Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ragatha was smiling again.
That was the first sign that something was wrong.

Not the usual Ragatha Smile—the one that came with chirpy reassurances and frantic tidying. This one was tighter. Stretched too thin, like a balloon about to burst, or maybe pop—Jax liked the word “pop.” It was funnier.

Though Jax finds a lot of morbid things funny. So that wasn't saying much.

He leaned against the frame of the door, eyes narrowing at the scene before him. Ragatha was sweeping up the glass shards from the plate she had (accidentally) dropped during one of Kinger's scream-fests. That made three this week. Whether that was Kinger's fault or hers was up for debate.

"Y'know," Jax drawled, arms folded, "you keep breaking those plates and you're gonna run out of delusions to serve them on."

Ragatha didn't even flinch. She didn't even bother to look up at him, and it was already pissing him off. She just kept on sweeping the pieces into a neat little pile with a freakishly clean dustpan.

"I'll just glue them back together again. It's not as if we need these plates." 

He tilted his head, brow quirking up at her tone. The usual cadence of her voice was still there, but it was hollow underneath, like someone was playing a broken instrument and praying no one in the audience noticed the tuning was off.

"You ever think you're the one cracking, and not the cups?"

That got her. Her hand froze mid-sweep, as did the rest of her. The dustpan hovered over a porcelain shard shaped suspiciously and very conveniently like a smile. Then—almost too quickly—she laughed nervously. “That’s silly. I’m fine. Really!”

"Uh-huh," Jax hummed, rolling his eyes. "Sure you are."

He was about to push further, in true Jax Fashion—prod a little, nothing serious—but something in her expression halted him. Not sadness. Not annoyance. Something else. A quiet resignation that felt .. wrong on her. Like she’d been bent into shape one too many times and was just waiting for someone to finally snap her in half. No matter how irritating it was for him to admit that. 

It's not like it would be him, so it clearly must have been some other infuriating, smug, insensitive rabbit around here. What a jerk.

So yes, he hated that. Not for her. But for himself.

Ragatha finally stood, brushing imaginary dust off her dress. "Thanks for checking in," she said—more forcibly than anything. "That was .. sweet of you."

Jax blinked. "I was being an asshole."

She smiled. "I know."

And then she was gone—walking off with her pile of stupid little broken pieces, still smiling, as if that would keep her from shattering next.

Jax stayed there for a moment, uncharacteristically quiet.

This place broke people. That was nothing new. But Ragatha?
She wasn’t supposed to break.

He didn't follow her. That would've been weird.

(And obvious. And he wasn't obvious. He was Jax.)

So instead, he lingered. Leaned against the wall. Watched the little pile of porcelain dust she hadn’t swept up.

The one piece shaped like a smile was still there.

How poetic. How symbolic. How stupid.

He rolled his eyes—at the shard, at himself—and finally kicked away from the doorframe. He had better things to do than psychoanalyze a walking bundle of repression in the body of a Walmart version of Raggedy Anne. Like messing with Gangle. Or digging through random void closets. Or picking fights he wouldn’t win with Caine just for the thrill.

But instead, like a freaky stalker. He was doing none of those much more entertaining options.

Instead, he wandered. Loitered, even—leisurely, might I add. Past the game rooms, past the checkerboard hallway, past Zooble’s weird welding nightmare sculpture that may or may not have been alive. No destination, just motion. Like if he kept moving, he wouldn't have to sit with the weird twist in his chest that felt like guilt but tasted like static.

“Hey!”

Ragatha’s voice—light and strained, as always.

He turned just as she rounded a corner too fast and nearly collided with him, arms full of glued-together plates stacked dangerously high.

Of course. This hellish wasteland loved making things so much more difficult for him.

She blinked up at him. He blinked down at the plates.

“You—really?” he said flatly.

“I fixed them,” she offered, with that same too-wide smile. “See?”

He reached out and plucked the top plate off the stack. The glue was visible. So was the crack. It ran clean through the center like a fault line. Fragile. Fickle. Like many of the things (and people) in this place.

He turned it over in his hand, slow. “You know they’re still broken, right?”

“They’re together,” she said.

That one landed wrong in his head. It echoed too much. Together. Not whole. Just ... in one piece. Barely.

“Great,” he muttered, handing it back to her. “Functional delusions. Everyone’s favorite dinnerware.”

“Not everyone can be like you,” she shot back, too sweet. “Snapping legs off the furniture instead of fixing them.” That sounded like a metaphor for something. Jax didn't know what.

“Snapping is more honest.”

“It's destructive.”

“That’s the point."

She stared at him. He stared back.

This wasn’t flirting. Though it might have felt like that in Jax's language—this was war. Emotional Cold War with smiles for missiles.

Then she laughed. It was real, this time. Quiet and breathy, like she didn’t mean to let it out.

Jax hated how much better that sounded.

“Thanks for your concern,” she said, readjusting the plates in her arms. “Really.”

“I wasn’t concerned.”

She raised a brow. “Then why are you following me?”

“I’m loitering. There’s a difference.” Is there?

“Mmm. If you say so.”

And then she was walking again. Same direction. He followed. Not on purpose. It just... happened.

(He was definitely loitering.)

“Y'know,” he said eventually, “Kinger’s the one who dropped the plate, technically. Screamed at a fork. Thought it was sentient.”

“I know.”

“And you're still the one cleaning it up.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to.”

She didn’t say anything.

He watched her shoulders tighten, just for a moment. And then relax. Just like that. Reset. Reprogrammed. Back to Smile Mode.

“I like being helpful.”

He clicked his tongue.

“You like not being a problem.”

She didn’t respond.

Jax looked away. Something in his chest itched.

“I’m not saying you should snap,” he said. “I’m just saying... if you did, I’d laugh.”

Ragatha stopped. Turned to look at him. As if to say Of course you would.

He gave her his most annoying grin, if that's even possible.

“Not at you,” he added. “Just... y’know. At the poetic irony.”

She stared at him for a long, long moment.

Then handed him a plate.

“What’s this?” he asked, suspicious.

“You want me to snap?” she said lightly. “Help me carry these before I do.”

He scoffed. “You’re really gonna make me help?”

“You’re the one loitering,” she said, walking ahead again.

He stood there holding the plate like it was radioactive. It probably was. Everything here was.

Still. He followed.

Not because he was concerned.
Not because he cared.
Because if she broke, someone would have to clean it up. Cleaning required effort and emotional vulnerability and—

And he hated cleaning. 

Chapter Text

Ragatha didn't say anything for the rest of the week.

Just kept moving forward like everything was fine, the way she always did. Like she hadn’t just strong-armed a very emotionally unstable rabbit into community service via metaphorical guilt trip. Like she wasn’t one dropped plate away from fracturing right down the seams again.

Jax followed at a not-following distance.

He held the one stupid plate in both hands, awkwardly. Not because it was heavy, but because he didn’t know what else to do with his arms. What was he supposed to do—look casual? Skip? Throw it Frisbee-style and scream “oops”? Tempting. But no. Ragatha might actually cry if she had to glue one more thing together, and as fun as that should be, it wasn’t. Not today.

They reached the main lounge.

She set the plates down on a table with surgical precision, adjusting the stack like it mattered. Like presentation meant anything in a place where nothing could die but everything could break.

He dropped his plate onto the stack with an obnoxious clatter. It teetered dangerously. Ragatha gave him a look.

"Real mature."

"I'm not the one running a five-star asylum kitchen with trauma tableware," he replied, leaning against the table. “Besides, if I broke it again, you’d probably thank me for giving you something to do.”

She didn’t argue.

And that was worse than if she had.

There was a silence. Not comfortable, but familiar. The kind that made you want to fill it with noise just so it wouldn’t echo so loud in your head. It felt like a vast, empty, uncomfortable void that Jax hardly knew how to fill.

“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Jax muttered.

Ragatha didn’t look at him. “Doing what?”

“Playing happy housemaid. Cleaning up messes you didn’t make. Acting like it matters. Acting like everything is fine and dandy—when it's not.”

Her jaw tightened.

“If I don’t do it, no one else will,” she said simply.

Jax scoffed. “So? Let it rot. Let it glitch. Let it all fall apart. We live in a circus full of bugs and literal abstraction—why are you the only one trying to pretend it’s normal?”

She finally looked at him, and her smile had dropped entirely. That scared him more than he’d admit.

“Because if I stop pretending, I don’t know what happens next.”

It was quiet again. But this time it throbbed.

Jax looked at her, really looked at her. Not the manic energy, not the performative cheer. Just her. Exhausted. Cracked in all the places she swore were fine.

And still standing.

She didn’t look like she needed "saving."
She looked like she’d already decided no one would do it anyway.

“You’re a mess,” he said, because vulnerability wasn’t allowed to come out unfiltered. Vulnerability was overrated.

“Takes one to know one.” Ouch.

She turned away to adjust the plate stack again, like the conversation hadn’t happened. Like her hands weren’t trembling just slightly. Like she wasn’t full of metaphorical glue herself.

Jax lingered there for a while, not speaking. Watching the way she held herself up like scaffolding. Like if she wavered even slightly, the whole structure might collapse. It made him feel things he didn't want to feel, nor admit.

He wanted to say something. He really, really did.

“I mean, it just pisses me off,” he muttered finally. More so to himself than her. Quiet. Almost lost in the air between them. “You acting all .. cheery'n happy-go-lucky..”

She didn’t respond.

So he left.

He didn’t make a scene. Didn’t slam the door. Just turned and walked out like the room was boring and the conversation had been, too. Soo original.

But as he stepped into the hallway, he realized he still had the plate she’d handed him. One of the cracked ones. She’d forgotten. Or maybe she hadn’t.

He turned it over in his hands. The glue line was thin and careful. Someone had taken time. Smoothed every seam. Fit the fragments back together like they’d always belonged.

It wasn’t whole.

But it was still here. Just like her. Jax stared at it for a long moment, then tucked it under his arm and walked off toward nowhere in particular.

He wasn’t keeping it. That would be weird. He was just… holding onto it—for now.

The room was too quiet now.
Even for the Digital Circus.

Ragatha stared at the stack of glued-together plates like they might spontaneously validate her. They didn’t. Of course they didn’t. They just sat there—fixed and fragile, waiting for the next explosion.

Her hands had stopped shaking. That wasn’t good.

She sat down. Just for a second. Just until her legs worked again.

There was a tightness in her chest she was trying very hard not to name. Something heavy and restless, like grief with nowhere to go.

He’d meant it, though. That was the worst part.

All that sarcasm and snide commentary, and somehow he still managed to cut through her like a glitch in the code. Because that’s what he was, wasn’t he? A constant error. A flaw the system refused to patch out. And somehow—somehow—he’d looked at her like he saw the same thing in her.

No one was supposed to notice.

Not that the cracks were there. Not that she was holding everything together because no one else would.

And definitely not that she was tired.

She picked up one of the plates. Cracked, glued, slightly off-color from where the adhesive had dried cloudy.

It looked fine from a distance.

So did she.

Ragatha knew she could be overbearing sometimes, with the constant positivity, the false sense of security—it was a sort of title she had procured during her time here, and she should be proud of it. But she felt more exhausted than anything.

He kept walking.

Not far. Not fast. Just… enough.

He didn’t know where he was going. Didn’t care. His feet moved, and that was good enough. That’s all this place ever really asked of them—keep moving. Stop, and the silence might catch up. It always would.

The plate was tucked under his arm.

He glanced down at it once. Regretted it immediately.

Why had he taken it? He didn’t even know. It was stupid. He was stupid. Everything was. She was. For still trying. For still caring. For gluing things back together when the world was designed to shatter. If this even really was a world, it felt more like a barren wasteland where nothing truly mattered, but it felt like it did. It was like some sick, twisted form of delusion, one that all of them would fall into eventually. The adventures, the talks, the people—it was all only prolonging the road to the inevitable. A feeble exertion for what would come.

He should’ve laughed at her. That would’ve been easier. That would’ve been normal.

But instead, he’d walked away with one of her stupid, broken plates like it meant something.

And it did.

That was the part he hated most.

Chapter Text

The first thing Jax heard that day was Kinger screaming about soup.

Not, like, soup-related danger. Just soup in general. The man (king? ex-king? glorified chess piece?) had declared—loudly—that soup was a “government surveillance tool disguised as comfort food,” and had then attempted to punch an empty bowl. The bowl, naturally, retaliated by teleporting halfway through the table.
(They didn’t even have a government.)

Caine found this hilarious.

“Oh-ho-ho! Kinger! You’re so.. lively today!”

Jax winced. “Please. Put me back in the void.”

He was standing beside Zooble, arms crossed, ears twitching just slightly every time Kinger screamed “They’re watching through the broth!”

Zooble leaned toward Jax. “What do you think? Wonky soup or just plain Tuesday?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Good point.”

Meanwhile, Ragatha was trying to coax Kinger out from underneath the table. Gangle stood off to the side, quietly crying—but, like, comfort crying. Cathartic sobbing. The kind that let her say she was trying. But that was more of an estimated guess.

“Kinger, it’s just lunch,” Ragatha said in that too-gentle tone of voice reserved for unstable houseplants and certain cartoon chess pieces. “No one’s spying on you through the peas.”

Caine clapped his floating hands and did a dramatic little spin in the air, ribbons exploding behind him like a firework made entirely of noise.

“Alright, my beautiful little mental fractures! I’ve got a new adventure planned for today!”

“Can’t wait,” Jax muttered, already regretting being conscious.

“Today’s theme is…”

“Soul-crushing isolation? Weaponized nostalgia?” Zooble offered.

“Nope!” Caine grinned. “Today we’re exploring: The Library of Lost Realities!”

A door burst open on the far wall, revealing a spiraling hallway of bookshelves that stretched into forever. Floating books, whispering walls, staircases that looped into themselves like Möbius strips. One particularly aggressive thesaurus flew past and slapped Kinger across the back of the head.

“THIS IS HOW THEY GET THE THOUGHTS INTO YOU,” Kinger howled, scurrying back under the table.

“Cool,” Jax muttered, stepping over him. “Field trip to sentient IKEA. Neat.”

Caine floated backward toward the hall, arms spread like a cruise director high on literary fumes.

“Your goal is to find the Book of Rewritten Endings! A rare tome that contains alternate versions of your own stories! Isn’t that exciting?”

“So like fanfiction,” Zooble deadpanned.

“Like emotional blackmail,” Jax added.

Ragatha brushed past them both, smile fixed but tight. “Let’s just get it over with.”

He watched her for half a second longer than he meant to. She was still too careful in how she moved. Like her insides were glass and she hadn’t decided yet whether she was holding herself together or hoping someone else might.

“Awfully chipper today,” he called after her. “Kinger rubbing off on you, or you just accept the futility of our shared existence?”

She didn’t stop walking. Just threw a hand in the air and said over her shoulder, “Do you have to question my every move?”

He would. But he wasn’t about to admit that. Especially not to her. Jax couldn’t let himself admit he may or may not have been a bit too invested since their earlier conversations.

They entered the library.

Books flew like insects. Shelves rearranged themselves when no one looked. Every corner turned into a new wing with different logic.

Gangle immediately got stuck in the “Manga and Anime” section. Caine was nowhere to be seen—he’d probably merged with a book or was off somewhere narrating his own autobiography again.

Jax found himself walking beside Zooble, who was being aggressively followed by a dictionary that kept correcting their posture.

“So,” Zooble said, swatting it away, “you still trying to convince Ragatha about the whole ‘I don’t care what you do but I clearly do’ routine?”

“Shut up.”

“That’s not a no.”

“You know what’s great about you?”

“My commitment to the bit?”

“No, that you’re welded together from spare parts. Means I can unscrew your arm without guilt.”

Zooble rolled their eyes. “Wow. Surprisingly original.”

Meanwhile, Kinger had wandered into the “Insect & Conspiracies” aisle and was now full-blown whisper-screaming at a book called “The Bugs Are Everywhere.” He was less manic. Probably more comforted.

Gangle was curled up beside a pile of mangas. Honestly, she seemed at peace.

Ragatha, of course, was trying to keep everyone on track. Because someone had to.

She was halfway up a floating staircase when Jax caught up with her again—totally by accident, obviously. Definitely not following. Just… loitering, again.

“You know you’re not the leader, right?” he said, casually.

She didn’t look at him. “You want to try herding them?”

“I prefer to let them flail. Builds character.”

She finally looked over at him. “You say that like you have any.”

He smirked. “Please. I’ve got tons of character. Just all the worst ones from failed pilots.”

Ragatha snorted. Quiet. Real. It made something uncomfortable spark behind his teeth.

The stairs shifted beneath them, jerking slightly. She grabbed the railing. He didn’t. He just tilted into the movement, unbothered.

“Careful,” she said automatically
.
“Look at that,” he replied, grinning. “You do care.”

“Don’t fall,” she said, deadpan. “I don’t feel like gluing you back together.”

He gave her a mock gasp. “Was that a callback? Wow. That almost sounded like bonding.”
She looked at him. Brow arched.

“Keep talking and I’ll bond your mouth shut.”

And for just a second, he forgot they were in a building made of impossible architecture and memories that weren’t theirs. For just a second, it almost felt like normal banter in a place where nothing ever was.

Then a bookcase exploded down the hall. Because of course.

Caine’s voice boomed from nowhere:
“TEN MINUTES REMAINING! Don’t forget to confront your metaphorical baggage!”

Jax sighed. “Great. Time limit and emotional subtext.”

Ragatha started up the stairs again. “Better keep up. Wouldn’t want to fall behind.”
He did.

They climbed higher. The staircase led nowhere. Then it doubled back. Then it ended in a hallway that smelled like static and forgotten dreams.

There were books everywhere. Which made sense. It was a library.

Not on shelves—just scattered. Left like breadcrumbs or trip hazards. One blinked at them. Another hummed.

“Is it just me,” Ragatha muttered, stepping over a glowing copy of The Existentialist’s Guide to Bubblegum, “or is this place… really depressing?”

Jax tilted his head, letting a book float past his ear like it was gossiping about him.

“It’s a library made entirely of abandoned narratives. So yeah. It's basically Zooble's personality in building form.”

“Excuse me?” Zooble called from below, buried under a tower of autobiographies. “I heard that—”

“Good. You were supposed to.”

Ragatha paused beside a crooked shelf labeled “Histories That Never Happened.”

Her fingers brushed the spine of a thin red volume. It shivered under her touch. The title read:
“Ragatha: Version 4.2 – The One Who Stopped Smiling.” The book looked more satire than anything. The title was cringy enough for anyone who saw it. But it was less emotional. More mocking.
She didn’t open it. She didn’t even pick it up.
Just kept walking.

Jax watched her pass the book. Quiet for once.

He wanted to make a joke. Something cutting. Something mean, maybe. That was the script, right?
But it stuck in his throat.

So instead, he said: “Guess we’re not reading today.”

“Didn’t bring my glasses,” she quipped without looking back. She didn’t have glasses—she literally only had one eye.

Somewhere behind them, a massive boom echoed through the stacks. Kinger’s shriek followed seconds later.

“GANGLE UNLEASHED THE FERAL MANUSCRIPTS!”

Gangle sobbed. “I thought it was light fiction!”

Dozens of books with teeth came flapping around the corner, flinging paper and screaming about unresolved arcs. One tried to eat Jax’s foot.

“I swear to God,” Zooble shouted as they ducked behind a shelf, “if I die in a pun-based literary hell, I’m haunting all of you.”

“We’re already ghosts of ourselves,” Jax muttered.

“Stop being poetic and HELP.”

Ragatha grabbed a nearby encyclopedia and hurled it like a discus. It knocked two of the flying books out of the air. Another one tried to latch onto her arm.
Jax kicked it midair.

“Wow,” Ragatha said breathlessly, straightening. “Did you just help?”

He shrugged. “You were in my way.”

“Right.” She smiled—just a flicker of one, a real one. It made the moment worse.

They regrouped behind a shelf shaped like a question mark. Everyone was vaguely bruised. Zooble was reassembling their leg. Gangle was crying into a thesaurus. Kinger was muttering about “the Footnotes of Entomology.”

And somewhere, Caine’s voice echoed faintly:
“You’re doing GREAT, gang! Remember, emotional closure is just around the next plot device!”

“I vote we burn this place down,” Jax said.

“You vote that every adventure,” Zooble replied.

He turned to Ragatha, who had sat down on a crate labeled “Volumes That Didn’t Sell.”
Her hands rested in her lap. Still. Too still.

“You okay?” he asked before he could stop himself.

She blinked at him.
“You know you don’t have to keep asking that, right?”

“Yeah. Just like you don’t have to keep playing Mom.”
She didn’t look away.
Didn’t quip back either.
For a moment, the library was quiet again.

And then, mercifully—Kinger sneezed, and half the shelf collapsed on him.
“THE STACKS ARE TURNING ON ME—”

“Okay, no,” Jax stood, clapping once. “We’re done. That’s it. Someone find the book, someone sedate the king, and someone—” he pointed at a floating novel, “—stop flirting with me.”
The book purred.

Zooble snorted. “Gonna add that to your tragic backstory?”

“Tragic?” Jax scoffed. “I’m the comic relief.”

“Mm. Then why do you keep monologuing like you’re auditioning for a breakdown?”
That shut him up.

Ragatha didn’t say anything. She just stood, brushing off her skirt.
“Let’s find the book.”