Abstraction (Jax x Reader)

4: 988 Hotline Number

Everyone sat down for lunch, Y/n just stared off into the distance, almost like the 1000 yard stare. Jax sat loudly into the chair across from her.

"You're quieter than usual."

Y/n shot him a look.

"Oh right." Jax's cheshire grin gotten bigger.

Ragatha sat down beside of her, whispering, "Are you okay? Kinger told me you asked him a lot of questions about abstracting."

Y/n quickly dismissed it by giving Ragatha a thumbs up.

"Abstracting? Why the h€|| are you asking about that?" His eyebrows furrowed.

Y/n's eyes widened then quickly relaxed them, then shrugging.

"I think she's just curious and wants to learn about it. I think everyone should know about it to prevent them from going crazy!" She exclaimed.

Zooble chimed in with a hint of sarcasm in her voice, "Are you going to be a 988 call now?"

"Well..no but that does give me an idea!"

Caine floated to the table, "Enough of this 988 call and abstraction, let's just eat!" His voice was enthusiastic.

Pomni started freaking out again, holding onto her hat.

"Uh oh! Do you need to go to the padded room again!" Caine floated to her, the girl shook her head slowly and looked down.

"Since everyone keeps talking about abstracting, you guys have to perform your own acts tonight before dinner! So between now and then, go practice! It'll keep you sane!" Caine winked before disappearing.

"How is Y/n gonna perform?" Kinger asked.

"Mime." Jax replied, looking over at her. Y/n rolled her eyes.

"That's all you do huh?" He chuckled.

"That's the only thing she can do, Jax." Zooble hissed.

"Yeah, yeah whatever. I'm going to practice my act." Jax put quotation marks around "act", meaning he's not going to practice it and just wing it on stage.

Minutes later everyone started coming up with ideas for their acts. Kinger was thinking about singing opera, Ragatha was going to dance, Gangle was going to say that Hamlet monologue, "To be or not to be," and Zooble and Pomni didn't know what they were going to do. Zooble flat out didn't want to do it, Pomni was too stressed out to do anything. Jax was just staring at everyone making a fool of themselves (his exact words).

However his eyes gazed at Y/n. She was sitting alone in a dark corner (shocker to find because everything is so bright). Y/n brought her knees to her chest, although her eyes was open she didn't look like she was staring at anything. She gotten some form of flashback to where pre-digital circus she was sitting in a corner, and hearing people yelling and screaming at each other. At that moment, she was thankful that she escaped her old environment, but she will never escape her mind, unless she abstracts.

That's when it hit her, she can succeed if she knows that no one will be looking for her. She'll volunteer to be the first act, and so after she can *attempt* to abstract while everyone is too busy watching the show.

Jax kept watching her, he thought it was strange that she's the only human that didn't freak out within the first 5 minutes of them arriving. He never saw a person be so quiet and act "normal." Sure, she can't talk, or make noise, but even him noticing that she is acting fine about this whole thing so fast is unusual. To his knowledge, she accepted it so fast, and it's true, but he doesn't know why.