#soft jax

Jax woke up, practically shooting out of bed. His pupils darted wildly in the darkness, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for air. His hands immediately grabbed his own arms, checking to see if he was still holding his form.

He had had the same dream again. No, it wasn't a dream it was a loop. He was living the same nightmare over and over. Falling into a dark void, watching everyone in the Circus turn into Abstracted monsters one by one, and right as one of those monsters lunged at you, Jax couldn't move. He couldn't save you. And then everything would rewind and start over.

That famous, carefree smirk of his was completely wiped from his face. The walls of his room felt like they were closing in on him. He couldn't stay here. He couldn't be alone.

He didn't even remember getting out of bed or bolting into the hallway. His long legs automatically carried him in one single direction to your bedroom door. Normally, he'd kick doors open or obnoxiously sneak in using his spare keys. But this time, his hands were shaking so much that he could barely grip the doorknob. Luckily, the door wasn't locked.

As he rushed in, he saw your silhouette sleeping peacefully in bed In that moment, the invisible knot in Jax's throat loosened just a bit. You were here. You hadn't Abstracted. You were safe.

But that wasn't enough. He needed to be sure. with swift, silent steps, he approached the edge of your bed. Without even hesitating, he slumped onto the empty space, letting his weight sink into the mattress. He grabbed you by the shoulders and shook you lightly, but with an urgent demeanor.

"Get up," he whispered. His voice was completely devoid of its usual mocking tone; it was muffled and tense. "Hey. Wake up."

You blinked as you were pulled out of the depths of sleep. Seeing Jax's eyes fixed on you in the dark room startled you at first. You pulled the blanket closer to yourself as you tried to sit up.

"Jax? What... What time is it?" you mumbled, sleepy and dazed. "Who cares what time it is?" he snapped immediately. His voice came out much louder than necessary. He quickly cleared his throat and tried to slip that familiar, cocky mask back onto his face. "I'm just bored. Sleep is stupid anyway. I need you to talk to me."

"In the middle of the night?" you asked, rubbing your eyes. "Did you have a bad dream or something?"

Your question caused Jax to flinch as if he'd taken a physical blow. He quickly averted his eyes, fixing them on an empty chair in the corner of the room.

"What? Me? Don't be ridiculous," he said, forcing a layer of sarcasm into his voice. But his actions belied his words. He slid a bit closer to you on the bed. His long arms stretched out over your blanket, toward your legs. As if he didn't realize it, he pressed his hand down right next to your knee. He just wanted to make contact, to feel your reality. "I'm fine. It's just that Caine's stupid beds are super uncomfortable. And why are you asking so many questions anyway? Stop complaining and pay attention to me."

"Are you sure you're okay?" you pressed. You knew Jax. In any given situation, he would rather bite his tongue off than show a moment of weakness. But the way he was right now... that twitch in his eyes, his irregular breathing, and the fact that, despite normally invading your personal space uninvited anyway, he was now leaving almost zero distance between you two it gave everything away.

"I said I'm fine!" he snapped suddenly. His voice sliced through the silence of the room like a knife. "You just... talk too much. Shut up and sit down."

As he said this, his hand slid off your leg and found yours. He intertwined his fingers with yours so tightly, so desperately. you didn't say anything for a while. You just let him hold your hand. The tension in Jax's shoulders eased a fraction the moment your fingers touched. He slowly bowed his head, his long ears drooping backward. In the silence of the room, only the sound of your combined breathing could be heard. "Okay," you said softly. There was no point in pushing him further. Forcing him to take off his armor would only make him more aggressive. "Since we can't sleep... we can go to the cafeteria if you want. Let's get you something warm. Maybe it'll help." as you said this, you made a small backward motion to gently slip your hand out of his. Your only intention was to get out of bed and stand up. But the split second he felt your hand pulling away, creating a mere ten centimeter gap between you, every single alarm in Jax's brain started ringing. the loop triggered. the darkness in his mind that moment when you slipped from his grasp, when he couldn't protect you flashed before his eyes. "No!" His voice, completely abandoning the hushed argument from a moment ago, tore through the room like a panicked, primal scream. Before you could even process what was happening, Jax clamped both his hands onto your wrists. He pulled you toward him with such a sudden and violent force that you lost your balance on the bed and crashed directly into his chest. His long arms instantly wrapped around your back, practically locking you to his torso. He was panting, and you could feel his heart beating frantically against his chest.

"Don't go" he whispered. This time, there was no sarcasm, no mask. His voice trembled with desperation, and he pressed his jaw hard into your shoulder. "Don't get up. You can't go." "Jax... you're hurting me," you mumbled, trying to wiggle out of the vice-like grip of his arms. The moment he heard that his arms immediately loosened. He pulled back sharply as if the thought of hurting you terrified him even more. But he didn't let go entirely He placed his hands on your shoulders his eyes wide open, his pupils trembling as they scanned your face. There was pure fear in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he stammered, the words struggling to leave his mouth. "I... Just... don't pull away. Please." He swallowed hard, his hands sliding slightly down your shoulders to grip your arms. "I'm fine. Really. Just... you stay right there. Don't leave my line of sight." You saw that his hands were still shaking slightly. In that moment, you understood he didn't just want to be next to you. He needed physical proof to know that you "existed" and "hadn't disappeared."

You slowly raised your arms and wrapped them around his neck. This was definitely not the reaction he was expecting from you. His whole body went completely stiff at the contact. normal Jax would have shoved you away right now, saying "You're like a leech, back off." But in that moment, the person in front of you wasn't that cocky rabbit.

A second later, the reality of your arms wrapped around him broke all his resistance. Letting out a deep, shuddering breath, he buried his face in your neck again. He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you in, but this time being careful not to hurt you, treating you like you were a fragile object about to break. He just stayed there, his eyes squeezed shut, hiding his face in your neck, and letting all his weight rest on you. He held you so tight, it was as if letting you go would mean both of you dropping into that bottomless void. All sense of time was lost in the room. In this universe coded by Caine, time was always a massive lie anyway, but right now, holding each other in the dark room, it felt as though the seconds had frozen entirely. Jax's body was still trembling slightly in your arms. He had buried his face so deep into your neck that you could clearly feel the strange, cool sensation of his breath against your skin. His quiet, muffled, and shuddering breaths were the greatest proof of the breakdown happening inside him. "I'm here," you whispered, slowly beginning to rub his back, over his overalls. "It was just a dream, Jax. It's not real. We're all here."

"It wasn't," he mumbled in a muffled voice. The sound vibrated against your skin. "It wasn't just a dream. It was a loop. Over... and over... and over again..." He forced the words out of his mouth in agony, as if he were swallowing broken glass. Without lifting his head from your neck, his grip on your shoulders tightened a bit more. "Those disgusting black monsters... Abstraction. Everything was dark. And you..." He couldn't finish his sentence. He took a deep breath and swallowed. A fresh wave of trembling shook his body. "I couldn't find you. You were nowhere. Only... your glitched, broken voice kept echoing."

His words settled like a heavy weight on your heart. For someone like Jax who mocked everyone around him and acted like he didn't care about anyone to have his biggest nightmare be losing you both warmed your heart and broke it.

"But look, I'm right here" you said, trying to keep your voice as soft and soothing as possible. You pulled your right hand from his back and gently trailed it up to his nape, and from there to the base of his long ears. When your fingers began threading through that soft texture an involuntary, muffled groan escaped Jax's lips.

That touch relaxed him instantly. All his defense mechanisms, that prickly hedgehog-like attitude of his, simply melted away with a small touch on the back of his neck. "Don't leave me" he said once more. This time he was just begging. "I'm not leaving," you whispered. "But if we keep sitting like this, Caine is going to find us with herniated discs in the morning. Let's lean back a bit, okay?"Jax grumbled softly at first, as if he wanted to object his arms remaining locked around your waist. However when you nudged him gently backward, he stopped resisting. As he slid back toward the headboard, he pulled you right along with him. He was absolutely refusing to let any distance form between you. When you leaned your back against the headboard, he rested his head against your chest. He stretched his long legs out on the bed, while his arms were still wrapped tightly around your waist. Now, it was like you had completely become his shield. That sarcastic, annoying, and untouchable Jax was now curled up against your chest like a giant plush toy seeking comfort.

You began stroking him with rhythmic movements. With every touch, you could see his tremors slowly fading, his calm beginning to return in their place. "If you're looking at me with pity or something, I'll gouge those eyes out" he mumbled suddenly, his voice muffled against your chest. You smiled. Flinging a threat like that when he couldn't even see your eyes was such a classic Jax move. "I'm not pitying you, you stupid rabbit" you said, petting his head a little more. "I'm just thinking about how clingy you can be. If Pomni saw this, she'd definitely have a heart attack."

"Don't say that clown's name right now," he grumbled. He must have had his eyes closed. "Not a word of this to anyone. If you mention this to Zooble or Ragatha... I'll throw you in that digital lake and watch you drown." "Of course you would" you said in a teasing tone. "As if it was someone else begging me not to leave them just a minute ago."

"Shut up." Instead of sounding aggressive, his voice came out tired and drowsy.

He slid his hand slightly from your waist and found your hand. He carefully intertwined his fingers with yours and pressed your hand against his own chest, right where his heart should be. There was a rhythmic pulse there.

"I need to feel that you're real," he said in a whisper. That confession completely wiped away all his fake threats from earlier. "I just... I need to feel your pulse, your warmth. Otherwise, my mind slips back into that loop."

"Okay," you said softly. You continued rubbing his back with your free hand. "I'm right here until you fall asleep. I'll be here when you wake up too. And I'll be here when Caine drags us into one of his stupid adventures."

Jax took a deep, long breath. "Promise?" he asked, his voice almost as vulnerable as a little child's. "Promise," you said. "I will never Abstract. I won't leave you alone." Those words hung in the air, wrapping around the cold, digital silence of the room like a warm blanket. The last crumb of tension in Jax's body vanished. He leaned completely into your chest, holding your intertwined hands even tighter. After a while, his breathing deepened and settled into a steady rhythm. You couldn't tell for sure if he had fallen asleep, but it was certain that his mind had escaped that dark loop. Watching that peaceful, vulnerable expression on his face.But tonight, in this current silence, you both knew the truth. Only you could illuminate the darkness beneath his mask, and no matter how much he denied it, he desperately needed your light. Your fingers slowly drifted through his ears one last time, and resting your head on top of his, you closed your eyes in true peace.

Jax had tangled himself around you like a vine all night, not drifting even a millimeter away. He opened his eyes slightly in the morning, but instead of letting you go, he sealed his arms around your waist even tighter. He buried his face deep into your neck and took a deep, shaky breath. The remnants of last night's dark loop were still lingering somewhere in his mind. "Don't go," he mumbled in a sleepy, muffled voice, sounding more needy than ever. "Caine's stupid activities can wait. Just... stay here." When he lifted his head slightly to look at you, you saw his pupils trembling. That vulnerability from the night before was still on his face it was still too early to put on his famous sarcastic mask. His hand slowly rose to your cheek, his fingertips gently, shakily caressing your skin as if he were examining a priceless jewel.

"You're still here," he said, his voice full of awe, as if witnessing a miracle. "It wasn't a dream." When you started stroking his head with your hand, Jax nuzzled into your touch almost like a cat. He closed his eyes and leaned his head into your palm. "Rub my back," he whispered, his voice raspy and full of longing in the morning silence. "Play with my ears, say my name... Just... make me feel like I belong to you." "Jax.." you whispered trailing your fingers along his nape. "We're real. I'm with you." Hearing his name reignited that touch starvation inside Jax. Unable to hold back any longer, he pulled you closer and crashed his lips onto yours. This morning kiss was more possessive and much longer. As Jax kissed you, it was as if he was drawing your very soul into his own. As his lips pressed firmly against yours, and your tongues intertwined, a deep, vibrating moan slipped from his throat. That moan was the ultimate proof that all his defense mechanisms had collapsed. He laid you back onto the bed and hovered over you, wrapping his arms around your body like a chain. When he slipped his hands under your shirt and touched your bare back, you felt the heat in his fingertips practically burning your skin. He was kissing you with such fervor, with such desperation, that you knew among all the fake pixels in the circus, the only real thing was the two of you. "Don't leave me."

He parted from your lips for a second, trailing burning kisses down your neck and along your collarbone. "I can't let you go," he mumbled against your skin. "I'm terrified that if we separate for even a second, that silence will swallow me whole again. Keep holding me like this... whisper my name... make me feel like I'm yours." Jax rested his head on your chest again and raised your intertwined hands into the air. He locked his fingers with yours so tightly that...