can tell. He's always s-struggled, but we always tried to include him-"

"It's not easy for him to rely on people," Ragatha reminds her gently. Trying to get her to see the good, under all the anger and callous remarks - see the Jax she used to know, yet the look on Gangle's face is akin to anger.

"I-It's not easy for me, too!" Gangle cries, voice rising. "I-I kept thinking that everyone's just going to laugh at me...it took me s-so long to trust Zooble, it took me so long to trust Kaufmo and Kinger and you, because of him. H-He always made fun of me...always...h-he made me feel like I was just his toy, that I had no control over anything, that he would always get what he wanted...that I was powerless...

"When it was really bad...when he would b-bully me night and day...I wanted him gone. I wanted him to abstract. I w-wanted whatever hurt and pain that made him act that way t-t-to consume him whole, d-destroy him completely so he would feel as horrible as he made me feel, and then...I wouldn't have to see him anymore." Gangle wipes her eyes. "I...hated him. I was so s-scared of him, I...I just wanted it all to end."

When Gangle looks up, Ragatha is stunned. Gangle curls up into herself. "I know. It's...bad. I d-don't...think I feel that way anymore. I wasn't happy when we found him abstracted, but..."

"...You weren't upset?" Ragatha whispers. 

Gangle is a little defensive. "I-I was upset. I was shocked, I was scared, I was worried for Pomni if she might get hurt, but I...I also felt..."

This defensiveness soon vanishes, as she wraps both arms around herself, whispering the Iast word as if it were a dirty secret. "...relieved."

Relieved. Is that what Ragatha's been feeling, too? Hiding in that inferno of emotions, guilt and resentment and sorrow, was there relief, laying dormant but awakened for the first time in years?

"I...don't want anybody to abstract. I w-want him...to get better." Gangle decides. "I want him...to recover, come back to us after everything he's done. I want him t-to make it up to us and change, I want everybody to be friends again...but after everything I experienced...after everything he's put us through...when he finally decides to make things right, h-he can crawl back."

They're silent for a while. Then Gangle laughs, quiet and self-deprecating.

"I think I'm a bad person," she confesses. "Pomni...never gives up on trying to get through to him. Zooble wanted to put his argument with Jax aside until he's better...and Kinger...talked to us, a little. He was lucid for a few minutes, and when Pomni asked him what to do he said we all needed to stick together. Put all our issues aside and focus on him for now....but I don't know how. I t-thought I was getting better, but now I don't know what kind of person I am anymore. I don't know how I could l-look at someone who nearly abstracted, but still think about everything he's done to me...not being able to stand visiting him, not being able to talk to him...

"And I d-don't know how to tell Zooble any of this. And I can't tell Pomni. Kinger won't even remember a thing when I've finished talking, but you..."

"But you can tell me," Ragatha whispers.

"Because you understand," Gangle tells her. "Even if this does make me a b-bad person...even if I am heartless for feeling like this...you understand. Being...angry. Even if he's struggling too...even if he's grieving, or hurting...it doesn't erase what happened to us. What he's done, and keeps on doing. I...know how you feel, Ragatha."

...

It's unusual, to see someone so plainly speak the truth she's been trying to suppress for years on end. The bitter hatred Ragatha tried to shove down and make more palatable so freely expressed. Spoken in clear words, not bitten back by shame or the incessant need for everybody to get along. The impact on Jax's actions not softened by his suffering and grief, or airbrushed from memories of how he used to be. No dressing up her words with platitudes or apologies in case it gets misunderstood, or twisted to mean something it doesn't. Clear and harsh and unforgiving, free of the constant excuses given for his behaviour. Despite her fear and nerves as she spoke, this is the most honest Gangle has been with Ragatha in years. And although it's jarring to hear this from her, someone usually so placid and non-confrontational, in a way it is also comforting.

Maybe Ragatha, after all this time, has become a bad person. Maybe her mother's rage and Jax's taunts got through to her, seeped into her bloodstream and entered her soul, because she finds herself agreeing with Gangle. But feeling like this...not being able to forgive Jax after his torment...does this truly make Gangle heartless? Does this really make her a bad person?

"This is a lot to take in, Gangle..." Ragatha says eventually.

"I...I know. I'm sorry, y-you were the one who was upset in the first place, I d-didn't mean-!"

"...but I don't think it makes you a bad person."

Gangle looks surprised. "Y-You...don't have to just say that, Ragatha. You c-can be honest."

"I am." Ragatha frowns. "You two...really didn't get along, did you?"

"...I tried to get along with him. H-He would never want to get along with me, though..."

"But even though that's how you felt...you still tried to talk to him. You still went to visit him after he nearly abstracted. I think...a real bad person, would just take out their emotions on him, without caring about how he felt at all. "

Like her, she realises.

"I don't think you're a bad person," Ragatha says, tears spilling over. "I'm the bad person, I-!"

"You're not," Gangle tells her.

"I yelled at him in his room, I shot him down, I - I wasn't patient enough with him," Ragatha lists, "I failed him. I was meant to protect him, but when I stepped into his room all I could think about was myself."

"Maybe it's not that you weren't just thinking about yourself," Gangle says. "Maybe you never got to think about yourself."

"But I know him -  know how he used to be! And I know that he's the way he is now is because I didn't stop him! All my efforts...they just weren't enough!"

"I...wasn't there, w-when you two met," Gangle says, "but...I don't think you failed him. You can hold out your hand to help him...but if he doesn't take it, t-there's nothing you can do."

Her ribbon arms wrap around Ragatha's frame, and she holds her as Ragatha cries. Gangle does not speak, even though Ragatha apologises over and over, tears soaking into her fabric. Not until Ragatha's crying turns to sniffles, and she draws backwards to look her in the eye.

"Maybe...you should let Pomni handle it. If she wants to," Gangle advises. "I-Instead of taking it on yourself and...destroying yourself in the process."

"D-Destroy?"

"Abstract?" she offers as an alternative, which is worse. "What I mean is...destroying yourself to save him won't help. All it would d-do is push him over the edge...or push him further into believing he doesn't care about anything after all. And if it does work...and Jax does change...w-would it be worth it? W-Would destroying yourself be worth it...i-if it means that only he would be okay?"

Ragatha can't decide. She feels like the correct answer is yes, but she knows that deep down, she would hate herself for making that choice. And she wants to say no, but being responsible for another abstraction would be too much to bear.

Gangle doesn't push the topic when Ragatha doesn't respond. Instead, she brings up something that Ragatha was hoping she didn't hear: "...Was it true?" she asks. "Did...Did he really make Ribbit abstract?"

It was difficult to answer. There was no clear yes - no one-sided, targeted bullying that would shift the blame fully on him. It was more subtle. Maybe, in a world where Jax coped better, he would have be able to save them. Or maybe Ribbit was doomed from the start. Either way...

"...I'm not sure if she could have been saved...but it's not like he made anything better," she eventually responds. "But I never should have said that to Jax. Blaming him for what happened was just bound to hurt him - it didn't help anything. I was just...taking out my anger on him."

Treating him like the stress toy she hated to be treated as. Ragatha buries her head in her hands and wonders if she'll ever escape her mother's influence on her life.

"T-Then...you should apologise." Gangle tells her. 

"Right. Right, I'll go now and-"

"Later," Gangle insists. "You s-should stay here for a while. Away from him?"

"But what if he abstracts?"

"What if you abstract?" Gangle answers back, and Ragatha doesn't have an answer to that. She looks down at her hands to find them normal. No blackness, no extra eyes. How long will she really last? How long will any of them last in this place, before a whole new bunch of humans come to repeat their mistakes? 

Two ribbon hands snake into hers, red and smooth. Ragatha allows herself to be led over to her bed, and lies down. She waits for Gangle to leave, but instead Gangle lies on the other side of the bed, on top of the covers.

"You don't have to stay," Ragatha tells her, but Gangle doesn't move a muscle.

"I...w-want you to be here tomorrow morning."

"I will be, Gangle-"

"I'm not taking that chance."

"What about Zooble?" Ragatha asks, taking a different approach. "Won't they be worried if you're not there - won't he start looking for you, and if-"

"Let me help you, Ragatha." Gangle turns to look at her. "Please. J-Just this once, let me help you."

There are a thousand reasons Ragatha could come up with to prove she doesn't deserve it, but Gangle is resolute and Ragatha, tucked under the covers, is tired. So she concedes with a nod, staring at the ceiling.

There's a long night ahead of her. An even longer morning, when she has to face Jax after their argument. Maybe even longer, if he doesn't show up. For now, despite all her rage and unworthiness, Ragatha lets herself close her eyes.