Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Jax is floating.

At least, he thinks he is.

The passage of time here is weird. 

It’s the sensation of when he’s already woken up but his eyes remain closed–between the onset of being alert and being unconscious. In a similar way, it’s the same feeling he gets when he’s seven years old in the public swimming pool, holding his breath as he floats upside down to try tricking his mother that he’s dead.

He tries to speak but finds that he cannot. He has no mouth. 

Startled, Jax tries to touch the location of where his mouth should be but finds that he can’t, seeing as he has no hands to touch with. It’s fine, he can’t be bothered to speak nor scream, anyway. 

It’s not grim realization, but rather resigned acceptance that helps him comprehend his lack of a body. Jax tries to think of a time when he did have one. To think that he has always been nothing more than a formless blob in the void of space would be unthinkable, right? There must’ve been a time when he could run and walk and talk and yell. 

Jax tries hard to imagine such a time but it feels like his hands are plastic spoons and he’s wading through thick jell-o.

Jell-o.

A particular memory comes to mind. 

He sees it play out real-time–a small, skinny boy with messy hair and distressed jeans sneaking into the public pool at night with four other faceless people. If he tried a bit harder, maybe he could’ve remembered their names, but it takes too much energy, so he settles for the rough outlines of their bodies instead.

Five young boys carry four packets of gelatin each, while one also carries a large spoon. Jax watches as they tear open each packet with their teeth, dumping all of its contents at once into the pool. One of the faceless figures stir the water and they all break out into excited chatter as they wait for something that will never happen.

For a second, Jax considers scaring them. Let them know that what they’re doing is fucking useless. They spent about fifteen dollars for twenty packets of wasted powder and now all they’ll get is the night guard catching them and throwing them in the juvenile center. 

A second later, Jax sees it play out. The kids, ranging from around eight to ten years old, scramble as the guard is alerted from all the clamor. The balding man tries in vain to grab any of the kids by the scruffs of their shirts but misses. The lanky boy, the only one with a face he could see, slips by the edge of the pool and goes plummeting down to the cold water. All of the other kids scurry out of the area, none willing to go back and save the fallen one. 

The guard is too old and fat to dive into the pool late at night. He can do nothing but scream as the boy desperately tries to claw to the surface. There’s a tightening feeling where Jax’s chest is supposed to be and he realizes he’s not breathing. When the boy’s hand breaches the surface of the water and takes a greedy gulp of air, Jax inhales with him.

He is then dragged to the side of the pool by the guard and coughs out water several times, before the man deems him conscious enough and drags him off to the police station.

Jax has a feeling that he won’t like the rest of what he’s watching, so he skips through it quickly. The kid’s mother arrives at the detainment center, the boy keeps his eyes stubbornly on the ground, he gets interrogated to name dropping the other four boys with him and he refuses. 

The authorities are adamant.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Mateo, we are not allowed to let him go unless he tells us the names of his accomplices. They may be kids but they still trespassed private property! They must be disciplined or else we risk our youth being corrupted!

I’m sorry, officer. But it wasn’t private property, was it? It was the public pool–

Ma’am. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. 

Suddenly, Jax feels more tangible than he has ever been in a while. He blinks, staring at scruffed shoes that are two sizes too big for him, and switches his gaze to the woman he knows is his mother.

Fatigue weighs on her shoulders and her eyes are blank. Her hair is a mess and her lips don’t even have any rouge to them. She never goes outside without lipstick. 

Jax is terrified to go home. He knows home should be a warm place to stay and be cozy in, but he has never really known what those feel. All he knows is that he has a messy house with flickering lights and the occasional breakfast. That didn’t sound like a home to him.

Leeroy, the woman speaks, and Jax jerks at the name he hasn’t heard for a long time, but undoubtedly knows it’s his. Tell the nice men the names of your friends, sweetie. After this, we can go to Waffle House. You like waffles, don’t you, honey?

Waffles. 

His mouth begins to salivate. It’s been a while since he had a warm meal not out of a takeout box.

Jax’s mouth moves on its own and he can’t muster up the energy to resist. Denial, denial, and even more denial. 

His mother leans down, eyes sharp and voice like syrup. Tell them your friends’ names, honey. Nothing bad will happen to them, right, officers?

Jax can’t tear his eyes away as his mother’s own eyes, which mirror his own, keeps her gaze steady and mumbles out the names of the four neighborhood kids known to cause a ruckus. 

The policemen nod and they send them on their way.

Jax tries to skip the rest of the scene, too ashamed of what comes next, but he’s powerless as his mother sits across from him in a booth at the promised diner. 

They order quickly and he imagines the sweet taste of waffles in his mouth when his mother suddenly grasps both of his hands and leans forward. 

Leeroy, darling, you know I always tell you to stay out of trouble.

He squirms in his seat, unable to tug his hands back to his body. I’m sorry, mom. It won’t happen again.

Oh, but it has happened again. Last week, you were caught sleeping in class.

It’s because his mother was too busy screaming on the phone with his estranged father the night before. Their walls were thin and no amount of pillows over his face would mask the cacophony of their lovelessness. 

I’m sorry, mom.

Sorry’s not good enough.

Her hands tighten and he whimpers in pain. Her eyes flash intensely at the sound.

What was that sound you made, Leeroy? Her hands grow impossibly tighter and he bites his bottom lip. Are you in pain? Then, in a saccharine sweet whisper: Aren’t you supposed to be a man?

He doesn’t answer. Just merely stares straight ahead. She’ll stop soon. 

Jax blinks and the memory fades away, and he suddenly feels like he can breathe despite returning back to being formless in the void. 

More memories come and go but he doesn’t stay too long. Most of them make him feel cold. A lot of them make him feel like standing at the edge of a cliff and staring down at the abyss. 

And then, like a firework, his memories become colorful. Jax tries to wave his hand through the color but it passes through his fingertips. He becomes tangible yet again but when he presses a palm onto his chest, he can’t feel a heartbeat. He’s breathing but he can’t feel the passage of air through his nose.

He looks down and sees two gloved hands connected to purple limbs and pink overalls. Jax screams in fear as he sees a bombardment of colors approach him. He still cannot create the correct outlines and solid figures, but he has a nagging feeling that these people somehow know him. 

The memories merge into an arbitrary collage in vibrant color, like seeing the stained glass in a chapel. Two specks of green and yellow spark warmth into his body and he leans into it unconsciously.

Jax had always been deprived of warmth.

His face moves on its own and then he laughs, thinking that this must be the concept of home, surrounded by the colors of leaves changing in autumn. Green and yellow. Yellow and green.

He dreams of hot chocolate and the stars, of whispered promises and inside jokes.

And right as he’s starting to finally feel his coiled-up body loosen, the warmth is removed and replaced by the cold, harsh winter. 

It remains winter for a long time.

Slowly, Jax learns to bear its cruelty. His ribcage is filled with icy stalactites that reflect on his sharp grins and fast remarks. It’s so, so painful to move and breathe–the winter has thoroughly removed any warmth from the joy that dared to linger. He familiarizes with the feeling and tells himself that nothing will come after all of this frigidity. If he ever loses himself in the blizzard, his thoughts are of immediate surrender. Let himself be consumed. 

He doesn’t care anymore. 

Jax made the mistake of caring once, then twice. All he got was the biting cold. 

And then… spring.

Spring comes with blues and reds. Pinwheel eyes and pompoms at the ends of jester hats. 

Despite wading through a pool of memories just to even a semblance of a name, he knows this person. Their name doesn’t come to mind yet but he can see how they rise tentatively like the sun in winter. It sluggishly makes its presence known, as if figuring itself how to operate in this environment.

The sun can’t melt away all the snow in winter and it doesn’t try. All it does is provide light and Jax can’t help himself but tilt his face up and bask in the hues of reds beneath his eyelids.

The image starts to become clearer but her name still won’t form on his lips.

She is a crocus.

Jax remembered always looking forward to spring–when classes would resume and he’d finally get out of the stuffy environment of their house. After every winter break, he’d always get up extra early to watch the first sunrise from the school rooftop. It has become tradition to him and only him.

One day, he spied something by the grass on the school grounds. Most of the ice had melted, but there still remained piles of snow that were deemed hazardous. In the later morning, snow plowers will come, so he doesn’t end up caring too much. 

Squinting, he stared at the little sprout of purple that contrasted against the white of the snow.

He remembered rushing down, plucking it off the ground, and storing it carefully in one of his pencil holders until he got home. Thirteen-year-old Jax kept it by his window inside a small can and stared at it everyday. He never saw something so simple yet so serene before. It was beautiful. 

A crocus. 

The first flower that blooms after winter.

The pupils separate into reds and blues, twisting until it forms a sort of windmill, then expand into two big irises. They blink and he watches as the faceless figure transforms into… someone.

Jax opens his mouth but no words come out. He wants to call out her name. 

What was her name?

She tilts her head in confusion. Pinwheel eyes pinning his dark ones. Yet no words come out.

He feels himself turn back and walk away. 

Jax tries to scream. He doesn’t want to leave. His crocus is right there. Where was he going? 

There she was: the embodiment of sunshine and the first flower of spring. And he’d rather walk away because he himself still contains a blizzard, quieting then suddenly raging, and Jax decides that he’d never want this flower to be destroyed. He’d rather destroy himself. 

So he walks away and lets himself fall apart.

Jax doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at the lamppost. At the back of his mind, he knows: he is gone. 

Abstraction was always irreversible.

He can’t go yet. He’s waiting for something that he doesn’t know, but Jax knows that as much as the sand in the hourglass has run out, she will still come.

“I didn’t know you could play the piano.”

He freezes. She's here; his crocus. 

“I only know, like, two songs.”

Jax has nothing left to give. She knows all of it–his secrets and tragedy. Still, she remains. He feels so utterly spent–there’s nothing more left to hide. He has passed the autumn of Ribbit and Kaufmo, he braved the winters by himself, she became his spring, and now there’s nothing left except for the damning realization that he remains alone.

“Why are you here?” Jax spits out bitterly. His defenses have been utterly obliterated and all the shields have bullet holes on them. “You know everything now, so why are you here?” 

He can’t let go of her, but he can let go of himself. “Just to rub every mistake I’ve made in my face?”

Her footsteps grow steadier. Jax remains with his back to her, knowing that once he sees her, he’ll want nothing more than to–

“I’m a terrible person.” His mouth keeps running. Her footsteps do not falter, not even once. “Is that what you want me to say?”

His whole life, he had been nothing but a burden. Not good enough for his mom. Not man enough for his dad. He remembers the kids by the pool who he ratted out, stealing his backpack and beating him with every inch of his life. He remembers being nine years of age, bleeding from a cut on his head and left eye swollen shut, thinking that he should’ve taken the fall for his so-called friends. 

“I already know I am.” His father left him because it was Jax’s fault. It always was. “So why does anybody still care about me?” 

He thinks of his fifteenth birthday, when his mother cooked him spaghetti for the first time in years. He was so confused and worried where the money came from, but she smiled and told him it was a gift from God. He thinks of his music teacher who always insisted on his potential, and offered the choir practice room whenever he needed a break from home. 

Her footsteps get louder. “You’re not supposed to care.” Jax doesn't care that his tears are unwilling to stop.

He thinks of Ribbit and Kaufmo, of how they made the hell they were trapped in feel like a home, and how he pushed them all away because he had a home once and he remembered the feeling of it being ripped apart.

“You’re not supposed to miss me.” The sound of bells gets louder. 

“You’re not supposed to love me.” The soft-pitter patter of her footsteps gets progressively nearer.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.” 

She’s running to him and Jax wants nothing more than to collapse in her arms, to push her away and bring her near, to spit poisonous insults and kiss her lips, to mock her and ask her out on a date. 

“Please leave me alone.” All the anger and fight has left his body. 

Jax begs, “You’re making this so much harder.” His tears continue free-falling and his vision goes out of focus. 

He lurches forward as thin arms wrap around his legs. 

Jax knows her name and he mouths it. Maybe to say it as a prayer one last time or maybe just so he can remember the way it feels to say her name. There was a time when he used to take it for granted. Now, he’ll never be able to say it again.

Pomni is speaking but he can’t understand. His ears continue to ring and the chaos in his mind threatens to split him open. 

Jax has always been known as the selfish one in the circus. Thus, he allows himself a final selfish act.

He turns around and sinks to his knees, clutching his first flower of spring. 

He gulps to try to get his throat to work. There’s so many things he wants to tell her. He loves her silly jester costume and the way she accepts him for who he is. She never pried nor tried to force his heart open–he did it all on his own. She saw his wretched past and broken body and still wanted him to stay. And now she's here.

Pomni. His Pomni.

Jax wants nothing more than to admit how much she means to him. How much she made his life brighter in the circus.

I love you. “I hate you, you know that?”

His words don’t come out right but he doesn’t even know how. How can he ever tell someone he loved them when he never found out what love should’ve felt like?

“Always complicating things,” he mutters as he clings to her tighter. 

“It’s what I do,” Pomni replies brokenly, bringing him in closer. 

Jax knows. He knows all too well. This wasn’t real. This was his mind replaying the scene over and over again, trying to find a way to come back.

He inhales deeply for the first time and laughs wetly. In reality, he hyperventilated and abstracted to oblivion while she got pulled out. Jax lets the last emotion he ever feels is relief. 

Relief that she won’t be stuck in the void like him. His flower deserved to grow. He thought of the plucked crocus from the school grounds that he placed by his windowsill. It died after three days because he couldn’t water it. That was what he was good at, anyway. He was good at fucking up. 

“Pomni,” he mumbles against the poofy sleeve of her costume. “Pomni, Pomni.”

Distantly, he knows his time is up. But he still can’t help but cling tighter to this memory that has been haunted by ghosts of what could’ve been. 

I love you, he wants to scream but he can’t as he’s dragged away from the memory and back to the void. 

The adventures don’t really end up stopping.

Caine is adamant that coming up with adventures is still hard-wired into his code and it’s basically his purpose. Well, now, he admits, his newer purpose is to ensure that the circus feels like home for them. It was why he encouraged them to try submitting more ideas in the suggestion box.

As Pomni catches another dragonfly with her net, she muses that Kinger’s bug-catching adventure was entirely too detailed.

It seems that Caine enjoyed making adventures now. The last adventure they had was of a maid cafe, and he took Gangle’s suggestions seriously. The maid costume that they all wore once they manifested in the world, sans Kinger, made Pomni think of other things and so she opted out of it. 

Caine was very lenient and ushered her through a portal back to the circus. 

“How many bugs are we supposed to catch again?” Ragatha asks, sighing as she tucks a beetle from her net and into the jar they were all provided with.

“I think the first one to get thirty?” Zooble answers, half-heartedly swinging around the net. Her insect count in the jar remains empty. 

Gangle cowers behind from a nearby tree. “Sorry, guys,” she calls out, “I’ve never been really good with bugs. Just let me know when it’s over!”

Zooble rolls mismatched eyes affectionately. “I think I’m gonna join my girlfriend by the tree. Goodluck, you guys.” They stroll to where the masked girl is hiding, and she lights up when they take her hand and drag her off to a flowerfield. 

Ragatha looks at Pomni, insect jar flashing with the number 12. “How about you, Pomni? You still up for bug catching?”

“Umm,” Pomni hesitates, eyes darting around to Kinger peacefully cupping a bee with both hands. “You can go on ahead if you want to. I’ll hang out with Kinger.”

The doll nods and wanders off. Despite growing up on a farm, Ragatha admitted that most bugs tended to creep her out, not just centipedes. 

“Hey, Kinger,” the jester approaches him. He’s staring intensely at the bee on his gloved finger before blinking and acknowledging her with a kind smile.

“Hello there, Pomni,” he says gently. Kinger brings his hand closer to her face. “There’s a lot of bees in this field. Caine must really enjoy seeing them.”

Pomni observes the bee fondly. “I’m glad you’re having fun, Kinger.”

He hums, still staring intently at the small bee. “Destiny would’ve loved this, too. She always was more of an insect lover than I am.”

The jester looks around. Caine has certainly outdone himself with all the graphics. Bugs didn’t really excite Pomni but the flower field looks pretty enough to frolic in. Zooble and Gangle make themselves at home, with a conjured up picnic basket and blanket. The two wave them over and Pomni raises her arm back. 

She glances at Kinger. “Hey, wanna have a picnic with them?”

Kinger stares longingly at the other insects flying about. These days, he doesn’t need the bucket as much, already figuring out the way to remain lucid by editing his code and with Caine’s help. “No, thank you, Pomni. I think I want to catch a few more bugs before this adventure ends.”

Pomni nods in understanding before making her way to the two laying out sandwiches. Zooble holds one up for her and she takes it gratefully.

“Is Ragatha around?” Pomni asks before biting her sandwich. 

“I think she went back to the circus. She said she didn’t like bugs.” Gangle replies.

They enjoy their little picnic and welcome Kinger when he sits down next to them. The atmosphere is relaxed and filled with companionable silence with the occasional remarks. Pomni watches as the adventure turns to nighttime, and little fireflies start to pop out. It’s like being bathed in the stars.

“Pretty,” Gangle comments with her head on Zooble’s lap. She then turns to the rest of the members. “You guys wanna stay? I’m kind of thinking about going to bed now.”

Zooble shrugs. “I can leave.” They turn to look at Kinger. “How about you, Kinger? Do you wanna enjoy the bugs a bit more?”

The chess piece hums. “No. I think I collected enough. How about you, Pomni?”

The jester leans back on the blanket. “I think I’m gonna chill out here for a while. I’ll head back soon.” The three nod, murmur their goodbyes and goodnights, and step into the portal. 

Everything falls quiet and Pomni falls back on the blanket with arms splayed on her side. It’s during these moments that make her forget that she’s merely a combination of 0s and 1s. When she raises one red glove to the sky, the illusion shatters and she’s reminded of her insignificance.

Memories try to surface but she keeps a firm lid on them. She doesn’t want to keep thinking of her past life, not now. But the waves are insistent and so she groans loudly and flips herself over.

Pomni rolls off the blanket and onto the grass, huffing in surprise when flowers trickle her eyes. She sits up slowly and admires the beautiful collection of wildflowers. It seemed like Caine didn’t care much about realism; flowers of all kinds were in full bloom inside the digital field. 

The jester chuckles as she sits up and plucks a few of the flowers–white daisies and pastel pink roses. She clutches her haphazard bouquet in one hand while wading through the field and being on the lookout for anything else that grabs her attention. Every now and then, Pomni looks back to make sure the portal remains by the tree. 

Seeing the portal remains there, swirling and unblinking, Pomni yelps when she trips and tangles her legs as she goes down. Her arm remains outstretched to not crush her flowers. She groans as she rights herself up, sitting cross-legged. She blinks at the stars–no, not stars, but fireflies. They dance daintily around her flowers and float high up to the sky. 

Pomni starts to weave. She’d never been good at doing dextrous things before, but the circus has made her want to keep trying things. There’s a hazy memory of her eons ago being taught how to make flower crowns, but she ignores them for now. She tucks the stems together and braids them like how she used to braid her hair. 

She spies a few more flowers nearby so she scoops up some baby’s breaths to add to her little arrangement. A tiny purple flower catches her eyes and she thinks of him in the darkness inside a giant tent or him swimming idly in an aquarium.

Pomni plucks the flower slowly, gently, as if handling broken glass, and tucks it into the middle of her crown. It stands out even amongst the sea of vibrancy and she lets herself chuckle at the way it’s too stubborn to not let itself be unseen. 

She completes the flower crown and wishes her heart would stop breaking and mending and breaking again.

Pomni turns her eyes skywards. With the tears clouding her vision, there’s twice as many stars in the sky. 

The circus is quiet once Pomni steps in through the portal.

She gauges it must be around midnight now. Everyone was probably asleep by now. She stretches and is startled to realize that she’s still clutching the flower crown. Looks like Caine was really serious of letting them keep whatever they wanted.

Speaking of Caine…

The ringmaster sits slumped alone by the couch, hands clasped on his stomach as his eyes stare at the ceiling. He doesn’t appear to hear her step through the portal.

Pomni approaches him cautiously yet he continues to not acknowledge her. 

She clears her throat. Caine jumps in surprise before blinking both heterochromatic eyeballs. “Oh! Hello there, Pomni. I didn’t hear you come in.”

He snaps his fingers and the portal goes away. He then pats the seat next to him. “Would you like to join me?”

Pomni offers him a small smile before she sits down on the couch. It’s then that she realizes they’re sitting on Jax’s sofa, the long and purple one he ardently claimed was his months ago.

“What are you up to?” 

“Hmm?” Caine merely replies, as if already lost in thought. His eyes refocus. “Just some things.” He then boops her nose playfully–or at least, where her nose would be if she had one. “Nothing you humans should worry about!”

Pomni leans back in unease and chuckles. “You could always talk to us if you need someone, man.”

Caine shifts two wide eyes to her. “Oh, Pomni! You humans are always just too kind for your own good!” He pretends to wipe away a tear. “You don’t need to worry about me! Things are never better!”

The jester observes him carefully. “Should… I be worried?”

He pauses, then sighs and drops all theatrics. Caine slumps back against the sofa and resumes staring back at the high ceiling. “I’m not sure.”

Pomni waits for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. She doesn’t want to pry but at the same time has a feeling that she shouldn’t leave him alone. Not like this. Not while he looks so conflicted and deep in thought. 

“The moon said she loved me.” 

They’ve been drooped over the sofa for about an hour before Caine whispers an admission. Pomni twists her head slightly and watches as he keeps his eyes pinned to the ceiling.

“And what did you say back?”

Caine mimics her action, twisting to his side so that his eyes are boring directly onto hers. “That I didn’t program her to love me.”

“Well,” Pomni says and it’s like a conclusion. “So the moon loves you. That’s good to know.”

His hands wring together, tapping his fingers back and forth. “I don’t know what to do. I used to be scared when things wouldn’t come out the way I programmed them to. But after everything that happened, I’m not that sure of what my purpose is anymore.”

He shrugs, eyes closing in resignation. “My purpose was to keep making adventures to keep your minds stimulated. A-and then I decided that my purpose was to keep you all happy here. But now all of you guys can essentially do what I can do, so what even is my purpose now?”

Pomni reaches over and takes his hand to provide comfort, but realizes that he’s shaking. She shifts closer to him and tilts what makes up his head to her shoulder.

They sit in silence for a while, with Caine being vulnerable for the first time in forever, and Pomni trying to think of what to say.

“I think,” she starts off slowly, “not everything has to have a purpose. We’re all here now, and the best we can do is to be there for each other.”

Because that is the truth. They’re all here whether they like it or not, and he’s there along with them. It’s no one’s fault. It's just how it came to be.

“I’m still sorry for trapping you all down here with me,” he mumbles against her pink sweater. Pomni watches how his tears form dark little spots on her top and imagines they’re constellations. 

“It’s not your fault.” It really wasn’t.

They sit in silence for a while, and eventually he moves off her to lay down on the long sofa and dangle his leg on the edge. 

“Do you think… there’s more to what is here?”

His question makes her close her eyes. She imagines all of them out there in the real world–Abigail with new friends and continuing her urban exploration and Jax with his mail delivery. Kinger is miserable here without his wife but outside he’s Grant and with his happy family.

Outside here, she’s someone who broke bones and has gotten stitches. She’s had her heart broken and gotten drunk and smoked and lived. She’s made mistakes and learned lessons and knows that things will work out.

But in here, she’s just Pomni the jester. 

“There is.” She confirms.

He nods. “I’m glad. You all deserve to be happy. I just know all of your outside selves are out somewhere, maybe having the time of their life. You guys deserve to be friends in every universe out there.”

Pomni smiles and takes his hand again. “You, too. You deserve to be happy, too.”

Caine grips her hand tighter before releasing a breath. “I think… I want to spend some time with the moon. While she’s still here.”

She laughs lightly, watching as he starts to float. “Have fun, Caine.” And then in a stronger voice, “You deserve to be happy, too,” she repeats.

He nods firmly before poofing away. 

Pomni realizes she dropped the flower crown by the foot of the couch and she takes it back gingerly, before eyeing the massive tent in the corner of their living area.

It was Jax’s schedule to be out today.

“Fuck it,” she mumbles to herself before laughing quietly, and then a bit more hysterically. “I deserve to be happy, too.”

Pomni takes the flower crown and marches into the tent.

Jax doesn’t really understand the passage of time here.

He’s at least a bit more conscious now. He knows he abstracted and it ends at that. 

Sometimes, he hears the voices of all the circus. Other times, it feels as if he’s submerged under water where it’s peaceful and quiet. When he swims by, he can see a few others like him and they all end up enjoying each other’s company. 

There are moments when he gets visitors. There is someone who tries to re-enter the void but he keeps the locks shut, terrified of his tranquility being broken. So he locks them out and keeps the key concealed to ensure that nothing chaotic can happen.

Jax is unsure of what to feel.

Is he satisfied here? 

He thinks hard. After each time he relieves a memory, it feels like he can think better. Like, windshields wiping during a storm. Everything still feels a little hazy but there’s moments of clarity when he can peer through the glass.

Was he… doing better? Somewhere out there? Or is all he is just merely this formless figure of his that spends eternity trying to relieve memories, all to even imagine a speck of what he could be doing right now.

Jax feels pathetic. 

But in this void, there’s no one to make fun of him, so his walls remain down and non-existent.

Something peeks through the darkness and he is momentarily blinded by light. Jax squints and then he sees her.

It’s Pomni. 

He tries to mouth her name but what comes out is just jumbled gurgling. He becomes ashamed of his inability to even speak but she doesn’t even take notice, taking a seat near his body. Jax blinks and he gasps as her image becomes so much clearer.

He comes to a startling realization that he’s not backseating his own existence, anymore. He can feel his body, awkward and amorphous, but at least he can feel. The cushions that surround him are soft and Pomni’s voice is a little stifled but it just proves that he can hear. Jax can blink one eye, then two, then three, and then all of them at the same time. He’s looking everywhere and nowhere, and he uses his utter concentration to fix his entire gaze on her.

Pomni is smiling gently at him, as if he’s not a monster that did this to himself.

“Hey, Jax,” she greets while she leans against a pillow. “You doing okay?”

It’s such a Pomni thing to ask. She’s asking him if he was okay while he was locked in his mind with the appearance of an obscure creature. The concept of it is so humorous to him that he inwardly rolls his eyes.

Below, the jester gasps. He jolts when she leans even closer to him. “Jax! Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

Why did she sound so excited? Did rolling his eyes mean that much to her? 

He tries to hold in a laugh but can’t, and soon enough he’s cackling loudly, uncaring of how stupid he must look. His eyes fall shut as he laughs and laughs and laughs, apathetic of how she perceives him. It’s been such a long time since he laughed.

She really is a jester. 

Pomni is looking up at him with wonder in her eyes.

Jax stops.

There’s so much adoration behind those pinwheels of hers that he finds himself pinned to place, unable to look away. She smiles at him and he feels his entire world fall quiet.

“P-pom… pom.”

It’s all he can muster to say. Saying it out loud for the first time has taken so much of his energy that he immediately collapses. She gasps and runs to him, hands worrying around in the air like she’s not sure if she can touch him.

“Jax! Stay with me! Jax, are you okay? Can you speak?” She’s both hopeful and worried, and the combination makes him snort in amusement. That was her whole shtick back when she first spawned in. Always hopeful and always worrying. 

He tries to shake himself awake. There’s no way he’s gonna collapse after saying one word after who–knows-how-long. 

Pomni observes him for a moment before she chuckles and sits down next to him. It’s the closest she has ever sat. Jax trails his eyes on her as she hums happily by herself, hands still clutching what looked like a circular wreath of–he squints–flowers? There’s daisies and other flowers that he can’t name. 

She catches his eyes, looming interest over her flower crown. Pomni beams and jumps up, motioning for him to lean down. He scoffs but does so anyway. 

The jester places it gently on his head, hands lingering a bit too long before moving to tuck them back to her chest. Jax stays completely still, knowing what’s on his head is important to her, and thus to him. 

“You look so beautiful, Jax.”

Her words are like an arrow shooting through his soul. Flustered, he shakes his head and it falls to his feet. He’s sorry for ruining whatever she put on him–it looked like a lot of work. Pomni is unflustered and merely picks it off the ground.

“Sorry. Pomni.” 

Her eyes grow wide. “No biggie!” She squeaks out, trying and failing to not get excited over two words. Her tiny fingers shake as they clutch the crown. Jax wants to know–is she excited? Is she scared of him? He hasn’t talked in a long time and he’s too exhilarated to acknowledge that her name and an apology were his first words. 

Jax leans down, as much as his body can handle, and he tilts his head towards the floor. He waits patiently for her to get the idea.

“Oh!” Pomni fumbles with the flower crown and moves to place it on his head. 

Right as she gingerly puts it on him, her finger grazes his head, and he feels himself get pulled under. He briefly hears her yell in alarm as his body collapses and the world goes dark.

Wave after wave of memories come crashing down. 

As he watches a young girl ride a bike for the first time and fall, Jax comes to the glaring conclusion–these aren’t his memories. It’s Pomni’s.

He watches as Pomni–not the jester, but a real person–cries when she wakes up in the morning and finds no money under her pillow. Her upper front tooth is missing.

Jax lets the scenes go by, taking a seat back and watching the world through her eyes. Pomni is a young woman with warm, golden skin and dark hair and she’s sitting in her car in the parking lot. Her hands shake as she tries to control her breathing while browsing her phone. Then she’s being congratulated by her co-workers and he feels Pomni’s confusion and horror at being promoted.

He forgot that Pomni was like a proper, functioning adult with a car and job. The circus reduced her to an anxious wreck of a jester that he often forgot how far in life the girl actually got to. 

The waves crash a bit softer now. There’s Pomni smiling through her fourteenth birthday party. Her memories play as a collection of haphazard clips strewn together. It’s enough for Jax to know who she was before she was Pomni the jester.

Pomni being gifted a camera by some college friends. Her jumping up and down in excitement as she hugs them all one by one. 

She’s throwing up in a bathroom stall with her hair falling out from her bun. As she glares at herself in the mirror, she blinks at her reflection with smudged eyeliner and mascara tracks down her cheeks. 

She’s crying and hugging her dead dog. She’s smoking her last cigarette on the balcony just as the sun rises, an empty carton left on the floor. She’s grinning with baby fat and clipped bangs, wearing a white labcoat and showing off her first place ribbon at the science fair. 

Jax lets all of these versions of Pomni come and go. He reads the lips of one of her friends as they shout out her name during a game of beach volleyball.

Abigail, come on! 

Abigail. 

He’s watching Abigail, not Pomni.

She gets asked out for prom. 

He never got the prom experience, Jax moved away as soon as he could and spent the first year couch-surfing from friends and strangers on Craigslist, but feeling so much freedom. 

He stops breathing when she stares down at a man on his knee in front of her. Jax watches silently as she helps him stand up and dusts off his knees, mumbling that she can’t marry him. He pretends that his mouth doesn’t grin when she rejects the man completely and breaks up with him. 

There’s so many memories of her–Pomni or Abigail, Abigail or Pomni–that make him feel greedy. Was this what Pomni had felt when she ventured into his mind?

Did she find any joy or satisfaction in finally figuring out his tragic life story?

Jax clenches his fists but he doesn’t feel anything from it.

Selfish. He was always so selfish.

More memories of her play and he can’t help but take and take and take. He is a dehydrated man and Pomni is a never-ending well of freshwater. 

Pomni picking up her camera and trekking alone to abandoned buildings, jumping at every slight sound she hears. He laughs as she groans over her burnt cookies. He watches fondly as she’s four and declaring her future profession as a doctor in the microphone during her kindergarten graduation. 

The line between Pomni and Abigail blur and merge together until they become one person. Pinwheels and big brown eyes blend until all he sees is Pomni. He knew her as Pomni. Maybe in the outside, he’ll get to know Abigail, but–

Jax gasps, suddenly on high alert. 

Pomni in line at the grocery. His mother–his own mother–in front of her and fumbling with her wallet, face sinking once she realizes that she didn’t bring enough cash. Pomni saying, “Don’t worry, I got it, Ma’am”, as she swipes her own card over the small terminal and buys the groceries for her. 

A jar of spaghetti sauce, some pasta noodles, and frozen hotdogs.

“Thank you,” his mother murmurs, too tired to refuse help but grateful either way. “It’s for my son’s birthday, he’s turning fifteen tomorrow. This means so much to me. Please, can you give me your number? I’ll pay you back.”

Pomni shakes her head, already placing her own groceries by the conveyor belt. “No need, Ma’am. We all have days when we need someone.” Her items are just half a dozen eggs, some bread, and a Hershey’s bar.

His mom tucks the precious groceries to her chest and Pomni slides over the chocolate from her own small pile. “Tell your son a stranger told him to have a happy birthday.” 

And then she’s gone and a different scene plays out.

Jax can’t be bothered to watch the rest when one of the most world-shattering events has been known to him. 

He remembered being fourteen and saving his Christmas wish, holding it out to wish for a good birthday. With every candle he passed by, with every shooting star too fast for his eyes, with every firefly in the dim park as he sat on the swings–he just wanted to be able to celebrate his birthday once.

On the day he turned fifteen, despite the strained relationship with his mother, Jax wished for a birthday where he could be happy for once. She went home that day and cooked his favorite comfort meal–spaghettis with little cut up hotdogs in it. She gave him a chocolate bar after and told him someone special wanted him to have a great birthday. In his mind, the little kid inside who deeply craved his mother’s love and affection, imagined it was her who bought the chocolate bar. After all, she already made his favorite food, why wouldn’t she give him a small dessert after? It was unreasonable to think that they could even afford a cake, hence why the chocolate made him ecstatic.

All along it was Pomni.

Pomni with her big eyes and even bigger heart. With her refusal to let him go, even to the point of him dragging her down to the abyss of abstraction. Pomni with her inability to just take his bullshit and foul words. Who refused to believe that after everything, they weren’t friends. 

Jax hasn’t cried for a long time.

So when he collapses and sobs, he forgets to realize that his body is a massive mass of absurdity and his eyes number more than ten. 

On the inside, he’s clutching his heart and bawling. In utter disbelief of how it was that small act of kindness that kept him going for so long. Even as he ran away from his mother and never looked back, even when he slept in an alley for a few nights because he couldn’t find anyone else willing to let him crash over, and even when he stared at the pitch black water on top of a bridge hoping to end it all–it was that tiny piece of warmth that kept him going and knowing that there would be a light at the end of all his tunnels.

Pomni wasn’t just Pomni.

She was his collection of a thousand splendid suns.

In the circus, at the point of his abstraction, she tried to save him but failed.

On the outside, she had saved him a lifetime ago. 

“Pomni,” he says out loud but it ends up being mumbled, while every single one of his eyes sheds tears. 

Pomni or Abigail, he couldn’t care less. It was her.

Eight billion people in the world and somehow they found their way to each other without even knowing. 

Rather, she unknowingly found her way to him. She had no idea who he was or what freckled kid she saved just by buying some goddamn spaghetti. 

“Jax! W-wait, hold on, I think I need Caine for this! Stay here!” Pomni yells before she moves back and runs out of the tent.

“Don’t… go,” he mumbles pathetically, sobbing all the while. 

He couldn’t lose her. Not again. 

She returns a few moments later, huffing and puffing. 

He sees Caine enter and float high above the ground so that the AI hovers above his head. Jax tilts his head up and tries to talk, but when his mouth opens, he can’t think of what to say.

“Caine.” Jax ends up saying his name.

The ringmaster’s eyes widen in surprise. “Jax?” He floats to his other side, waving a gloved hand frantically. “Jax, can you understand me? A-are you there?”

“He said my name!” He shifts all of his eyes to see Pomni down below, squeezing both ends of her jester hat in obvious distress. “He even apologized for dropping this!” 

Pomni sounds hysterical, shaking the flower crown that dropped from his head. 

Jax wants to get out. He wants to leave this place and go back to the circus, where he had never felt more at home. 

He misses Ragatha and thinks of a time when maybe he could’ve empathized with her having an abusive mother in the household. He thinks of Gangle and of all the times he made fun of her all the while having the same niche interests. He wants to talk to Zooble and ask about their life as a bartender and a tattoo artist, which sounded so fucking cool. He thinks of Kinger and in the short-time Jax found him lucid, how utterly paternal the old man was. 

He thinks of Ribbit and how he pushed her to abstraction when all she did was provide a safe space for him. Jax polluted that sacred area and left her alone, making her feel unloved and their friendship beyond saving. 

He thinks of Kaufmo who had been nothing more than patient and kind. Jax took advantage of his kindness and left him to rot, the same way he did with Ribbit.

Jax feels two warm hands on his face and he knows who it is. The calming scent of white florals and freshly-pressed linen surround him, and for the first time, he understands what home is supposed to feel like. He knows this scent; it’s his favorite.

“Jax?” He opens his eyes tiredly. “I’m not leaving you.” Her voice is calm and steady. “I’m not going anywhere. But I need you to calm down.”

He frowns in confusion. Calm down? This is the calmest he has ever been. But then he feels his body still shaking and his eyes tearing, so he forces his entire body to relax. He collapses gently on the floor and Pomni goes with him.

She’s running her hands over his face and neck and any other area she can reach. She’s mumbling comforting phrases. She’s kissing all the places where her hands have been and he leans into it serenely,

Caine is speaking but Jax can’t be bothered to listen.

He hones in on Pomni’s voice and sinks.

Before morning arrives and the rest of the circus comes into the living area, Caine ushers Pomni to her room. 

The jester is absolutely exhausted. He doesn’t ask for her permission as he enters her private quarters, already knowing that they have such limited time.

“Jax,” Pomni begins, voice already shaking. “He spoke to me. He said my name a-and he apologized.” She turns to look at him in desperation and hope. “What does that mean? I thought abstraction was irreversible!”

“It is,” Caine nods solemnly, fingers snapping together as a screen pops up. 

Pomni looks at it in confusion as information comes to light, all in digital code. Caine sweeps his hand and the screen enlarges and a keyboard appears. 

He types quickly and scours through the program, growing even more in despair when he can’t find anything amiss in the code.

“I don’t understand,” he mumbles more to himself than her. “There’s nothing wrong. His code is normal–he’s still abstracted. I–” Caine pauses and Pomni jumps up.

“What?” she demands, “what did you see?”

Caine slowly rises two fingers in one hand and enlarges a part of the code. Pomni looks at it in frustration. 

“Caine. I was an accountant, not a software engineer. These make no sense to me. Should I get Kinger?”

He shakes his head slowly, pointing at something in particular. “No. I want you to look at something.”

Pomni squints as he points. He continues, “This is Jax’s program. His mind files, if you will. He’s abstracted, and that’s why his code ends right there.”

Caine slides the entire panel and her avatar comes up in a jester costume. He scrolls his hand up and opens her code. It’s running continuously, adding new numbers and letters every second. 

“Here is your program. It adds new things every second because you are alive here. Abstracted characters are operated differently. Their program stops because they ‘die’, which makes it irreversible. Even digitally, the dead cannot come back to life.”

Pomni looks at all of it in awe and then confusion when he switches back to Jax’s program. Caine opens it once more and points at–

She stops breathing.

Jax’s code is continuing.

“What does this mean?” she asks timidly. 

Caine lets his hands slump back to his body. 

A beat. 

And then he tears up and laughs, in both hysteria and disbelief. 

“Pomni! Can’t you see?” He asks breathlessly. Caine spins in the air, arms splayed out in grandiose. 

“There’s one thing I never programmed! That's why I don’t have any control over it!”

Pomni’s eyes widen as understanding crashes over her. He gently floats down, taking both of her shaking hands with his own. 

She clasps his hands, already knowing the answer before he says it.

Yet he tells her anyway.

“Love,” he chuckles wetly as they hug and sink to the floor. “I never programmed love.”

When morning comes, Caine is the one to tell the rest of the circus while Pomni keeps her arms close to her body, hugging herself loosely as he reports back their findings.

She feels so vulnerable, like glass that could break at any second. 

Pomni watches as the rest of the circus all come to the startling realization. 

“Jax… is alive? Can he come back?” Zooble says in disbelief. 

Ragatha has both hands pressed to her mouth in shock. Gangle cries openly in relief while Kinger reaches the next conclusion quicker than Pomni thought he would.

“If Jax can come back–” Kinger doesn’t finish the rest of the sentence before he slumps on the couch, gloved hands reaching up to wipe away his tears as he weeps openly. Ragatha places one hand on him as comfort before switching her teary-eyed gaze to Caine.

“Are you sure?” She asks desperately. 

The ringmaster merely turns around and opens up the same screen as what he showed Pomni. Kinger stands up and stares at the program with unblinking eyes, understanding more than what Pomni could.

The chess piece tears up again. “So it is possible.” He turns to look at Caine. “Do you know how this happened?”

Caine doesn’t reply but shifts his eyes to the jester. Pomni shakes her head a tiny amount.

Not now, she tries to convey. I can’t do this right now.

The AI merely shakes his head. “This could be an anomaly. Perhaps a bug in the system?” 

Kinger looks back at the screen, the numbers making more sense to him than they have in years. “If Jax could come back… then maybe–” he doesn’t get to finish the sentence before Gangle wraps ribbony arms around him and sniffles.

“She’ll be back, Kinger,” she mumbles. He gives her an affectionate pat on the back. “Maybe not now,” he muses, eyes filled with hope and determination, “but in time.”

Pomni huffs as she hauls in the piano, settling it quickly by the cushions already propped in position. 

She then stretches both limbs and sighs. “Hey, Jax!” She calls out and smiles when he settles down by her pillows. “Prepare to hear the new song I’ve been practicing like crazy for.”

Jax rolls his eyes in pretend annoyance. 

With each passing day, he starts to feel more tangible. Concrete. 

His mind still feels a bit murky, but there’s solace in how he can think more clearly now. He watches as Pomni wiggles down on the cushions and places her fingers tentatively on the keys. She pauses, like she’s at a loss, and he lays his head next to her.

“You scared?” He teases. 

Most of his speech are limited to words and phrases, but he feels proud of himself whenever he gets to speak. It takes so much of his energy that when he managed to speak a whole sentence to Pomni last week, he slept the entire day after.

Pomni scoffs. “No! Watch this.”

Her hands still don’t move. “Any minute now,” he taunts. 

She sighs and shakes herself once more. “Alright, here goes.” Her fingers bounce on the keys with the notes warm and unhurried. The melody unfolds gently, built from delicate, repeating chords that seem to sway back and forth. It feels and sounds like remembering something precious and painful at the same time.

“When all the world is spinning round like a red balloon way up in the clouds,” Pomni sings quietly. As usual, she’s ashamed of her singing voice but Jax finds it absolutely soothing. “And my feet will not stay on the ground, you anchor me back down.”

Her eyes lock onto his. She smiles and Jax feels something inside him continue to grow and heal. 

“There are those who think that I’m strange,” she makes a face and he grins, “they would box me up, and tell me to change.” 

Her fingers continue to dance around the keyboard, growing bolder as the song progresses.

“But you hold me close and softly say,” she slows down and her eyes look at him.

Pomni looks at him with so much love and adoration, he feels outright unworthy.

“That you wouldn’t have me any other way,” she lifts the last note gently and he holds his breath.

Then, her fingers drift through the keys once more, and he continues to fall deeper in love. “When all the world is spinning round like a red balloon, way up in the clouds,” she sings quietly like a lullaby. 

“And my feet will not stay on the ground,” Pomni lifts her fingers away from the piano and he follows the movement as she moves closer to caress him, “you anchor me back down.”

The song finishes, and Jax is trying his hardest to not bawl his eyes out. After the fiasco of last week, he can’t find anything left for his dignity if he would cry right now. He’d probably re-abstract and ruin all the progress he made thus far. 

He clears his throat instead. “Good job, Poms.”

She beams up at him, already beginning to pack up. “Thanks! I’ve been practicing a lot.” Pomni chuckles to herself like she has an inside joke.

Jax smirks and pokes his head on her belly, watching as she almost loses her balance. “You’re laughing?”

Pomni rolls her eyes fondly and takes to scratching his head while he purrs at the feeling. “Just a little funny thing, don’t worry about it.” She bites her bottom lip to stop laughing but then it blurts out, and he’s left with poking her a few more times.

“It’s just that,” she gasps to catch her breath, “when you told me, you only knew two songs, I made it my mission to learn three!”

Pomni grins at the absurdity of it all. “So, take that!”

“Hilarious,” he deadpans. 

She stops laughing eventually, eyes growing tender as she stares at him. And when he looks down at her–his spring–Jax feels nothing but warmth. 

The void stops feeling like being thrown out into outer space. It feels more like a room with the lights turned off and he’s tucked too tight under his blankets. It’s a million times better than mindlessly floating around with no stimulation. Now, he can see, hear, and smell Pomni, and even make conversation. Like nothing terrible happened after all. 

“Well,” she whispers, “I think I’m gonna go let you get some sleep now.” Pomni moves to stand up but he copies the motion unconsciously.

She looks at him in concern. “You okay?”

God. This is how he knows he’s becoming more and more conscious. This feels so cringe but he’s basically exposed every dirty secret to her. There’s no way he can look even more pathetic.

“You can stay here.” Nevermind. He can be more pathetic after all.

Pomni blinks twice before grinning widely. “Okay!” She poofs the piano out of the tent and immediately starts to pull pillows together to build a makeshift bed on the ground. 

Jax sighs in relief that she didn’t make fun of him, before he gently kicks over a few pillows from different areas of the massive tent. Pomni conjures up a blanket for herself and she settles her head on his side while he lays down with her.

“Comfy,” she remarks and he silently agrees.

Pomni stretches once and he darts his eyes away when a sliver of her stomach appears from under her shirt. It was convenient that all of them could apparently change their own outfits now. He’d kill to have some of his old hoodies back.

“Goodnight, Jax.” She places a kiss where her head is laying before she settles in and closes her eyes.

Jax waits for a few more minutes before he drifts off to sleep, grumbling his own greeting of goodnight and sweet dreams.

Morning comes and Pomni groans as she comes to be.

She doesn’t feel like getting up–too comfortable and warm–but she knows there’s stuff to do today, so she sighs and opens her eyes. 

And sees a familiar arm wrapped around her waist.