Chapter Text
“Jax, when we get back I want to celebrate,” Pomni said as she rested her cheek on his shoulder. He hummed through a sly smile as they approached the spaceship.
“Whatcha’ got in mind Sweets? I could prolly think of一69 ways,” he snickered. It went right over her head and she tapped his neck as she curled around him.
They were only a few meters away from the huge rope ladder that connected the ship to the asteroid like a harpoon. Kinger, Ragatha and Gangle had already started their ascent, ready to be done with this adventure already. The rover was left parked next to the ladder.
“Well, how about we spend a little time in the pet room? I want to ride the horses again.” Jax’s ears fell flat against his head.
Fuck.
“And then after, we should do something else that’s fun. Maybe show me some of your hobbies?”
Think fast, Bunny.
“Hobbies? Pom wants to learn about how I pass the time? Weeeell, lucky for you we’ve got the whole day after this一I’ve got a bucketful,” Jax shot like a bullet. Pomni seemed more curious about his hobbies than the fact that he was so quick with it.
“Yeah? I remember you said baseball, and antagonizing everyone,” she giggled.
He nodded and stopped abruptly before he gripped the ladder with force, still holding her with one arm.
“We can wrestle and sword fight and I’ll show ya’ how to set a TNT detonator mechanism!” he laughed wildly.
“Sounds doable. You wanna go first?” she asked, pushing off of him slightly to point up the ladder.
“You sound doable! And nah, I wanna see if I can haul you up there. I think I can,” he smiled mischievously.
“Jax, that’s unnecessary,” she retorted, “we can piggyback and whatever else when we get back. Let me go first so you can get your fill of ogling my ankles.” She tried to slip out of his hold, but he was in a mood and his impulses got the better of him. He threw her over his shoulder and planted a hand on her butt to ‘keep her steady’.
“No Pom this is one of my hobbies; It’s called ‘rucking’! You do strenuous activities with a weight on you and it’s great for some reason! You’ll be the rucksack, READYSETGO!” Just as he hoisted himself onto the ladder, a blaring alarm sounded around them, and Pomni screamed as she nearly flailed herself off of his shoulder.
“What the f&ck is that!? Sound doesn’t travel through space?!” she whined, looking around frantically.
“Pom, calm down, it’s just tellin’ us to hurry up, no biggie,” he reasoned, though the blaring sound made his teeth grit. Just as he finished attempting to comfort her Zoobles very agitated voice rang around them.
“STOP FLIRTING AND HAUL @SS YOU HORNY B@ST@RDS!”
Pomni somehow paled at Zoobles' order and Jax’s smile faltered. He figured Zooble was just still pissy from their forced participation, but he still leaned back from the ladder rung he stood on to look around them. Pomni started slamming her fists on his back.
“OK OK funs’ over, Z says we gotta go! It sounds urgent!” she squeaked, praying he’d humor her. Jax found Zoobles' tone to be rather convincing, and he did indeed haul ass. He reached the top in record time, and Kinger hoisted him up into the awaiting presence of a very done Zooble.
“Sup Dummies. Woah, captain Dummy, why aren’t you drivin’ this thing?” Jax snarked, setting Pomni down by his side with a plop.
“WE GOTTA GO,” they barked, wrapping an arm around Pomni and pushing her so hard she nearly toppled. Jax bared his teeth immediately but had no time to verbally rip Zooble a new one before they pushed him in the same direction. After, they grabbed Kinger and heaved with their whole might while Jax and Pomni felt arms wrap around them from behind. Ragatha and Gangle had pulled them into an odd type of chamber with 2 massive metal doors.
“What the f&ck’s a matter with Zoob?! Pom, you ok?” Jax hissed, ignoring the fact that Ragatha was pulling them both through another huge doorframe. Kinger was shoved through too, just before a huge crash erupted from the other side of the ship. Zooble slammed the first door tight as the others scrambled to comprehend the situation.
“No, Zooble!” Gangle shrieked, letting go of Pomni’s arm in favor of running up to the door. It hissed and sealed just as she wrapped her dainty ribbon hand around the handle.
Kinger snatched Gangle by the torso and pushed them the rest of the way through to this small room with a window to the outside and a plush wrap-around bench. Pomni’s heart sank when she saw the second door close behind Kinger. A loud slam and gaseous hiss filled her ears and her protest caught in her throat.
“Zooble!” Pomni screamed, though it was drowned out by the loud mechanical sounds of the room around them. Jax wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her down on his lap and try to shake some answers out of her.
“Pom! What’s a’ matter? You hurt?” Jax yelled through the cacophony of noise.
“I-I’m fine! The air-lock is activating without Zooble! We can’t一They’re not一!”
“God I hope this is not a painful Game Over!” Gangle cried, buckling on her knees and pulling her ribbons over her eyes.
That’s when it hit her. They all knew this was a Game Over scene. A mass character death that she’s only heard stories of一unlike the very jarring single character deaths she has experienced, these ones were supposed to be ‘cinematic’ according to Caine. Kind of like an animated part of a video game. Ragatha leaned forward and slumped over Gangle, followed by Kinger. Pomni was hyperventilating as she turned to look at Jax, scared and unable to speak, but the look on his face body-slammed her fear into the ground. His features were calm and relaxed under his helmet visor, and his gaze trapped her like tar.
“Pom,” he hummed softly, reaching up to remove his helmet, “It’s ok. I’ll be here the whole time. Watch the show, why dont’cha?”
Pomni swallowed and chanced one last glance out the side of the window to see what was happening. She felt his arm tighten around her, and her heart rate slowed to a steady pulse.
“M’here. Shouldn’t be long now” he huffed in a strained way. She pressed her helmet to the thick glass, and she squeezed Jax extra hard as she saw it.
There were massive droves of space debris whizzing past them, all lit up with the heat and warmth of cosmic travel, streaking blues and purples behind them. She couldn’t help the gasp of awe that escaped as she saw the zero-gravity rock-slide barreling toward them, crashing into each other and breaking into yet more projectiles. One of the massive asteroids had already struck the cockpit of the ship一the part she was in just hours before一while more still came toward them without any sign of deviation.
“Sweets,” Jax hummed, tapping her helmet. She turned to peek at him dumbfoundedly and the otherworldly glow of imminent death refracted off of her spacesuit through the window.
“Take off the helmet. It’ll hurt less.”
She blanked at him, watching as he slowly twisted it to set the release mechanism, and disengaged her helmet. She gently placed her head on his shoulder so she could watch the meteor shower head-on as her abandoned helmet rolled along the floor of the escape pod.
“Best way to die, by far,” she whispered, feeling his large hand rest on her lower back.
He closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of the girl in his arms, and a strange joy took hold of him at the thought that this was a worthwhile death to her. He smiled and opened his eyes just in time to see that the window was letting in a blinding white light. Suddenly the wall was ripped open like tin foil, and the last thing he saw was Pomni’s amazed face staring out the window. The shearing of metal and loud crashing was cut off immediately, the last thing Jax or Pomni felt was a rush of intense cold and absolute stillness.
Pomni suddenly found herself sitting on Jax’s lap, facing him, while he sat in a chair in front of an office desk. Ragatha, Gangle, and Kinger were still huddled together on the floor, faces very much pained, but still breathing. Zooble was sitting in the chair next to Jax, shaking like a leaf.
“Wow, my SPACE CADETS! You got a heck of a lot of ore, but OPE! Looks like you all died in the asteroid impacts! Zooble, Zooble, Zooble…you didn’t fly the ship away in time! Looks like you get一a B+!” Caine shouted happily. Zooble said nothing as their hollow face flitted to the others around them.
“You guys good? You good, G?” they rasped Gangle jerked her head at the sound of their voice, breaking the pile of carnies apart. She rushed up to them and hugged them so tightly they felt like they were wearing a too-tight scarf, but they said nothing as they felt the tickle of porcelain tears along their shoulder.
“It hurt bad,” she whispered. Zooble clutched her tighter.
Caine turned to see Jax and Pomni clinging to each other like legos too, and he chortled out a chirpy little laugh.
“Pomni and Jax chose to watch the death scene, what a cinematic way to go! You must tell me all about it, my dears!”
Jax swallowed and tightened his grip on Pomni, and took a deep breath to still himself. The temperature and pressure change of a space death was never something he enjoyed, but Pomni had the wherewithal to speak on his behalf.
“It was a good show, Caine. Your details are getting better,” she whispered. Then she buried her face in his fluff and he let out a deep breath.
“Caine, I want to go rest now,” Ragatha huffed, the bags under her eyes alarmingly visible.
“Oh of course my dear! You had a full inventory, you worked so hard! A+ for everyone stocked to the brim!” he beamed, snapping his fingers and switching out the office for the commons area.
“I have fully rendered a teacher for you, my Superstars! Gangle’s prize was hard to program, but I think I got the hang of it! Your educational experiences lie behind the orange door next to the commons’ kitchen entrance! Please, do go have fun with your learning, and give me feedback on how I can improve it!” he belted, “Tata, my Candid Little Carnies!”
Jax shot up from the couch he was placed on and booked it to the dorm hall as soon as Caine was done with his spiel, stopping in between their rooms. Pomni didn’t have to see to know where he was as she pointed to her own.
They entered and Jax went straight for her chair by the fire, settling in it softly before squeezing the living daylights out of her. Pomni let out a squeak, but she never protested his vice grip. She had a feeling he needed it for a minute. They held each other until she felt his breathing even out a bit more.
“You were so calm, Jax,” she whispered after a long time of feeling his deep breaths on her bangs. He loosened his hold on her so she could get a bit more comfortable.
“Had’ta be. I didn’t want’cha to be more freaked than you were, S’all.” Pomni frowned.
“Were you scared? You seemed a little more out of it than usual,” she asked softly, opting to lose herself in the flames before them.
“Scared? Me?? Well一” he huffed, “I guess I was, maybe just a little. Not the same as you, though.” She cocked a brow at him, and he finally looked her in the eye.
“Why were you scared then?” she asked. He paused and brushed a gloved hand along her arm to ground himself.
“Didn’t want you to hate the Game Over,” he responded quietly. Pomni tucked her chin in thought and tapped it softly. He had been the one to explain how the Game Overs work a long time ago, and since it was her first collective one, she figured he might be wary about it, but never scared. This seemed to be a bit more complicated than he was letting on. Just as she opened her mouth to pry more, though, he answered her unvoiced question.
“Cuz’ if you hated the Game Over with me tryn’a make it better for ya一then I’d have have kinda一flopped. Failed. Cuz’ what kind of partner am I if I can't make the sh*tty things less sh*tty? I’d be useless,” he explained.
“I can’t give you much. It’s the least I can do.” He started nibbling at her hair absentmindedly. Pomni pressed her head into his lips and it pulled out a purr. She couldn’ help the smile that crept onto her face at how hard he was trying and still wanted to try.
“Oh Jax, you aren’t useless. You helped me一but even if you chose not to help, I wouldn’t say your useless. Your value to me is not based on if you can make death an easier thing to deal with,” she pressed.
“‘Course you think that, you sappy Sapperson. Bout’ as sappy as a Maple. Your name oughta’ be Miss Maple, how sappy you are,” he huffed.
“Maple is my last name,” she hummed.
“Mmm. I see. Well, Ms.Maple, did you get to keep that ruby you pocketed? It was a mighty fine specimen if I do say so myself.”
“Oh yeah! Should we put it on the mantle? Or would you like it in one of your display cases?” she chuckled softly, pulling the stone from her pocket. It was about as big as her fist.
“Oh, it’d go good in a display. It wouldn’t match with the green theme here, anyway,” Jax snickered, snatching it from her.
“Hey! Who says I won’t change the room to match it? Maybe I want some red furniture with a 1870’s Victorian feel?!”
He laughed at her harder, the anxiety of the adventure now fully dissipated. He clutched her cheek and nuzzled it with a smirk.
“Yer’ mind really is like a bear-trap. How many adventures ago was that? Like a million?” he snickered, pinching her cheek.
“A million and 4. You know, I think you should keep it, really. It’s a gift from Ms.Maple to you.”
“Oh jeez Pom you got me a big fat rock? You’re want’n to get serious arent’cha? Try’na bag me up!” He grabbed her hand and licked her wrist just to mess with her, and she wriggled at the sensation before trying to smack him with the ruby.
“I don’t even have a fastener for it! I’m sorry if it’s not to your liking! You’d think an offer to be Mr.Maple would be met with more gratitude,” she snarked, bapping his cheek lightly.
As silly as their little spat was, he shifted the mood in a blink. He snatched both of her wrists and leaned forward, just as eerily calm as he was when they were trapped in the pod.
“You could give me a polished turd and I’d wear it like a crown, lil’ lady.”
The tone he used lit a flare in her cheeks and she sputtered out a nothing response, Jax having stolen all of her good sense. He continued to watch her face shift in cycles of embarrassment and happiness before she stopped his intensity with a kiss meant to distract the both of them. When she pulled away, she hopped off his lap and snatched his hand, feeling much more energized than when they’d first arrived.
“I might just do that, you know. Shouldn’t give me ideas like that,” she hummed. Pomni pulled him up off the chair and motioned to the door.
“You made me feel so much better, Jax. Let’s get dressed and go check out the education station Caine installed. What do you say?”
“I say, I’ll do whatever you want as long as we can have fun my way afterward,” he smiled.
“Great! Let’s go scope it out!” she chirped.
“Mk. I think一I think I want to plant a tree in the garden after.” They made their way to the door to set course for the new addition hand in hand.
“What kind?”
Jax squeezed her hand as they pushed out the door, headed in the direction of the commons.
“Maple,” he hummed.