Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Jax watched the minute hand crawl toward the end of his shift with both hands braced on the counter and his ears angled back.

The last customer had left a smear of sauce across one of the tables shaped almost like Caine's teeth. The kitchen still hissed behind him. Somewhere near the fry station, Ragatha was humming the same two notes over and over while Zooble scraped trays into a bin.

The clock clicked.

Jax pulled his time card out of the rack and shoved it into the slot.

"Alright, I'm clocking out. This wasn't fun at all, see you all later."

He pushed through the front doors. The bell gave one cheerful little jingle above him, the sort of sound that made him want to pull it off the frame and feed it to the Gloink Queen.

The parking lot outside was too clean, the blacktop uncracked and the painted lines bright enough to look freshly wet. A row of identical street lamps buzzing over empty spaces. His car sat where Caine had spawned it at the start of the adventure, bright purple, long-nosed, ridiculous, with JAX.001 stamped on the plate like Caine had briefly developed taste and then ruined it by attaching wheels.

Jax opened the driver's door, dropped into the seat, and pulled it shut. He let out a groan that scraped all the way up from his chest and dropped his head onto the steering wheel.

The horn squeaked.

He lifted his head just enough to glare at the dashboard. He sat there with his hands loose on the wheel. The key was already in the ignition. Caine's idea of a car came with the bells and whistles, even fuzzy dice with Jax's face on them, and a… stick with a weird diagram on top.

Jax stared at the stick.

Then at the floor.

Three pedals sat under the dash.

His ears tilted forward a fraction. "...Why are there three?"

He looked at the gear stick again. The diagram had a little grid carved into it: one, two, three, four, five, and an R tucked off in the corner. Numbers. Fine. The stick itself sat loose in the middle, wobbling when he nudged it with two fingers.

He glanced through the windshield. Nobody outside. Nobody at the windows. No Zooble standing there with that awful look they got when they'd noticed something.

There was also a lever beside the seat. He poked the button on the end. Nothing happened. He gave it a cautious tug. It held firm.

"Okay. You're staying there I guess."

He turned the key. The engine coughed, then caught with a low, cartoonish rumble. The steering wheel vibrated under his palms. The whole car gave a tiny bounce, pleased with itself.

Jax put one foot on the right pedal and pressed.

The engine roared.

He yanked his foot back. "Okay... That's probably the gas…"

He tried the middle pedal. It moved a little under his foot. The car did nothing.

"What's the point of this one?"

The left pedal sank much farther than the others, smooth and way too suspicious. Jax held it down, eyes narrowed, then reached for the gear stick. It resisted him at first, catching somewhere between the middle and the top-left slot.

He forced it harder.

Something scraped inside the car with a sound like a fork being dragged across teeth.

He let go. The gear stick wobbled back into the middle.

"Okay…" Jax inhaled through his nose. "Maybe this."

Left pedal down. Gear stick to the top-left. Less scraping this time, surely a good sign. The stick slid into place with a reluctant clunk.

There. One. First gear. Obviously.

He lifted his foot.

The car jumped forward half a foot and died.

Jax snapped rigid, hands locked around the wheel. His ears shot up so fast one brushed the roof. The dashboard lit up with a tiny smiling icon.

A chirpy little voice came from somewhere near the vents. "Oopsie! Try easing off the clutch there, champ!"

Jax slapped the dashboard. "Nobody asked you, Herbie knock-off."

The icon disappeared.

"…What the fk is a 'clutch'?"

He looked toward the restaurant windows. Zooble had their back to the glass, stacking metal pans. Ragatha stood nearby with a pile of plastic trays hugged against her chest. One tray slid sideways. She tilted with it, caught it against her chin—or more accurately, the part of her head that would be her chin—and smiled at it with far too much enthusiasm.

Jax looked away first.

He started over.

Key. Engine. Left pedal. Stick to one. Lift.

The car lurched and died.

He tried again.

Dead.

On the next attempt, the engine came on, the stick went into first, and the car refused to move at all.

Jax stared through the windshield.

He pressed the right pedal.

The engine screamed.

The car stayed put.

His eyes dropped slowly to the lever beside the seat. "...Oh, come on."

He pressed the button at the end and shoved the lever down. It dropped with a thunk that sounded far too smug.

He tried again.

Key. Engine. Left pedal. Stick to one. Handbrake down. Lift.

The car jumped, rolled forward an inch, and died.

Jax sat there with both hands still on the wheel, ears rigid, staring at the same parking space he had occupied for the last hour.

At some point, the Spudsy's sign flickered off. The windows stayed lit. Inside, the cleanup moved in pieces: Zooble pushing shelves back into place, Ragatha wiping one table in slow circles until Zooble took the cloth from her, Pomni appearing near the office door, Gangle standing under the fluorescent lights without moving.

Jax watched none of it.

He just happened to be facing that direction.

When the front doors finally opened again, Zooble came out with Ragatha tucked against their side. Ragatha had both feet under her, technically, but her knees kept making small delayed movements. One hand held onto Zooble's arm. The other floated near her own face, touching the spot by her eye where the Stupid Sauce had splashed her.

Jax slid lower in the seat. Hoping he wouldn't be seen. Zooble looked across the lot. They started toward the car. "No," Jax said before they got close enough to hear.

Zooble stopped at the driver's window and tapped the glass.

Jax stared straight ahead.

Tap.

He rolled the window down two inches.

"Whatever it is, go away."

Zooble leaned slightly to look through the gap. Ragatha stood beside them, staring at the license plate with intense, wobbly focus.

"It's about Ragatha."

Jax's fingers tightened around the wheel.

"That supposed to get me to help? No."

"You don't even know what I'm asking."

"I don't have to."

Zooble's eyes shifted down, past his elbow, to the gear stick. Jax moved his arm a little, too late to make it look casual. Ragatha bent toward the open window. Her hair fell over one shoulder in a loose red rope, the end brushing the door.

"Hi, Jax."

"No."

She blinked. "That's not hi."

"Nope, but you clearly are."

Zooble gave the window frame another tap, lighter this time. "She needs a designated driver."

Jax looked at the empty road ahead. The engine was off now. The car sat silent around him, freshly treacherous. "Then designate one."

"I am," Zooble said. "Gangle's not doing great. Don't wanna leave her."

A blue-white reflection from the restaurant glass cut across Zooble's face. Behind them, Ragatha lifted one hand and pressed her palm to the roof of the car, as if confirming it was solid.

"Nobody's doing great," Jax said. "That was probably the point of this adventure."

Zooble didn't move.

Ragatha ducked her head and peered inside the car. Her gaze drifted past the steering wheel, past his knees, then stopped on the pedals, where his feet were positioned. "Wwwrrrrong."

Jax went still.

Zooble's eyes narrowed.

Ragatha pointed with the loose certainty of a toddler identifying an animal in a picture book. "Left one first."

Jax turned his head slowly toward her. "Great," he said. "Now she's friends with the car."

Zooble shifted their weight, finally looking amused in the smallest possible way. "You don't know how to drive stick. Do you?"

Jax scoffed so fast it came out almost before they finished. "I know how to drive."

"Name one thing about driving."

"Don't hit stuff."

Ragatha lifted a finger. Her finger stayed in the air for another second, then slowly lowered. She looked at the passenger seat through the window. "I forgot what I was gonna say…"

Zooble moved first. They opened the passenger door.

"No," Jax said immediately. "Don't put her in here."

"She can help you."

"Are you kidding?"

Zooble helped her into the passenger seat before Jax could reach across and shut the door. Ragatha sat sideways at first, one leg still out on the blacktop, one hand braced on the seat cushion.

She looked down at herself.

"Where do legs go?"

"Inside," Jax said.

"Both?"

"I'm gonna say yes."

Zooble guided her knees in. Ragatha settled back with a soft, satisfied sound, then pulled the seatbelt halfway across her chest and watched it snap back into the wall.

She frowned at it.

Jax leaned over before she could start a relationship with the belt. He dragged it across her, keeping his shoulder carefully away from her chin, and clicked it into place.

"Seat belt," Ragatha murmured. "Seat. Belt." She patted the strap where it crossed her chest. "Safe."

"That's optimistic."

"Drop her off properly." Zooble said as they leaned down by the passenger side. "Her room. Not the hall. Not 'near the tent.' Her room."

"I know how drop-offs work."

"You don't even know how cars work."

Ragatha looked between them, then gave Zooble a loose thumbs-up. "I'm in the seat belt."

"Yes, you are." Zooble studied her for a second, then looked at Jax. "Don't make me regret this." They shut the passenger door.

Jax faced forward and put both hands on the steering wheel. Ragatha's reflection hovered in the windshield beside his, one button eye unfocused, mouth relaxed, shoulders tucked under the ridiculous Spudsy's uniform. The sauce had taken all the careful edges off her. Without the usual nervous laugh ready in her throat, she looked different. Or maybe she just looked more tired.

He pressed the left pedal.

"All the way," Ragatha said.

"I know."

"Mmhm."

He shot her a look. She was watching his feet with the seriousness of a driving examiner who had eaten glue. He moved the gear stick. It caught wrong and ground again.

Ragatha winced.

"Don't fight it."

"It started it."

"Top left."

He shoved it into first.

Ragatha's hand lifted slightly from her lap, palm down. "Slow foot."

Jax glanced at her. "What?"

"Slow foot… other foot is fast foot..."

Jax ran a hand down his face. He looked back at the windshield. The road waited beyond the lot, smooth and empty under the buzzing street lamps. He eased his left foot up. The car shuddered.

"Slow," Ragatha said.

"I am."

The car shuddered harder. His right foot pressed the gas too sharply. The engine barked. Ragatha rocked back into the seat. Jax pulled his foot off. The car died. Then Ragatha reached out and patted the dashboard. "It's okay."

Jax glared at her.

"Don't comfort the car."

Ragatha turned her head toward him, slow as a clock hand as she prepared to pat him instead. His ears twitched. Jax jammed the key forward. The engine coughed back on.

"Don't," he said.

She folded her hands over the seatbelt. This time, when he pressed the clutch, Ragatha didn't speak right away. She waited until he had the stick in first. Then her hand lifted again, barely above her lap.

"Slow foot."

He lifted the clutch by a fraction.

The car trembled, but it did not die.

"Small angry," she murmured.

He gave it a little gas. Less than before. The engine caught the motion. The car rolled forward.

Jax froze.

The car kept moving.

Ragatha smiled at the windshield.

"There."

"I was doing that." Jax turned his head toward her.

"Suuuurrreeee…" Ragatha's smile widened, sleepy and pleased with herself.

He looked back at the road ahead of them. "That sauce makes you mouthy."

The car crept out of the parking space, slow enough that Zooble could have walked ahead of it. Jax kept both hands on the wheel. His shoulders were pulled high, ears stiff, jaw set like the car might take a swing at him.

At the edge of the lot, he stopped a little too hard.

Ragatha tipped forward against the belt. "Sorry," she said to it.

Jax looked at her.

She rubbed the strap once, reassuring.

The road stretched ahead, curving away from Spudsy's into simplified night. The restaurant lights glowed behind them. Through the glass, Pomni stood alone near the counter for a moment, then turned back inside.

Jax eased the car forward again.

First gear whined under them.

Ragatha leaned her head against the window, leaving a soft circle of warmth on the glass.

"You stayed," she said.

"I stalled."

The engine whined louder.

Ragatha's eyes drifted toward the gear stick.

"Two."

"What?"

"Two… gear."

Jax looked down at the stick, then at the road, then at the stick again.

His fingers tightened around the wheel. "I hate this thing. How do people enjoy this?"

"Clutch first."

"I know."

"That's brake."

"I know that." Jax said, moving his foot onto the clutch as though he weren't about to press the brake.

The car lurched before he even touched the gear stick, as if it had heard him and objected on principle. Ragatha's shoulder bumped the passenger door. Her seat belt caught her halfway through the motion, and she blinked down at it like it and gave it a little pat.

Jax pressed the clutch harder.

The stick dragged from first to second with a resistant little scrape. It wasn't as bad as the earlier noises, which meant either he was improving or the car had accepted that neither of them was getting out of this with dignity and decided to take it a little easier on him.

He eased his foot up.

The car shuddered once. Twice. Then it kept going.

Jax's grip tightened around the wheel.

Beside him, Ragatha smiled at nothing in particular, cheek still resting against the window. The glass had fogged in a small oval around where her mouth had been too close to it. Her button eye pointed forward. Her other eye had drifted toward the passing street lamps.

The engine stopped whining.

Jax hated that she had been right.

"Better," Ragatha murmured.

Jax opened his mouth, found no response that didn't make the situation worse, and kept driving.

The road outside Spudsy's had looked like a road when he'd first walked out. Now that the car was actually moving, it had started acting less committed to the concept. The same street lamp passed them three times, each one buzzing with the same tiny flicker near the bulb. A drive-thru sign appeared on the shoulder with no restaurant attached to it, then vanished from the rearview mirror before they fully passed it.

Jax leaned forward over the wheel, ears angled toward the windshield.

The road narrowed into a strip of blacktop suspended in nothing, edges trimmed too cleanly, like Caine had stopped drawing the rest once he got bored. A sign stood a little way ahead. White rectangle. Red border. No words.

Jax pressed his foot down by instinct. The car answered with another engine bark. Ragatha rocked back in her seat.

The sign shot past them.

The headlights stretched.

For half a second, the whole car pulled long and thin around them. The hood stretched forward like taffy. The gear stick snapped out of Jax's hand. Ragatha's seat belt dissolved across her chest in little orange squares. Jax saw his fingers still hooked around the wheel after the wheel had already disappeared.

Then the car popped out of existence.

Momentum, however, did not.

His heels hit the circus floor first.

The tiles caught under his feet, then lost him. He skidded backward across the checkerboard floor with his arms thrown out and his ears whipping in front of his face. The motion yanked a sharp sound out of him before he could even try to make it sarcastic.

He slammed into the lower wall beneath the hallway arch.

His shoulders hit first. Then the back of his head.

"FK—!"

Ragatha appeared a second later.

She came in sideways, sliding across the floor on one hip with her hands loose in front of her, still wearing the blank, delayed expression.

Jax had just enough time to see her coming.

She crashed into him.

The impact knocked him flat against the wall again. Ragatha hit his chest with a heavy thump, her yarn hair spilling over his shoulder and across his mouth. His arms closed around her on instinct. Hooked around her shoulders and stopped her head from smacking into the wall beside him.

The last bits of Spudsy's clung to them for a second: the smell of fries, the paper-stiff shape of his uniform collar. Then the uniforms flickered and disappeared, replaced by their usual clothes in a sweep of clean digital correction.

Jax stayed frozen with Ragatha pressed against him.

Her cheek was tucked under his chin. One of her hands had landed against his side, fingers curled lightly into his overalls. She made a small sound into his chest, less pain than confusion, and went limp in the particular way only Ragatha could: all fabric and weight, no resistance. Jax looked down. His arms were still around her. His hands opened at once. Ragatha slid half an inch. He grabbed her again before she could hit the floor.

He looked left. Then right. The couches sat untouched under the stage lights. Kinger's pillow fort was quiet. The air still held a faint shimmer where the adventure had spat them back out and closed behind them. No Pomni. No Zooble. No Gangle. Lucky.

Ragatha lifted her head. Her face was very close. Too close. Her loose button eye had twisted slightly from the crash; the other eventually focused on him after a slow search.

"Hey… you caught me," she said.

"Not my fault. You slammed into me."

"Caught."

Jax stared at her.

Then he set his hands on her shoulders and tried to push her upright. Ragatha obeyed for about half a second. Her knees tucked under her, failed, and she folded straight back into him.

His hand landed between her shoulder blades.

Ragatha's face pressed into his chest again.

"Okay," Jax said through his teeth. "New plan. You help this time."

She nodded against him. Nothing else happened.

"Ragatha."

"Mm?"

"Helping usually involves doing something other than just sitting there."

She moved one hand and patted his side. "There."

"That was nothing."

"But… was it?"

Jax looked up at the ceiling. He shifted, bracing one foot against the floor and peeling himself off the wall with Ragatha still half-draped over him. It took more effort than it should have. His shoulder throbbed where he'd hit the wall. His ear stayed bent until he shook his head once and snapped it back into place.

Ragatha watched the motion with too much interest. "Your ear moved funny."

"Your whole body moved funny five seconds ago."

He got her upright by degrees. First sitting. Then kneeling. Then standing, if standing included both of her hands clamped around his arm and most of her weight leaning diagonally into his side.

The moment he let go, her balance drifted.

He caught her forearm.

She looked down at his hand.

Jax let go.

Her shoulder tipped toward the floor.

So he caught her again.

The second grab was firmer. His fingers wrapped around the soft fabric of her arm and stayed there while he glared at the wall like the wall had arranged this.

Ragatha swayed in place, smiling faintly at his hand. "You caught me again."

He nearly answered, then decided he didn't want to hear whatever she would say next. The hallway to the rooms stretched ahead, lit in the usual bright, useless circus colours. The doors stood in their row, each marked with a face. Ragatha's was not far. Although, it looked very far with Ragatha attached to him like this.

Jax took one step.

Ragatha took most of one.

Her foot dragged. He stopped before she tripped, jaw tightening at the tiny automatic correction.

She looked at the floor.

"Is the floor moving?"

"Keep moving, Raggy."

He glanced down the hallway. Empty. Still empty.

He adjusted his grip, moving from her forearm to her upper arm, then immediately moved back because the first position made her lean into him less.

"Walk normal," he said.

Ragatha looked down at her feet with deep sauce-addled focus.

"Which… which one do I move?"

"Either."

She lifted her left foot. Moved it forward. Held it there. Put it down.

Then lifted the same foot again.

Jax stared.

"That's the same foot."

"It… worked last time."

"Yes it did. Now try the other foot."

Her right foot finally moved. She smiled as if it had surprised her.

"Oh my God…" Jax groaned.

They started down the hall.

Progress came in slowly. Ragatha drifted toward him every few steps. Her fingers slid from his arm to his wrist, then back to his arm, then gathered a fistful of fur as if that might steer her. Once, her head tipped toward his shoulder. Jax leaned away on reflex. She followed the new angle without opening her eyes.

He stopped.

She bumped lightly into him.

"Personal space," he said.

Ragatha opened her eye. "Where?"

"Exactly."

They passed Kinger's door. Something rustled inside, followed by a muffled gasp and the sound of a pillow being dragged across the floor. Jax froze. Ragatha kept moving and nearly pulled his arm out straight.

He tugged her back against his side before she could knock into the door.

The rustling stopped.

No one came out.

Jax waited another second, then kept walking faster.

Too fast.

Ragatha's feet tangled under her. She pitched forward.

His arm went around her waist this time, catching her before she hit the floor. Her back pressed against his side. His hand flattened against the front of her dress for one brief, panicked second before he shifted it higher to her ribs and hauled her upright.

Ragatha breathed out a tiny laugh. "Again!"

Jax sighed, but kept his arm where it was until she steadied. Then he removed it like it had burned him. Ragatha's hand immediately found his instead. Jax ignored that for now. Whatever keeps her moving.

Her door waited a few yards ahead.

Jax focused on it with the intensity he had recently wasted on the gear stick. Door. Room. Bed. Put Ragatha inside. Leave. Never let Zooble force him into anything again. Never sit in anything with three pedals unless it came with instructions and nobody watching him.

Ragatha slowed beside him.

He looked down.

Her unfocused eye had fixed on their joined hands: her fingers coiled around his, his other hand still hovering near her, ready to catch her even though she hadn't stumbled yet.

Jax looked at her door. "I'm only walking you to your room. The rest is on you." He pulled his arm back just enough to loosen her grip.

She let him.

For one second.

Then she swayed, and his hand returned to her waist.

Ragatha smiled down at it.

The last few steps to her door took longer than they should have. Ragatha stopped once to look at the painted face on it as if she expected it to speak. Jax reached past her and opened it.

"There," he said. "Room. You made it."

Ragatha didn't move.

Her gaze had drifted from the doorway back to him. "Does your head hurt? You crashed too."

His fingers twitched once near his side. "No."

She looked up at his ear, then at the shoulder he wasn't quite rolling. Jax straightened immediately. Ragatha's mouth pulled into a small, tired frown. For once, she didn't apologise. She only reached for his arm with both hands and stepped backward into her room, bringing him with her by two inches.

He could have pulled free.

He looked down at her hands.

Then at Ragatha herself, who was swaying gently in the safe square of light from her room, trying very hard to keep him in focus. Jax sighed through his nose.

"I'll stay for one minute. One," he said. "I get you to sleep, and then I'm gone."

Ragatha nodded.

The motion made her wobble. He caught her by the upper arm before her shoulder clipped the doorframe. Ragatha looked at his hand first, then at the doorway, then at him.

"Door moved."

"No, it didn't."

Jax stepped in after her, still holding her arm because letting go had already proved stupid twice. Ragatha's room opened around them in soft colours and neat little arrangements. The place looked exactly like he thought it would.

A quilt lay folded at the end of the bed. Pillows sat in careful order, smallest in front, largest in back. A little shelf above the dresser held junk from old adventures Caine let her keep: a teacup from Mildenhall, a blue plastic flower, and a tiny cardboard sword with the tip bent sideways. Someone else would have called them keepsakes. Jax called them clutter with a guilt complex.

Ragatha took one step and stopped.

He looked down. Her foot had landed on the edge of a little round rug.

"What is it now?"

She stared at it. "Fluffy..."

"Yes, it is."

Ragatha relaxed by about two percent.

Then Ragatha's fingers slid down from his upper arm to his wrist, loose but trusting, and he pictured Kinger's door opening. Pomni rounding the corner. Zooble appearing from nowhere with that dry little tilt of their head.

Jax shut the door after them. Ragatha blinked at the sound. "Door's gone."

The closed room made the whole thing smaller: Ragatha's hand on his wrist, the bed two steps away, the warm patch where she'd been leaning against him still pressed into his side.

He pulled his arm back. Ragatha let him go, but her fingers dragged once through the fur at his wrist before they fell away. Jax looked at the spot where she'd held him. At the fur sticking up strangely. He rubbed it flat with his thumb.

Ragatha watched, fascinated.

"No," he said.

He moved before she could ask what she had been thinking. The chair beside her bed sat at an angle, one leg too close to the path. He hooked his foot around it and shoved it toward the wall. A basket of sewing supplies waited near the dresser, full of string, buttons, and blunt plastic needles. He picked it up by the handle and put it higher, out of reach.

Ragatha followed every movement.

A loose pillow sat on the floor. Jax picked it up, looked at the neat row on the bed, then tossed it onto the end instead of placing it carefully.

Ragatha swayed toward the bed. He steered her around the dresser, and stopped her at the mattress. She stared down at it with the same focus she had given the pedals.

"Sit," he said.

Ragatha bent halfway, changed her mind, straightened again, and looked at him.

"Where?"

Jax pointed at the bed.

Her gaze followed his finger to the mattress.

"Oh."

She lowered herself with extreme caution, one hand still hovering near his arm. The mattress dipped under her. She sat there upright for a moment, shoulders slack, palms pressed flat to either side of her like she was waiting for the room to confirm she had done it correctly.

Jax took one step back.

Ragatha immediately leaned after him.

"Uh-uh." He pointed at her. "Stay."

Something pale was caught in her yarn hair, tucked near the side of her neck. Jax tried not to see it. It was probably a receipt, or a wrapper, or some random Spudsy's order slip that had survived the outfit reset out of spite.

Ragatha blinked slowly at the wall.

The paper stayed there.

Jax lasted four seconds.

He reached over and pinched the scrap between two fingers. Ragatha's head tipped toward his hand. He pulled the paper free. It had a smear of the Stupid Sauce on one corner and the printed words 'THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER' across the top.

He held it up. "You had garbage in your hair." He dropped it into the little bin beside the dresser. It bounced off the rim, missed, and landed on the floor.

Ragatha looked at it.

Jax looked at it.

He picked it up and put it in properly.

"Don't start," he said.

She smiled faintly. "I didn't."

"You had the face."

"What face?"

"The 'Ragatha' face."

The blanket was tucked too tight under the mattress. Of course Ragatha made a habit of making the bed. He yanked it loose and dragged it back. The corner folded wrong. His hand moved automatically to smooth it, knowing that she'd be annoying if he didn't.

"Lie down," he said.

She shifted onto the bed with slow, careful movements. One knee up. Then the other. Her hand found his forearm again when her balance wavered, stitched fingers pressing into the fur there. This time he didn't pull away immediately. He waited until she was fully on the mattress, then peeled her fingers off one at a time.

Her hand dropped onto the quilt.

Jax pulled the blanket up to her waist, then stopped because that was already more than he needed to do. He adjusted it anyway so it wasn't twisted around her leg.

"There." He straightened. "Room. Bed. Blanket. That's basically sleep."

Ragatha's good eye moved to him. "No."

"What?"

She rubbed the quilt seam between her fingers. The motion was small and repetitive, thumb over stitch, thumb over stitch. Her button eye sat slightly crooked from the crash. He almost reached to straighten it, then shoved both hands into the front pocket of his overalls.

"Okay," he said. "I'm leaving."

Ragatha's hand stopped on the quilt.

She looked past him, toward the closed door.

The room seemed to hold onto the pause. It was just quiet enough for the little hum behind the walls to show up, the kind of sound the circus always made when no one was talking over it.

"Don't leave yet," Ragatha said.

He looked back at her. She wasn't looking at him now. She was looking at the stretch of floor between the bed and the door.

Ragatha's fingers started rubbing the seam again.

The chair he'd shoved against the wall was close enough to grab. With a sigh, he hooked it with his foot and dragged it nearer to the bed, the wooden legs scraping over the floor. Not beside her. Not too close. Angled toward the door, so any idiot could see he still intended to leave.

He sat backward on it, arms folded across the back of it.

"There," he said. "Staying."

Ragatha's shoulders loosened.

Jax noticed.

Ragatha shifted under the blanket.

"Did Gangle go home?"

Jax blinked. "What?"

"Gangle." Her voice was softer now, less floaty.

Jax thought of Gangle in the office, standing still under the fluorescent light. Pomni by the doorway. The bell over the front entrance jingling after Gangle left.

"Dunno."

Ragatha's fingers slowed.

"Zooble stayed?"

"Yeah."

Her head sank deeper into the pillow. "Good. They're good together…"

Jax stared at her for a moment longer than he meant to.

Then he shifted in the chair, making it creak.

Ragatha's eye opened again.

He stilled.

"Stop doing that," he said.

"Doing what?"

"Looking every time I move."

"Oh."

Her eye shut.

A minute passed, or something pretending to be a minute. Time never behaved normally in the circus, but the silence stretched enough for his shoulder to start complaining from the crash. He rolled it once, slowly, testing the ache. The wall had hit harder than the car. Or the other way around. He wasn't interested in assigning blame unless the wall came back for a rematch.

Ragatha's hand moved over the quilt seam.

Back and forth.

Back.

And.

Forth.

Then slower.

Then it stopped.

Jax leaned back, careful not to make the chair creak this time.

Finally. She's asleep.

He unfolded his arms and put one hand on the chair back, ready to stand.

Ragatha's hand twitched once.

He froze.

No movement.

He started to rise.

That was when he saw her face.

Her eye was open, fixed on the quilt under her hand, staring at nothing on the fabric. Not sleeping. A tear had gathered at the lower edge and slipped sideways across the bridge of her nose, catching near the stitched corner of her mouth.

Jax stayed half-standing, one hand gripping the chair.

Ragatha didn't make a sound. She didn't wipe the tear away. She just kept staring at the quilt seam, her fingers curled against the stitching like she was holding onto the only part of the room that wasn't moving.

Jax lowered himself back into the chair.

The scrape of wood against floor came out too loud in the little room. Ragatha didn't react to it. Her good eye stayed fixed on the quilt seam under her fingers, the tear caught against the stitched corner of her mouth until it finally slipped down into the fabric of her cheek.

Jax sat backward again, arms folded over the chair back.

He looked at the quilt instead of her face.

"What? Quilt upset you or something?"

Ragatha's fingers curled tighter into the stitching.

For a few seconds, that was all she did. Pinch. Hold. Let go just enough to pinch again. Her button eye sat crooked from the crash, angled a little too high, while the other stared at a place that wasn't really on the bed.

"I… hurt Gangle," she said.

Jax's jaw moved once.

The day offered the memory up before he could shove it away. Gangle's bright mask. Ragatha's voice, loose and syrupy from the sauce, saying the happy version of her was annoying. The tiny pause afterward. The crack in the mask. The twitch in Gangle's eye before she pretended to keep working.

He shifted his weight in the chair. The wood pressed into his ribs.

"Yeah," he said.

Ragatha's good eye moved a little, but she didn't look at him fully.

"I think I meant it… I don' wanna mean it…"

The seam bunched under her hand. She had twisted it hard enough to pull a wrinkle across the quilt.

Jax watched her fingers. Cloth over cloth. Stitching over stitching. Ragatha trying to hold the bad thing in one small place where she could see it.

"You noticed," he said.

Her eye found him then.

"After."

"After still counts."

Ragatha's mouth pressed together. The shape didn't hold. Her face was too tired for it.

Jax looked toward the shelf above the dresser. Bent cardboard sword. Plastic flower. Chipped teacup. A tiny beetle with one missing leg. He picked one object at random and stared at it like it had asked for his opinion.

"I said worse. I've done worse."

Ragatha's fingers stopped.

Her hand left the quilt seam and rose to the corner of her mouth. She touched the stitched line there with two fingers, then the place near her eye where the sauce had splashed earlier. Her movements were slow, out of order. Checking damage. Checking entry points.

"What if I learn that?"

Jax's ears went still.

"Learn what?"

"To… hurt."

He looked at her then.

Her gaze had dropped back to the quilt. The tear track on her face had dried unevenly, a faint shine in the room's soft light. She rubbed her thumb over the same stitch again, harder this time.

"People got smaller when she talked," Ragatha said.

Jax said nothing. His fingers tightened over the top of the chair.

Ragatha's mouth moved, then stopped. She looked at the quilt as if the right words might be sewn into it.

"Not really smaller. But… like they had to be."

He knew that kind of room. Rooms where people learned the safe distance from a voice. Learned to recognise who was approaching a door just by their footsteps. Rooms where a hand on a table meant one thing, a closed cabinet meant another, and everyone pretended they weren't watching for signs.

Ragatha's eye looked wet again.

"I don' wanna make people do that."

The chair back creaked under Jax's hands.

"That's not how it works."

Ragatha blinked at him.

He leaned forward, just enough that the chair tipped onto its front legs for a second before settling back. "People aren't one thing because they did one thing."

Her face tightened.

Jax saw the rejection before she said anything. Ragatha didn't believe small harm could stay small. Of course she didn't. She collected everyone else's flinches like bills she owed.

"You made a bad choice," he said. "That's it."

Her hand twitched against the quilt.

"Doesn't mean it didn't hurt. But it doesn't make you who you are."

Ragatha stared at him for a long moment.

The little hum behind the walls filled the room again. Somewhere outside, very far off, something popped and reset itself.

"Then… you too," she said.

Jax's head turned.

"What?"

"You're not bad either."

His hands went tight enough that his knuckles pressed pale through the fur.

"Don't."

Ragatha's eye widened a little, not from fear. From the sharpness of his voice.

"But you said—"

"Stop."

Ragatha's hand relaxed on the quilt, fingers open now. She looked at him the way she had looked at the seatbelt in the car, like she was trying to understand him.

Jax hated that.

"I don't cry about it," he said.

His voice was lower now. The joke had gone out of it somewhere and left him with the plain, the ugly. He looked away again.

"I do it again."

Ragatha didn't move.

"And again," he said. "And again."

The chair pressed into his ribs. His grin came back too late and too sharp.

"It's not the same for me. I'm the exception." He tipped his head. That familiar, emotion-blocking grin widening over his face. "What can I say, Rags. I'm just exceptional."

Ragatha didn't smile.

"You said it's choices," she murmured.

"Yeah."

His grip shifted on the chair.

"And I keep picking."

That should have ended it. It was simple enough. Clear enough. He had said the thing, and she could leave it alone.

But Ragatha kept looking at him.

"This isn't about me," he said.

"Could be."

Ragatha's fingers found the quilt seam again, but they didn't dig in this time. They only rested there.

"Well. Tonight it isn't. So tough luck." Jax took a moment along with a breath through his nose. "…You're not cruel, Rags."

Ragatha's eye lifted to his face.

"When I got here," he said, "Kinger was hiding in the fort."

Ragatha's breathing slowed a little as he continued.

"Gangle barely talked. Hell. She looked afraid of her own shadow back then."

The memory came in pieces. The old hallway. The wrongness of his own hands. The way everyone had looked like they knew the rules and he was the last one to get the script.

"Snuffle… Snuffle just looked at me, said 'new one,' and walked off."

Ragatha's mouth moved faintly.

"Snuffle did that."

"Yeah. Real welcoming guy that one."

Jax remembered Snuffle's grin, all sharp edges and lazy boredom. The way he'd watched Jax panic for about three seconds before deciding it wasn't funny enough yet.

"You showed me the rooms," Jax said.

Ragatha's fingers went still.

He kept his eyes on the crooked pillow he had thrown onto the bed.

"Showed me the grounds. Told me about Caine, the adventures. The whole terrible brochure."

Ragatha watched him. Her face had softened in a confused, careful way, like she was holding the memory up to a light and waiting for it to come through.

"You told me the first day was supposed to feel awful," he said. His thumb rubbed once against the chair back. "It… helped." He added, because he had to, "some."

Ragatha's eye brightened with something too tired to be a full smile.

Jax pointed at her before she could open her mouth.

"Don't."

She closed it.

For a moment, he thought that might actually work.

Then she whispered, "I liked helping."

Jax looked at her properly then, just for a second. Ragatha lying under the blanket he'd pulled up too carefully. Button eye crooked. Tear drying on her cheek. Hand loose on the quilt now, no longer trying to tear the seam open.

"Yeah," he said. "You would."

Her gaze lowered from his face to his arm folded over the chair. Slowly, with the same poor coordination she'd brought to walking, she lifted one hand from the quilt.

Jax saw it coming too late.

Her fingers brushed the chair first, sliding over the top rail. Then they found his wrist. Her stitched fingers settled into the fur there, light and warm. With nothing for him to pretend she was holding onto except him.

Ragatha's thumb moved once.

A small, wondering stroke through the fur.

"Soft," she murmured.

Jax looked down at her hand like it had opened a trapdoor under him. Ragatha's thumb moved again, slower this time. Her eye was already half-lidded, the sauce and exhaustion dragging her back toward sleep, but her fingers stayed where they were.

Jax pulled his wrist back an inch. Ragatha's hand followed.

Her fingers dragged through the fur at the inside of his wrist, brushing it one way, then the other. The colour shifted under her touch, darker where she flattened it, lighter when she pushed it back. Her half-lidded eye opened a little more.

Jax saw the look on her face. "No."

Ragatha rubbed her thumb across the fur again.

"It changes."

"Lots of things change."

Her thumb made a small line down his wrist. Then another across it. The fur held the shape for a second before lifting back into place. Ragatha watched the mark vanish with a slow, delighted focus.

Jax tightened his grip on the chair back. "You're getting a little weird with my arm, Raggy…"

Ragatha didn't answer. She drew a crooked loop in the fur on his forearm, wiped it away, then drew another one beside it. Her mouth parted slightly, not quite smiling yet. The sauce had taken the usual apology out of her face. No nervous laugh waiting at the edge. No careful little glance to make sure he wasn't offended.

He shifted his arm, intending to slide out of reach. Ragatha's fingers followed along the fur like they had been velcro-ed. They moved from his wrist to his forearm, slow and curious, and stopped where the fur lay thicker.

Jax looked at the closed door. Then he looked back, which was a mistake.

Ragatha's gaze had moved.

To his chest.

Only a small patch of fur showed above the front of his overalls, between the straps. A perfectly normal amount of visible fur. Jax leaned back.

"No."

Ragatha's hand lifted from his arm. He caught her wrist before her fingers reached him. Her hand stopped in the air between them.

The room settled around the pause. Her wrist was soft under his hand, all stitched cloth and light digital warmth. His grip wasn't tight. It was tight enough to stop her.

Ragatha blinked at his fingers around her wrist.

"One," she said.

"No."

"Tiny."

"Still no."

Her hand stayed suspended, palm turned toward his chest, fingers slightly curled as if she had forgotten the rest of the plan but trusted it would come back. He could push her hand down. He could stand. He could leave the room and let her draw on the quilt instead.

He released her wrist.

Ragatha's hand landed on his chest.

One finger dragged through the fur with intense, wobbly care. A short line. Two small circles. A pause for inspection. Then a tiny correction that made the whole thing worse.

Jax looked down. His face went blank. "Did you just draw a—"

"—PS!" she said.

Then she cackled.

Penis.

A penis.

There's a penis on his chest.

And Ragatha drew it.

Her cackle burst out of her too loud for the room. Not one of her usual polite laughs, not the nervous little flutter she used when she wanted everyone to stop looking at the bruise. This was ugly and absolutely delighted. Her face scrunched up. Her shoulders shook under the blanket. She pointed at his chest like it was modern art.

Jax stared at her.

Then at the tiny stupid thing in his fur.

Then back at her.

The corner of his mouth moved.

He shut it down so fast his jaw clicked.

Ragatha saw it anyway.

"You liked it." She laughed harder.

Jax grabbed the nearest pillow and pushed it toward her face. "Suffocate."

Ragatha clutched the pillow, buried her face in it, and kept laughing. The sound came out muffled and squeaky, which somehow made it worse. Her feet kicked under the blanket.

Jax rubbed hard at his chest fur with the heel of his palm.

The drawing smeared.

Ragatha peeked over the pillow.

For one horrible second, the smudged shape looked even more obscene.

Her eye widened.

She made a strangled noise into the pillow and folded around another cackle.

Jax's shoulders jumped once.

He turned it into a cough.

Ragatha laughed until she hiccuped. The pillow slid down her face, leaving her smile crooked and loose, her good eye wet for a much better reason than before. She looked ridiculous. Sober Ragatha would have apologised before the laugh made it all the way out.

Jax rubbed the last of the mark out of his fur.

His mouth tried to move again.

He pressed it flat.

Ragatha had called him unbelievable earlier that day. Though in fairness, she did that a lot. Jax could work with unbelievable. Unbelievable meant she was mad enough to keep both feet planted. This was different. This was Ragatha laughing with her whole face because she had drawn a tiny penis in his fur and gotten away with it.

This was the sort of thing that made leaving hard.

The kind of thing that became a problem later. His hand stilled on his chest. The thought sat there for less than a second before he shoved it into the nearest mental locker and kicked the door shut.

"You want Kinger hearing this?" he hissed.

Ragatha pressed the pillow back over her mouth. Her shoulders kept shaking.

He angled himself between the bed and the door, one knee pressed against the mattress, one hand planted on the chair. He had moved closer without noticing. Close enough that the blanket brushed his side. Close enough that Ragatha could reach him again if she tried.

She did.

Her laughter had thinned into hiccuping breaths by then. The pillow slipped to her lap. She looked at the patch of fur he had rubbed flat, then lifted one hand toward it.

Jax caught her wrist.

The room went quiet after all the noise.

Her fingers hovered a few inches from his chest. His hand circled her wrist, thumb resting just below the seam where her stitched palm began. She blinked at him, still smiling a little, but the laugh had faded out of her face.

"No more drawing on me," he said.

Her fingertips lowered anyway.

They touched the fur above his overalls, light enough that he could have pretended she missed if his hand had not stayed around her wrist. Jax didn't move.

Ragatha's fingers didn't drag this time. They just rested there, warm through the fur. His thumb stayed at the inside of her wrist. He could feel the tiny shift when her hand relaxed. He could feel his own breathing get careful, which made him want to stop breathing altogether out of spite.

Then again, revealing his breath-holding quirk would be worse.

The bed creaked softly under her as she sat up on her knees.

He should have moved her hand away. He had stopped her. The rest was supposed to follow. Instead, he let her touch his chest. Ragatha looked down at her own hand as if she had only just noticed where it had landed. Her eye was unfocused again, sauce and exhaustion pulling her attention sideways. There was no sober intention in her face. No question. No decision waiting for him to make.

Jax's ears went still. Ragatha's fingertips sank a fraction deeper into the fur. His grip tightened by a hair. Her eye lifted. His hand stayed around her wrist. Hers stayed against his chest. The last of her laughter sat between them, and the crude little joke was gone from his fur but not from his skin.

Ragatha's gaze drifted from his chest to his shoulder.

Then higher.

His ear twitched.

Jax let go of her wrist.

Bad idea.

Ragatha's hand, freed, floated upward.

She touched his upper arm first, fingers slipping into the fur there. Then her hand climbed with lazy certainty, following texture rather than permission. Jax stayed kneeling beside the bed, one hand gripping the edge of the chair, the other pressed into the blanket near her hip.

If he jerked back, she might laugh again. If she laughed, someone might hear. If someone heard, they might open the door. If they opened the door, they would see him crouched by Ragatha's bed with his fur ruffled and his face warm and her hand halfway to his ear.

That was the excuse he chose. Good enough.

He didn't pull back.

Ragatha's fingers brushed the base of one long ear.

Jax went rigid.

It was immediate. Neck, shoulders, spine, all of it locking at once. His hand closed around a fistful of blanket. Ragatha's eye widened, the way it had when she first discovered the fur changed direction.

"Oh," she murmured.

Her thumb moved again at the base of his ear.

His leg snapped through three quick little taps against the floor before he clamped his knee stiff and stopped it. The sound came out bright in the room: tap-tap-tap, heel skittering over Ragatha's floorboards like it had somewhere to be.

Ragatha looked down. Jax looked down. His hand tightened in the blanket. Ragatha's eye lifted to him. She looked back at his foot.

Jax moved his leg farther under him, pressing his heel hard into the floor as if he could staple it there. His face had gone warm. He could feel it climbing under the fur at his cheeks, up toward the base of his ears, which was unfair, since one of those ears was currently being investigated.

Ragatha's fingers were still there.

That little detail became noticeable about three seconds too late. Jax lifted his hand from the blanket and caught her wrist. Her fingers stayed buried in the fur behind his ear, trapped there by his own grip. Another bad plan. He was clearly developing a theme.

"Enough."

Ragatha blinked slowly. "Already?"

He stared at her.

She stared back, half-lidded and very serious.

His foot gave another tiny jerk.

"…Fine." Jax let go of her wrist. "Only… only if it'll keep you quiet…"

Ragatha's fingers started moving again.

This time she did not scratch like she was testing a button. Her hand slid higher, clumsy but gentle, rubbing at the base of his ear with the pads of her fingers, then smoothing over the side of his head in a slow pass. It was the sort of absent petting someone might give a tired dog leaning against their knee. Top of the head, down behind the ear, back up again. Soft pressure. No hurry.

Jax's shoulders rose to his jaw.

Ragatha's hand came over the top of his head.

He flinched at the first pass, not enough to pull away, only enough for the fur at his neck to lift. Her palm flattened lightly between his ears and rubbed in a small, lazy circle.

His leg kicked again.

A quick burst this time, four or five taps before he could stop it. His heel knocked the chair leg, skidded, knocked it again. The chair gave a thin scrape.

Jax grabbed his knee. Intending to stop that betraying little appendage.

Ragatha's mouth opened a little.

"Ohhh."

"Don't 'ohhh' me."

"It likes head."

"Definitely do not say that again."

Ragatha accepted with a nod and kept petting him.

Jax should have stood up. He had knees. Legs. A working spine, allegedly. He could move backward, open the door, leave Ragatha to pass out with her face in a pillow and no audience for whatever this was. He had completed the task. Room. Bed. Blanket. Any sane person would be halfway down the hall already.

But then Ragatha's palm moved over his head again.

And his thoughts skipped.

Her touch was warm. Slow. Stitched fingers brushing through fur, palm dragging lightly over the top of his head, thumb finding the little spot behind his ear and rubbing there like she had been given instructions. She had not been given instructions. The problem was, it seemed obvious to her sauce-addled brain that soft things got petted.

His foot kicked in another quick flutter. This time he didn't stop it fast enough. Ragatha saw the whole thing and smiled down at his leg. He shifted, intending to sit back on his heels. Ragatha's hand followed the motion, fingers sliding through the fur at the back of his head. He stopped moving.

Her smile softened. "Happy foot…"

Not smug. Not sharp. She wasn't laughing at him this time. The cackle from before had drained out of her, leaving something quieter and more dangerous. Pleased. Sleepy. Proud of herself in the simple way she had been proud of him finally getting the car into second gear.

Jax swallowed.

Ragatha rubbed the top of his head again.

His ears twitched.

Then, slowly, both of them dropped. All the way.

They folded down on either side of his head, heavy and loose, the tips brushing past his shoulders. Jax felt them go. Felt the muscles give up holding them in their usual sharp angles. His whole body followed by a fraction: shoulders lowering, jaw unclenching, fingers loosening in the blanket.

Ragatha noticed.

"Ears went down." Ragatha's smile tipped crooked. She hummed. Her hand returned to the top of his head. Pat. Rub. Slow scratch behind the ear. It had a rhythm to it, uneven because she was tired, but steady enough for his body to start trusting the next pass before it came.

Jax's eyelids lowered.

He caught them halfway and forced them open.

Ragatha did it again.

His eyes closed.

There was no decision attached to it. His face simply stopped holding itself up. The room reduced to the pressure of her hand and the tiny rasp of cloth fingers through fur. He could hear her breathing. Could hear the chair settle behind him, the faint hum in the walls, the small brush of blanket under his own hand.

His foot kicked again, softer this time, rapid little taps against the floor that he let happen because stopping them would mean moving, and moving would mean losing the hand on his head.

Ragatha's fingers scratched behind his ear, found the spot that made his leg flutter harder, then drifted up to rub the top of his head again. His ears stayed down. Completely down. If anyone opened the door, he would have to kill everyone in the hallway and maybe destroy the door for good measure too.

Ragatha's hand slowed.

Jax opened his eyes.

She was looking at him.

Her smile had gone small, almost drowsy. Her button eye still sat crooked. The other was half-lidded, soft from sauce and exhaustion, but pointed at him with all the focus she had left. Her hair was mussed from the pillow. One corner of her mouth still held the faintest trace of the laugh she'd tried to muffle earlier. She looked wrecked and ridiculous and… warm.

The hand on his head paused.

Jax forgot what his face was supposed to be doing.

Ragatha smiled a little more, because she had seen something change.

For once, there was no joke waiting at the front of his mouth. Nothing useful. No insult with a handle on it. He saw Ragatha's fingers resting in his fur, her tired smile, and the old, stupid feeling of wanting pressed up under his ribs before he could shove it anywhere.

Then his brain caught up.

Absolutely not.

Whatever that was, hell no.

Wrong room. Wrong person. Wrong night. Stupid Sauce. Head injury. Manual transmission trauma. Anything else. Pick a reason, any reason.

Ragatha's thumb moved behind his ear again.

And there went the reason.

Jax jerked his chin up, recovering just enough to scowl.

"You look way too proud of yourself."

Ragatha's smile stayed. "Foot likes me."

Her hand slid down from the top of his head to one flopped ear, rubbing the base in a lazy circle. The ear stayed limp in her palm. His shoulders, traitorous, dropped another fraction.

He tried to make himself glare at her.

It came out weak.

Ragatha seemed delighted anyway. Not with power (well, maybe a little). With the discovery. Her gaze moved from his face to his ear to his foot, connecting the pieces in whatever soft, scrambled order her mind was using.

"Bunny button," she whispered.

She scratched.

His foot fluttered hard enough to knock the chair leg again. Ragatha made a pleased little sound and patted the top of his head.

"There."

"There what?"

"Good."

Jax stared at her.

Heat crawled up his face again, worse than before.

"You are so sauced."

"Mhmm."

She petted him anyway.

The worst part was that his body had stopped acting surprised. His head tilted into her hand by a degree. His eyes closed for half a second when her fingers worked behind his ear. His foot kicked in quick, helpless bursts every time she found the right place. His ears remained flopped down, soft and useless, advertising the exact thing he was refusing to admit.

He lifted one hand to move her away.

It reached her wrist.

Stopped.

Her pulse didn't exist the way it would have outside. Nothing here worked quite right. Still, there was a warmth under his fingers, a tiny give to the stitched cloth, a sense of her being there in his hand. He held her wrist for one breath. Two.

Then he guided her hand half an inch lower.

Behind the ear.

Ragatha followed.

Jax's eyes shut before he could hate himself for it.

The scratching resumed, gentle and perfect and completely wasted on someone like him. His foot kicked again. He let it. His ears stayed down. He let those too. Ragatha's other hand came up, slow and searching, and rested on his shoulder for balance. Her weight shifted forward on the bed. The blanket slid down around her knees.

Jax felt the mattress dip closer.

His eyes opened.

Ragatha was closer now, still smiling in that sleepy, pleased way. Her hand on his shoulder tightened once, not enough to hold him there. Enough to ask the room not to move him away.

He should have moved.

Bad.

All of this was bad.

Ragatha's fingers slowed again. Her eyelid drooped.

"Don't go," she mumbled.

Jax's ears gave one weak twitch under her hand, too tired or too honest to lift. He looked back at her. Ragatha's smile faded into something softer as she leaned a little more heavily toward him, hand still tucked behind his ear. His foot gave one last quick flutter against the floor.

Jax had time to make one more sensible decision.

He could stand. He could peel her hand away. He could point at the pillow, tell her to pass out, and walk through the door once his ears remembered they were supposed to stay upright.

Ragatha leaned closer. The mattress dipped under her weight. Her hand on his shoulder tightened, and this time it did not feel like she was steadying herself. It felt like she had decided he was too far away.

"Doll..."

She hummed.

"You're pulling."

She blinked at him, then looked at her own hand on his shoulder. "Oh."

Her grip did not loosen.

Jax opened his mouth.

Ragatha moved.

For someone who had needed help on which foot came next ten minutes ago, she had no business being that strong. Her arm hooked around his shoulders, her other hand caught the front strap of his overalls, and she dragged him up and toward the bed with one sleepy, determined pull.

Jax's knees left the floor.

"Hey— Whoa!"

He landed half on the mattress, half against her, long limbs folding badly because there was nowhere for them to go. The bed gave under both of them. One of his legs hung off the side. His elbow hit a pillow. His ear flopped across his own face, and Ragatha's arm came around him before he could untangle himself.

He froze.

Ragatha settled back against the pillows with him pulled in close, as though this arrangement had been obvious the whole time. His head ended up tucked under her chin, one ear trapped gently between her arm and his shoulder, the other spilling down over the blanket. He was taller by enough that the position was ridiculous. His knees bent on instinct, drawing up just enough to fit on the bed without kicking the dresser, his spine curling in a way that made him feel even more caught.

Ragatha sighed over the top of his head.

"There."

"What?" Jax repeated, muffled against her.

"Better."

"For who?"

Her hand found the top of his head again. She petted him with the same drowsy rhythm as before: palm over the top of his head, slow rub between his ears, fingers drifting down to the base of one ear, then back up. She was half-asleep and petting him because he was there, because he was soft, because some loose part of her brain had decided things that are soft should be kept warm and close.

His leg kicked against the bedframe, a short, helpless burst that made the mattress tremble under him. Jax squeezed his eyes shut for half a second.

Ragatha's arm shifted around his shoulders.

His arms were trapped.

Not tightly, he could have fought it. She had him gathered against her like a toy she was afraid of dropping off the bed, one arm around his upper back, the other across his chest and over his arms. Her stitched fingers rested in the fur near his shoulder. Her chin hovered just above his head.

He tested one arm.

Ragatha made a sleepy sound and tucked him closer.

Jax stopped resisting it. His tail moved. A small wag at first, brushing the blanket behind him.

He felt it and went cold.

Ragatha's hand paused on top of his head.

Jax stared straight ahead at the quilt, eyes wide.

"Tail," Ragatha murmured. The blanket shifted behind him with another tiny wag. Ragatha's cheek pressed faintly against one flopped ear. He could feel her smile more than see it. "Happy."

Her hand resumed its path over his head, fingers rubbing behind his ear in a soft circle. His tail gave a fuller wag this time, enough that there was no denying it and steady enough that trying to stop it would have required his arms, which were currently pinned under Ragatha's very effective teddy-bear management system.

Jax's face burned.

He tried to turn away. There was nowhere to turn that wasn't just more Ragatha. Under her chin. Against her shoulder. Her hand in his fur. Her arms around him. Her stupid neat pillows behind them and the crooked one he'd thrown earlier pressed against his side like evidence.

Ragatha leaned back enough to look down at him.

Jax made the mistake of looking up.

Her good eye was half-lidded, but focused on him with sleepy satisfaction. Her button eye sat crooked. Her mouth had softened into the smallest smile, the kind she didn't seem to know she was wearing. The laughter from earlier had left her face warm and loose. She looked at his flopped ears, then his flushed face, then whatever she could see of his tail moving under the blanket.

Her smile widened by a fraction.

Jax's blush hit hard.

Fast enough that he felt it under his fur before he could hide it. Across his cheeks, up toward his ears, down his throat. He pulled his chin in slightly, but that only tucked him closer under her.

Ragatha blinked.

"Pink."

"No."

"Pink bunny."

His tail wagged again.

She made a pleased little hum.

"This… is humiliating." Jax mumbled.

"Mhmm."

"You're supposed to disagree."

"Mhmm."

She patted his head.

The argument dissolved there. Not because he had run out of words. He had plenty. Most of them were mean, several were loud, and at least five would have gotten censored if he'd bothered saying it aloud. The only problem with that was every possible sentence required lifting his head, moving away, or breaking the slow movement of Ragatha's hand.

His body ranked staying above all three.

He hated his body.

Ragatha's arms loosened, then tightened again as she shifted lower into the pillows. He slid with her by an inch, caught between her and the blanket. She tucked him in as if he were smaller than he was. Jax let his knees bend more, only because one leg was going numb and not because curling up made the hold she had on him easier.

"Stay," she mumbled.

Jax's eyes opened.

The word hit without any of the usual Ragatha padding around it. No "if you want." No "sorry." No "you don't have to." The Stupid Sauce had stripped all that away.

Stay.

He looked at the door. Closed. Still closed. Nobody in the hallway. Nobody seeing this. Tomorrow, Ragatha would remember maybe a smear of colour, an annoying car, or a soft thing under her hands. Maybe not even that.

Jax swallowed. "Don't get used to it."

The line came out quieter than he meant. Jax stared at the blanket, jaw tight, as if the warning had been aimed there instead. Rather than at himself.

Ragatha's hand paused behind his ear. Her smile softened again, like she had heard agreement and nothing else.

"Okay."

She tucked his head back under her chin.

That was it.

Jax shut his eyes because looking at her was turning into a big risk.

Ragatha kept petting him.

Pat. Rub. Slow scratch. A careless drift down one ear, then back to the top of his head. Her hand grew heavier with each pass. Sometimes her fingers missed the spot behind his ear and landed near his cheek. Sometimes she stopped altogether for a few seconds, breathing warm and even over him, before remembering the motion and starting again.

His foot kicked less often now. The bursts came softer, tucked under the blanket. His tail kept moving in slow, stupid sweeps. After a while, he stopped trying to measure it. The movement became part of the room's quiet: the wall hum, Ragatha's breathing, the brush of her hand through fur.

He told himself he was waiting for her to fall asleep.

He would wait until her hand stopped moving. Then he would get up. He would fix his ears. He would leave. He would forget the weight of her arms. He would never sit in a manual car again. He would shove the whole night into the same place he kept everything else he didn't want touching him.

His thoughts broke apart at the edges.

Blanket heat gathered around them. Ragatha's stitched hand rested heavy near his ear. The faint smell of fryer oil still clung to both of them, which was maybe his fault and absolutely not something he was going to think about while being used as a pillow.

She had checked on Gangle and Zooble before closing her eyes. She had laughed until she hiccuped. She had pulled him close like his leaving would make the bed tilt.

Jax's jaw loosened. His forehead rested more fully against her. He caught himself doing it and did not fix it. The hand on his head slowed. Ragatha's fingers dragged once through the fur between his ears, then stopped there. Her breathing evened out above him.

Jax waited.

His eyes stayed closed. His ears stayed down. His tail gave one faint sweep beneath the blanket, more tired than excited now. Ragatha's arm across his chest rose and fell with her breathing, and every time she exhaled, her hand shifted a little against his fur.

He waited another minute.

Then another.

Ragatha's chin rested lightly on top of his head. His own body had stopped guarding the exits. That should have scared him awake. Instead… his breathing matched hers. The last clear thing he felt was Ragatha's hand sliding from the top of his head to curl loosely near one flopped ear, heavy and still.

Ragatha was supposed to fall asleep first.

Jax did.