Chapter Text
It was dark underneath the tent they had constructed inside of the main circus tent, just the way they liked it.
Kinger was right; it kept them calm.
Pomni walked towards it him, keeping an eye on the large abstracted mass seemingly slumbering, curled into a ball, its many eyes nearly closed.
How cat-like… How fitting for him
The rest of the humans followed her, and Caine walked right by her side, gently resting his hand on the… on Jax when they got close enough.
Caine cleared his throat. “So… You think you almost got through to him?”
“I think so,” Pomni replied, “I think the only thing that stopped it from working was the fact that… He thought of himself as a lost cause.”
Ragatha nodded in agreement. “It definitely seemed like he gave up in a few different ways, once… Once Ribbit was gone…”
“Yeah. And like I said, I actually saw some of those memories when I was trying to break in. I think…” Pomni took Ragatha and Kinger’s hands. “I think we can do it if we work together, especially you two.” She looked over to Gangle and Zooble, who had circled around to the right. “I know it’s not going to be easy for you guys, and I don’t blame you for that one bit. But I’m really grateful you agreed to help us give it a try.”
Gangle took one of Zooble’s hands, and Zooble wrapped their bottom arm on the same side around her waist. “I… I won’t lie, I’ve been focusing more on—if we can get this to work, we can get the others back, too. Especially Kaufmo.”
“Right,” Pomni agreed. “We’ll work backwards. That way, everyone will have more faces they recognize. I’ve got a theory that it’ll work better that way.”
Caine lifted both of his hands up, keeping Jax still. “I may not be able to differentiate the rest of the abstracted anymore. I used to, but…”
“It’s okay,” Kinger said, pushing his bucket helmet up to show both of his eyes. “Trial and error is the key to a lot of things. We’ll figure it out.”
Pomni slowly inhaled, exhaled, and let go of Ragatha and Kinger. She slowly hovered her hands over abstracted Jax’s body. “I’m gonna go first. I don’t think I’ll be able to communicate with you guys when I get in, so…”
“How about we go in together,” Ragatha suggested, “and everyone else follow a minute or two after?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Zooble said. “How about Kinger next, then Gangle and I? Like you said, familiar faces.”
“Definitely,” Pomni agreed.
“I don’t… I don’t know if he’ll want to see me,” Caine said, “but I can stay out here and keep things stable. I really don’t want to lose you guys, so if anything starts to go wrong, if-if you guys start glitching too badly, I’ll pull you off.”
“Thanks, Caine.” Pomni smiled at him, then turned back to Jax. She grabbed Ragatha’s hand again, and the two ladies both wrapped their arms around the abstracted form.
Somehow, the tent seemed to grow even darker around both of them. Pomni thought she was falling asleep or unconscious, her vision deepening to blackness. After a few minutes, she could see again. They were standing next to a tall streetlamp, their hands still clasped together.
Pomni squinted in the darkness ahead of her, then peered over her shoulder. “There.”
The two swung around, seeing, in the distance, Jax. Sitting on the ground, curled up in a ball, his head between his legs. He was still.
“Slowly. I don’t know if he’ll freak out and run,” Pomni whispered, and she and Ragatha crept towards him.
When they were mere feet away, they froze as Jax rose to his feet, still facing away.
“You’re back? Are you kidding me?” He barely had the chance to move his legs before Pomni had wrapped her body around him, clinging to his legs.
“Yes, we’re back for you! Of course we are!”
“Get off!” He tried to shake her off of him, raising a hand to shove her head, but his arm was intercepted by Ragatha, grabbing it and pulling him into a tight hug. “Wha- You too? Why are you even here, ragdoll? Didn’t want your crush running away and leaving you at the altar?”
“Jax, please listen to me, for the first time in years!” Ragatha cried, tightening her grip further and pressing the back of her head against his squirming shoulder. “We didn’t want this to happen to you! No matter what! We just wanted the old you back-”
“Oh, boo hoo, Jax is mean now so nobody likes him anymore!” He kept writhing, trying to shake Pomni and Ragatha off of him. “Well guess what, nobody has ever really liked me! I’ve always been like this on the inside!”
“That’s bullshit!” Ragatha yelled. “I’ve been here since your first day! We used to be friends, and I know what you used to be like! There are so many bad things we’ve all done and forgiven each other for, we can still make amends!”
He kept trying to get away, managing a few steps forward. “No, we can’t—”
“Yes, we can.” Kinger’s calm voice cut through the void like a knife, one hand resting on Jax’s shoulders as he circled around to face the rabbit.
“Fuck off!” The world around them glitched and turned to static for a few seconds, before going back to normal.
Kinger clamped his other hand over Jax’s mouth. “Come now. It’s not too late. It’s never too late. There’s still hope.”
Jax’s response was muffled, but sounded to Pomni like “I’ll kill all of you.”
“Stop that.” Zooble’s voice rang out from behind and their body pressed against both Ragatha and Pomni’s backs, many elongated arms wrapping around all four, pulling them even closer. “Guess what, even I’m willing to forgive you if you just play nice from now on. Stop throwing a temper tantrum and let us be your friends.”
“Yeah, it’s not too late for us to be actual friends,” Pomni added. Her head started to spin, and the void seemed to be tilting to one side. “I gave you a chance, so many chances, for a good reason.”
Jax was thrashing even harder now, but his efforts were thoroughly dulled by everyone else hugging him, Kinger’s hand stuck to his mouth and preventing him from arguing beyond muffled yelling.
“Still gonna make this hard on us, are you?” Zooble said, pressing their head against Jax’s to keep him from bashing their and Ragatha’s skulls. “How about I go through everything I’m willing to forgive you for if you just try to make amends?”
A loud “No” managed to come through his gagged mouth. The world lurched again, a few multicolored eyes opening in the distance and staring directly at everyone.
“What about if I did it?” Gangle’s voice was soft, unstable; but her grip was firm, ribbon arms snaking through from between Kinger and Ragatha to wrap around Jax’s shoulders and head. “What about if I told you I could accept an apology for every time you’ve broken my comedy mask?”
Jax finally froze, confused. He jerked his head to the side as much as he could.
“I think we’ve got more in common than you’d like to admit,” Gangle went on. “It might take time, but I think being friends with you could be pretty nice.”
“We could get along again if you just wanted to try,” Ragatha said, her hand resting on his chest.
“We could start to get along. You and I,” Zooble added.
“We could have fun again,” Pomni said, reaching up to the arm that Ragatha was hanging to. “As long as we’re not hurting anyone for real.”
Jax was shaking again, but this time, he wasn’t trying to shake the rest of them off of him. He made a small, pained noise like a whimper, his eyes watering.
Kinger lifted his hand off of Jax’s face. “Jax—”
“All of you shut up.” More eyes staring from everywhere, in overwhelmingly bright red and blues and yellows; painfully neon oranges and greens and purples and pinks.
“How about I go first?” Zooble said. “I’m sorry about the maid outfit. I should’ve known better, more than anyone else.”
“So am I,” Gangle said. “I… Didn’t think anything more of it at the time. I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” Jax’s voice was trembling, and Kinger wiped tears from his eyes. “Don’t pretend like it’s all magically fine now.”
“I meant it when I said I was sorry for accusing you of being responsible for other people abstracting,” Pomni said. “I didn’t consider how many people you must’ve loved and lost before I came along. It wasn’t fair of me.”
“Jax, I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to her more before she abstracted, too. It’s partly my fault we lost Ribbit,” Ragatha said.
“Don’t you fucking speak her name,” Jax hissed at her, his body glitching and turning to static for a split second.
“She wouldn’t want this for you, or for you to act like this, and you know it. And neither would Kaufmo.”
“You don’t know a single goddamn thing!”
Ragatha continued, “I was an only child. I grew up feeling so alone. And when you came along… I felt like I’d gained a family member. A sibling. A mischievous little brother who loved to play pranks and mess around with me. It-it was great,” Ragatha was tearing up herself.
“You don’t need to care,” Jax spat, “you never have.”
“But we still do,” Pomni said.
“It’s all we can do,” Kinger added, “be here for each other. What else do we have?”
“Shut up,” Jax whined, barely holding back a sob. “All of you just… Shut up. Leave me. If you actually fucking care, about me or the way I feel, then let me just fucking die in peace already!”
“No!” Pomni insisted. “Absolutely not. We’re not leaving you all on your own anymore.”
“You don’t have to be alone,” Kinger said. “You never have.”
“You weren’t, once,” Ragatha said, “we can go back to being happy together.”
“Sh-Shut up…” Jax broke down sobbing, resulting in everyone pulling him even tighter, an inescapable vice grip. “I’m not worth saving, and I never have been. I should’ve died before I ever ended up here. I should’ve driven right into a fucking lake or jumped in front of a semi or something when I still had the chance!”
“Don’t say that—” Gangle started.
“You all hate me. You all should.”
The eyes surrounding them blinked, sending the void into a few flips of disorienting static again.
“No we don’t,” Gangle replied shakily, “We don’t have to.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Zooble added, “and if we can make this work, we can bring the others back too. You miss them, don’t you?”
“Jax, we love you,” Ragatha said, burying her face in his shoulder.
Pomni squeezed her eyes shut. “Jax, it’s not too late to come back home.”
“You don’t know that,” he sputtered. “That’s—that isn’t even possible anymore!”
“Not that home and that woman. Our home. You’re one of us, and you always will be,” Pomni was clinging to him for dear life, afraid he’d disappear and this one last chance would be forever lost.
“You don’t have to suffer all alone again, Jax. Please, just let us support you,” Ragatha said, rubbing the top of his head. “We’ll stay by your side for the rest of our lives.”
“Jax, please listen to us,” Kinger said, “It’ll be okay. We will make it okay.”
“We can fix this, all of this,” Zooble said. “All you need to do is be honest with us.”
“Just be honest and nice with us,” Gangle added, “let yourself be a person again. You’re human. We’re still human. We all make mistakes.”
“And what matters most is, we learn and grow from them,” Pomni finished Gangle’s thought.
Jax wrenched his one arm free—and hugged them back.
The variegated eyes closed, bathing the group in pitch black once more.
Falling.
Falling, falling, falling, eternally downwards; he had been falling for weeks, months, years, and he was still gaining speed, still shrouded in nothingness.
If he closed his eyes, the memories would haunt him again.
Yelling at his mother.
Accidentally telling her something he always kept to himself, knowing he’d be ridiculed.
Getting laughed at.
Getting a hug.
Pushing her away.
Pushing her off.
Pushing her down.
Watching her hit her head.
Falling to the ground, grabbing her shoulders, shaking her. Feeling like a child again, shaking his Mommy awake on the Sunday mornings she overslept, so his Daddy wouldn’t be pissed they were late for church.
“Mommy, wake up. It’s time to wake up.”
Please wake up.
Running to his room, packing a bag, grabbing his keys, slamming the door behind him.
Sometimes, instead of Mom, it was Ribbit. Or less often, Ragatha. Or, more often, Pomni.
Shove.
Fall.
Thump.
They’d actually split their heads open. Sometimes blood was spilled. Sometimes it was static. Sometimes it was blackness festering with eyes staring at him in nauseatingly bright hues.
You never should have said that.
You never should have done that.
You are a monster.
Occasionally, he’d see something else entirely: the others taking glee in his death at last.
Gangle manipulating his body on the main stage like a marionnette, dressed up in frilly magical girl costumes, tossing him against the floor and walls.
Ragatha peeling the purple skin off of his body, exposing the yellow underneath, then stitching him back together incorrectly; stretching his hands over his feet and sewing his ears down over his mouth and eyes.
Pomni tying him up in a chair, in a dark, empty room, with only a dim spotlight from above illuminating his existence, then shooting him from every angle, never running out of bullets.
Zooble’s arms reaching from every direction and grabbing his arms, legs, and ears; stretching his body until they popped and dislocated and eventually disconnected, leaving only his torso and head, taking his limbs for themselves as replacement parts.
Zooble spraypainting a giant red X over the icon on his door.
Gangle gleefully painting a giant skull on his wall, cackling like a maniac the entire time.
Pomni tearing the precious photographs off of his wall and burning them in a pile in the middle of his room.
Ragatha smashing all of his furniture to pieces with a softball bat.
Kinger was never involved in these nightmares. Kinger was a nutjob, a man who’d lost his mind in the circus years ago, a warning to all who were stuck as long as he was that there was no future. Kinger was simply there. So, in Jax’s worst fantasies, he simply wasn’t there. The old geezer was effectively already gone.
Just like someone else he knew.
Sometimes… Sometimes it was Kaufmo and Ribbit.
Calling to him from the void, taunting him for not being strong enough, making fun of him for giving up, telling him they were happy he was finally dead.
Jax was happy he was finally dead too.
He should’ve done it years ago.
He should’ve driven off a bridge, or taken a knife to his veins, or swallowed every pain pill in the house, or drank until he couldn’t feel his heart ache, or climb the tallest building he could find and jump, or simply taken one of his Mom’s belts and tied it so tightly around his neck that he couldn’t breathe, or stolen the handgun she kept hidden in her nightstand and played a game of Russian roulette with it until the single bullet was spent.
But he was too scared.
No, he was just so much of a coward that he could never bring himself to die.
Instead, he had finally simply given up.
It hurt.
It hurt so much.
Everything hurt so much.
He had heard that death was peaceful, and calm, even if Heaven wasn’t real.
That was a lie.
His body ached from head to toe, but the worst was buried in his chest.
He didn’t have a heart anymore, but somehow it was broken, shattered; he almost wished he could rip his chest open if it would ease the pain, if it weren’t for the fact that he knew he deserved to suffer.
There were hands.
Hands below, belonging to a clown and a frog, holding tightly to his limbs and dragging him down to Hell with them.
Hands above, offering support, offering understanding, offering help; two hands covered in red and blue gloves, two made of burlap and stuffed with cotton, reaching for him, asking him to come back, saying they wanted to start over.
He’d opted to let the hands below consume him.
Until finally, more hands joined the others.
White gloves.
An army of limbs in a variety of shapes, lengths, colors, and patterns.
And, for some reason, red ribbons.
These new hands managed to take hold of his body, pulling him up with all their might.
He didn’t move much.
He didn’t want to.
Until finally, their voices broke through the many walls in his mind.
Maybe it’s worth another shot.