#threatening language

Pomni’s face contorted with rage, throwing the gun at Jax’s face. She let out a shaky breath before she yelled, “You’re not the funny one!” raising her arm to point at him accusingly.

How utterly cruel, just as Jax had intended. He had a flicker of understanding for how he felt towards Pomni, and he despised it. He wanted to drown those feelings in the depths of his heart so that he didn’t have to suffer further. Drown her, even. This woman, whom he’d known for such a small amount of time, had stolen his heart and his mind.

How couldn’t she? Pomni was just so entertaining! She looked so adorably pathetic, but knew how to charm the rest of the circus. It seemed like all she needed to do was sit down and talk about their “issues” for twenty minutes, and people magically trusted her like a sailor to a siren’s call! Now, she was getting into his soul as well, giving him that gentle reminder that these feelings were complicated and real.

Which was exactly why he was doing this. He had already lost Ribbit a while ago, and then Pomni just had to arrive the near second Kaufmo had abstracted! He couldn’t handle that loss anymore, so Pomni needed to get out of his face so he could go back to his denial. Maybe all of this longing would vanish if she abstracted as well! Stretch her raggedy cartoon body out to its limits and snap her bones… If he did that, there’s no way she’d want to be near him. Isn’t that what he wanted?

Jax looked at Pomni, who was practically trembling with rage, with confusion. Genuine confusion. Of course he was! All they were in this circus were archetypes, and he was simply fulfilling his role. Why couldn’t she understand and just see things his way like she had not that long ago! Here he thought they’d truly understood each other, but it seemed like he was wrong.

“Uh… I don’t think that counts.”

With that, Pomni attacked. She pounced on top of him, practically shoving him down onto the hard tiled floor. Before he could think, her hands were wrapped tightly around his neck, using her body weight to pin him down by the hips. Her eyes were small and her teeth were sharp as she stared down at him with rage and contempt. He let out a mangled scream before kicking her off of him, sending her a couple feet away from him.

Why? Why did he have to treat her this way? He was infatuated with her, and she genuinely wanted to be friends with him. The first step to having the object of his obsessively intrusive thoughts in his grasp, only for his eyes and ears, was handed to him on a silver platter. And what does he do? Kick, scream and push her away just so he won’t have to deal with her inevitable abstraction.

One part of himself, the side that genuinely did bond with her, wanted to love her and have her return the sappy, fluffy feelings. Be a happy couple. It wanted to hold her against him when she felt down. To hear her vent her frustrations to him and be allowed to be vulnerable with her, in turn. It wanted to be who she found safe, taking refuge beside him along adventures and staying in this circus with her for all of time.

However, the other side of him, the one driven by the pain of rejection and loss, wanted something else. It wanted to see her tied up before him, unable to move or even scream while he tore her apart. It wanted her to suffer for the crime of getting him to love someone again. For the audacity to waltz into the Digital Circus, rip his heart out of his digital heart with her pathetic gloves, and destroy him from the inside out. It wanted to tear her heart out of her and consume it for his own sadistic pleasure. If he did that, then she could never leave him, but he would get the satisfaction of breaking her down, just like she broke him down.

Pomni was aware of that, at least in part. She knew that they had gotten along great, and she had found him fun up until this point, but she was unsure of how deep his infatuation truly went. She genuinely enjoyed teaming up with him for this adventure, so the turn deeply hurt. She was well aware of his cruelty, but he seemed to have liked hanging out with her, so why shove her away so aggressively? She couldn’t comprehend it, and it infuriated her. She liked him, but he needed to learn to chill, so she started throwing things at him. A rubix cube… a flower pot… anything within arm’s reach.

The flower pot crashed into his face, knocking his head back. Jax tried to run from her, but she was quicker. She wrapped her arms around his waist, swiftly grabbing one of his legs and sinking her shark-like teeth into it. Keep her there. She wants to be friends? Then grab her puny arms and return the favor. Jax shook the thought away, pushing Pomni away from him while she yelled at him to attack her.

“Are you crazy?!” He asked for multiple reasons.

He knew that if he genuinely fought back, he would stretch her thin. Wrangle her body until he could tie her limbs to each other and turn her into a bow. Probably tear out her digital flesh with his teeth if he could. He couldn’t do that to her. Not yet. He didn’t want to scare her off for forever, after all! He just wanted her to back off long enough for his stupid obsession to burn in the dust so that he could return to normal. She just didn’t know when to quit, did she?!

“I said fight back!”

She pounced onto him a second time, piggybacking on him this time. In her heap of rage, her fists had balled up and swung, repeatedly striking Jax in the face before beating the back of his head with them. He was able to wrangle her this time, reaching behind himself to grab her and throw her down onto the ground.

“Stop!” He let out a couple of heavy breaths while Pomni sat up from where her face had hit. She studied him closely, observing how he shook while yelling at her. She didn’t know why, given his seemingly obvious disinterest in her, but something in her brain —likely the rage and adrenaline— had compelled her to ask him something.

“Why didn’t you fight back?”

The moment the question hit his ears, his face scrunched up in annoyance. He despised being vulnerable, and she was dragging the desire to want to open up out of him. He’d been charmed by the siren’s call, but he refused to jump off the boat.

“Because I didn’t fight back, that means I secretly care about you?! I do not care about you, or anyone else in this circus in the slightest! End. Of. Story.”

Those words were much worse than what he was used to dishing out, but it was intentional. Maybe she’d finally leave him alone so that he wouldn’t have to think about her anymore. He wanted to get this parasite of a woman out of his brain before she turned into a slimy, wriggling worm within his skull whose sole purpose in life was to gnaw away at him until nothing else remained. She drove him absolutely (boink)ing mad, and he both loved and hated her for it.

“Except that you do! You might not like it, and I don’t either, but you do care!”

“I get joy out of watching you suffer!”

Pomni eyed him closely. She’d stricken many of his nerves today, but she was etching to hit more. She was livid with him, and just wanted him to tell her where the sudden rage and denial was stemming from.

“That’s not the problem and you know it!” She screamed back at him as she latched herself onto his waist once again.

“Oh, sure! The problem is that you are insane. Why can’t you get it through your head that I want absolutely nothing to do with you?!” He lied through his teeth, his voice cracking from rage.

Just leave already, Pomni! Leave before I get too tempted to tear you apart with my teeth! You just never know when to leave, huh?

“I will personally get you a therapist when we get out of—”

That released the floodgates. All of the pent up love, hatred, obsession, desire and sadism snapped all at once. Jax roughly grabbed Pomni by her wrist, twirling her smaller form until he held her in a dip with one hand. His free one swiftly covered her mouth, not allowing her to finish her sentence or talk back to him.

“Oh, no! Don’t even start with that! I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you,”

Jax’s breath was heavy as he spoke, his eyes flicking towards every aspect of her face with a mixture of rage and admiration. His pace was quick, allowing himself to spill every single piece of his obsession to her.

“We’re stuck here, remember that?! I could rip you apart limb from limb..! Gouge those stupidly gorgeous eyes out and keep them in my room, if I wanted to! Tie your hands with your arms to my bed and just never let you go!”

Pomni’s eyes widened with shock, struggling within his grasp. However, she couldn’t slip out due to the heavy angle of the dip he kept her in. The anger was still there, but it was getting dimmed out like a melting candle, terror starting to form in its place. Jax’s hand tightened around her face to further muffle her yelling. God, how grateful he was that everyone else was who knows where and Caine simply didn’t care anymore.

“We are stuck here together. Forever, Pomni! And if I have to tell you that every single day until you finally get the clue, then that’s exactly what I’ll do! I can remind you every waking moment that you’re trapped here with me.. And, as much as I absolutely despise you… You are mine. You have been since the moment you put that headset on, and you will be mine until you abstract..!”

His tone shifted from anger into something deathly calm. “But I’m not going to let you abstract, Pom-Pom. They might’ve managed to leave me, but you aren’t so lucky.”