Chapter Text
Does This Do Something for You? | Exposition
There are two things in the circus that make Jax feel good: sex with Pomni and this.
Things were… bad… with Pomni for a while, especially after his little monologue during the whole ‘gun each other down for the sake of camaraderie’ adventure. And the self-isolation that occurred after. And the immediate meltdown of their lord and savior. Things were bad in general. To say their menial little lives were a tad stressful would be the understatement of the century. Submitting to the constant fancies of an overgrown, godlike toddler will turn a few hairs gray, so in a time where nothing was going right, they needed something to feel good.
So they do that for each other. Make each other feel good.
Like a trochilus picking the teeth of a crocodile, like a clownfish nesting within an anemone, they developed this bizarre symbiotic relationship. She holds him and talks to him and provides the emotional comfort he’s been starved of for years, and he rails her into the mattress until the scribbles leave her eyes. It’s mutualism. It’s science. It’s not his fault that their stress relief turned a little more… carnal. They both get a need routinely fulfilled and all it cost was an apology. A genuine apology.
Hefty price.
Besides a benign and quick ‘sorry’ for a small infraction, Jax does NOT dole out apologies to just anyone. No sir, not him. Only the TRULY deserving get the full sapped-and-sniveling show. Someone he has REALLY wronged. And Pomni got front row seats. She deserved it.
He doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve Pomni. She disagrees, but he’s trying to get over that part.
See, that’s the worst thing about all this. Not only can he not escape the circus, he can’t even escape his damn self. Pomni’s a saint, a god. damned. SAINT for putting up with his bullshit. Not even Jax can do that. Some days, most days, he can’t stand himself or the things he's done. Pomni doesn’t hold it against him, though. She doesn’t tolerate it either. She’ll put him in his place good and well, but she doesn’t stew in resentment. To her, when all you have is each other, it’s just not worth holding onto grudges.
Lucky him.
God, he hasn’t felt this close to somebody since–
The sex part wasn't an immediate reward for apologizing. No. That’d be gross. The sex part came later after some will-they-won't-they formalities and other forms of friendly comforts. They are, above all else, –ugh– friends, after all. But, in the spirit of camaraderie, he will happily feed the more corporeal needs of his companion. He’ll do whatever she wants. It’s only fair as she selflessly feeds the needy parts of him.
But as he ushers her out the door after the consummation of yet another satisfactory meal, he can’t help but still feel a little… hungry.
There are two things in the circus that make Jax feel good: sex with Pomni and this.
Sex with Pomni is good. Great. Fantastic, even. But as he slips out of his overalls and into the electric pink, silk blend dress, the one he stole from Gangle’s stupid anime magical girl transformation adventure, the one with the little heart cut out in the center just like the maid dress he simply adores, he couldn’t help but feel a little more… whole. And as he rolls up the striped red and green stockings he kept from his stint as an elf in some Santa’s-Li’l-Helper adventure, he couldn’t help but feel a little more… entire. And as he pulls on a pair of black, lacy panties he ‘bought’ during a shopping spree, and as he fixes one of the spare bows of his beloved frog to the base of his ear, he couldn't help but feel a little more… put together. Like a cake that is iced.
It was ugly and it didn’t match, but if he closed his eyes, he could imagine anything he wanted.
He did this little ritual (after kissing Pomni good night) nearly every time they had sex. It made his completion feel more… finished.
It felt good.
It felt like his.
It was his.
Pomni was his.
And he’s never really been one to share.
There are two things in the circus that make Jax feel good and should never, EVER cross paths: sex with Pomni and this.
But two catastrophic events happened that night: Pomni returned to retrieve something forgotten in Jax’s room, and Jax forgot to lock his door.
“Sorry, Jax, I–” Pomni freezes midstep in his doorway, hand still grasped around his doorknob, at the sight of Jax dressed in his feminine medley.
“What’re you doing?”
Perched in front of a well-lit vanity, about a dozen bare light bulbs illuminate his semi-painted face. Turned slightly in the mirror, he drags the tip of an eyeliner across his lashline, ending in a wing, pointed and precise. With the pad of an ungloved finger, he blends a bit of purple eyeshadow, dark enough to count but subtle enough to be deniable if anyone were to question him. He leans back in his chair, checking for any colored powder sitting out of line. “What does it look like I’m doing?” He says, tapping the ink into the tip of the cosmetic pen. “If I don’t look the part, Caine’s going to kill me. Probably literally,” he lies, sliding the eyeliner over the next lashline.
In reality, Caine couldn’t give two shits about the makeup, so long as their kicks were on. time. and in. line.
Pomni watches him methodically complete yet another immaculate wing. He’s right, to some degree, Caine has been intent on perfecting his favorite part of The Big Musical Number, forcing them to perform step after step, kick after kick, until it was nothing short of flawless. And he does demand they look the part, scantily clad in gold sequined bodysuits, matching heels and feathers, leaving hardly anything to the imagination.
Funny, though. No one else is wearing makeup.
Pomni stands there, silently watching him sweep mascara across his sometimes existent (if their funny little world calls for it) eyelashes. He blinks a few times, drying the black ink and ensuring there isn’t even one remnant of a smudge, before giving the brush a few pumps in the tube to apply to his next eye.
“...we’re on in ten.” Pomni says simply, turning on her heel and leaving him alone to finish up in the backstage dressing room.
With a smooth and careful flick of the wrist, he coats the second set of lashes, blinking rapidly to dry them, too. He stares at his reflection in the mirror. His eyeliner, stabbing, knifelike, makes his eyes look bigger, rounder, softer. The rouge stippled high on his cheeks softens his features, not that he really had much sharpness about him to begin with. He looks wide-eyed and innocent. Soft, effeminate, beauti–
Brusquely he stands, kicking his chair away from the vanity and away from him. Using the top of one heeled foot, he drags Pomni’s step stool over to his station. With a quick glance to the door to ensure no one is coming, he climbs up on top, his whole body visible in the mirror, from the tips of his ears to the bottoms of his heels. He twists, admiring his profile. The plunging back of the bodysuit starts just above his waggling tail, leaving an opening to view, in full, the long divot that follows where his spine would be (if he had one). The bustier of the sparkling bodysuit leaves his shoulders bare, clinging to his body by sheer willpower alone, having neither straps nor flesh to hold it up. His eyes follow the length of his bare-up-to-the-hip legs, wandering from the topline of his heel to the leg cut out of his showgirl uniform, heart skipping a beat at the amount of exposed skin on display. He smoothes his hands against the long expanse of his stomach, flipping and straightening the sequins in their path. Using the shape of the costume, he can almost imagine slight curves instead of a flat, noodle-like body.
Small and private, he smiles to himself. In between all of the torturous adventures, the mean-spirited nicknames, the childish tantrums, it felt nice to have something… nice.
Pomni closes his bedroom door behind her, her gloved knuckles over his doorknob digging into her back. “Are you, like, into this?”
The worst day of his life– scratch that, the second worst day of his life– no, scratch that– Okay, so he’s definitely had worser days but this one’s pretty up there, started out with him in a wet and wild deep sea adventure and ended with him in that damned maid outfit. Being subjected to one of Ragatha’s stupid suggestions was bad enough, but Gangle? crybaby Gangle? putting him in some frilly little number is about as humiliating as it can get. They all played it off like it was some sort of cheap joke, so that’s what he did, too. He ignored the hot tingles of embarrassment crawling across the surface of his skin. He ignored the catty sniggering of the losers around him. He ignored the bodice cinched snugly around his waist and the stockings clinging to him just above his knees. That’s what he did. Ignored.
But later? After his walk with Pomni to show her what he promised to show her? After everyone else had dispersed for the night?
He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the way the dress swished around him, the silky polyester, airy yet with a bit of weight to it, brushing against his fuzz. He couldn’t stop thinking about the white frills tickling his thighs or the matching stockings cutting into them, if they were just a little bit longer and a little bit tighter. He couldn’t stop thinking about the heart cut out, right in the center where his real cartoony heart would be (if he had one), and the exposure that came with it, shivers running down his spine at the thought of an artificial breeze licking his chest. He couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid little hat that sat atop his head, turning the whole thing from some chintzy, dollar store costume into a full ensemble. Nothing, nothing, else made him as hot under his cute, white, pointed collar.
He touched himself later that night to those thoughts, running a bolt of lace trim he lifted from Ragatha’s stash of sewing supplies across his thighs, trying to recreate the feeling.
It felt good.
Really good.
But it didn’t feel the same.
“Does this… do something for you?”
Obviously it does, OBVIOUSLY it does, if it’s any indicator by the absolute tent being pitched under his skirt. He’s not sure what it does, but it does something. It feels good to wear the dress, like finding a glove that fits just right in the dead of winter. It feels good, exhilarating even, to wear the garter he caught at Abel and Mabel’s wedding in secret underneath his overalls. It feels good to relieve himself after a rendezvous with Pomni, wailing his muffled vocalizations into his pillow until makeup streaked down his face, and if it didn’t streak, he’d streak it his damned self. It feels good. Right. And living in a shithole circus with a jackass’s personality for a fuckton of time, good and right are hard to come by.
But this? Her knowing? Bad.
VERY bad.
Pomni stands there, awkwardly shuffling her feet, waiting for him to answer one of any of her questions. He oh-so-desperately wants to say something biting, vicious, MEAN to HURL her off his case, but instead he says something worse.
Nothing.
Underneath the tasteful amount of blush patted high onto his cheeks, he pales. The eyeliner he swiped off of the showgirl vanity bends, but doesn’t snap, in his tightly clenched fist.
“Jax?” Pomni gently prods.
Hot, stinging tears spring forth, threatening to prematurely ruin his half-done makeup. She’s gonna laugh, he waits for her to act on cue. She’s GOING TO laugh. He finds himself unable to tear his eyes away from hers, making this whole ‘being caught’ thing just that much more degrading. She can physically see the humiliation pooling in his eyes and starting to stream down his cheeks; he can feel it. Like an F1 on a hamster’s wheel, his thoughts race nowhere, not one notion distinct from the next as they all blur into one, singular, distressed feeling.
“Ja–?”
“Get out.” He whispers, hot and watery, strained and pathetic, the only movement from him being the trembling in his fists.
“Okay,” Pomni replies softly, turning to leave. “But if you ever want to do something with that, just ask,” she carefully throws over her shoulder as she exits.
Jax stands there for a moment, numb, the weight of it, of her, barrelling into him like a freight train and he’s tied to the track.
And then it hits him.
She knows.
He furiously chucks the eyeliner clutched in his hand against the mirror, black splatters sullying his reflection. He falls to his knees, yanking the edge of his skirt to the floor, knuckles digging into the pile of his carpet. Tears fall from his scribbly eyes, chest heaving, panting through the staticky buzz radiating through his body. The wettest of sobs vaults from his throat.
She knows.
Nobody else was supposed to know. This was his thing, ONLY his. It didn’t belong to anybody else. He doesn’t share THIS with anyone.
Just like Pomni doesn’t share him with anyone.
Nobody else knows about their little arrangement. Nobody else knows about his little arrangement. He’s her dirty little secret just as much as this is his. And out of anyone in the circus, Pomni would know best to keep her mouth shut…
Jax sniffles, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. She could have laughed. She could have pointed. She could have called for everyone to come take a look at the freak, but she didn’t. She was kind, incredibly kind, much kinder than he’s ever been in his entire life. Mortification subsiding, her departing words ring through his skull, just ask. It leaves him the teeniest, tiniest sliver of–
He snuffs out that flicker of light with a wet, angry blanket.
There are two things in the circus that make Jax feel good and should never, EVER cross paths: sex with Pomni and this.
Well, it’s too late now. The tide has turned and it turned red.
He blends what’s left of his tear-stained war paint with the edge of his fist, wraps a blanket around his combat uniform, and marches into the hall, snatching his blunted eyeliner on his way out into the field. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to do, but he’s going to do something. She found out and now he’s about to 100% make this her problem.