Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

From the second that she yanked off that headset, the real world had been a lot to adjust to. Sure, she was from there. Sure, the whole time she was gone she just wanted to get back home. Neither of those things changed the fact that the second Christine got out of that game, everything just felt wrong again.

She didn’t even remember how she did it. She didn’t even remember what had happened. All she knew was that one second she was a cartoon jester, and the next she was back in her real, human body, near six other people in an abandoned office building, surrounded by rusted computers and tables and random litter on the floor.

Of course, Christine got out of there as fast as possible. Tried to put “ The Amazing Digital Circus ” behind her. Tried to forget about the weird, wacky world that she was stuck in. It was difficult, readjusting to life. Her family thought she had died, her job had fired her, because for some reason, being gone over two years without giving as little as a notice would not be something that her accounting firm tolerated.

She distanced herself from the rest of the people who had been stuck in the circus, just like her. She wanted to get the experience out of her mind, convince herself that it was all some horrible nightmare, or that she had been stuck in a coma for the past two years and that was what her mind told her she was doing during that timeframe. Of course, she knew better.

Having a two-year gap in her resume and being the same age that she was two years ago didn’t exactly look good to any employers. Instead of being able to get a job that she was qualified for, she was stuck working at crappy fast-food restaurants and convenience stores, barely making any money, and being forced to live with her parents in their crappy, run-down town.

“That’ll be 57.11, thank you for shopping at Walmart!” Christine said, smiling at the customer who she was checking out. She hated her job, but at least she had a good customer service face. 

Then the next person in line, over, and over, and over again. Some people knew her from when she was younger, or knew her parents. After all, the town wasn’t that big. Maybe 5000 people in total? She was never sure. When she was younger, her dad was on the school board. He knew pretty much everyone. When his daughter disappeared and was declared legally dead, everyone was heartbroken. When she got back from her virtual reality nightmare, her parents didn’t let her leave the house for weeks.

After hours of doing her job, having to talk to people and explain “No, Susan, I was never dead, and I did not come back from Hell to reap your children's souls, I was away on a trip in Australia with some friends of mine and off the grid”, she finally noticed something strange. There was a blond guy, most likely in his early 20s, buying some groceries. Since the Walmart was the only grocery store in town, that made sense, and wasn’t the strange thing.

The guy had blond hair with the dark brown roots grown out, pretty pale skin, like he’d been stuck inside somewhere for years, and dressed like a wanna-be edgy teen from 2010. The things he was buying weren’t abnormal, either. Roast turkey, corn cobs, Kraft mac-n-cheese, nothing abnormal. His parents most likely sent him out to buy the food for the week, and he was just a picky eater and wanted to buy mac-n-cheese.

The strange thing was his reaction to touching the corn. As much as looking at the corn made him gag, and when he had to touch it to put it on the conveyor, he practically threw it. She laughed slightly at that.

“What? Afraid of corn, or something? That’s such a stupid thing to be afraid of,” Christine said, still laughing. It reminded her of Jax, the way he reacted like a scared cat whenever Zooble put corn near him on the “AmAzInG DiGiTaL BaR ADvEnTuRe!”

“Hey, way to insult the customer! I can’t believe this! How preposterous! The customer is supposed to always be right!” He responded. The way he moved, talked, his voice, everything about him reminded Christine of Jax. She hoped he was okay. They weren’t exactly on the… best… of terms the last time she saw him.

Christine kept laughing, causing the guy she was talking to to start laughing. Good thing no one was behind him in line, then none of this would have happened. She’d just be stuck with another crappy day in her crappy job.

“You remind me of a friend of mine from a while back. Tell me, kid, are you an olympic medalist in being short?”

“You did not just call me a kid. For gods sake, I’m 25 years old.” Christine says, moderately annoyed at his previous statement.

“Really? Ya could’ve fooled me by how short you-”

Something clicks in the guy's mind, she can see his eyes refocus on her, doing a bit of a double take.

“...Pomni?” He asks.

Christine's face almost instantly shifts to stunned shock.

“What? Heh- No! Who-Who’s Pomni! Obviously not me. I’m obviously not Pomni. Yeah.” Christine stated, trying to hide her shock, and trying to not be identified as a stupid digital avatar.

“Yeah, right,” He glances down at her nametag, “So, Christine , wanna go to lunch sometime? Maybe talk about old times?”

“Maybe. Possibly. Sometime. I don’t know, if you want?” 

“Yep. Lunch next Wednesday at the Deli down the road. By the way, my name’s Zackery. Buuut, you can call me Jax .”

“Okay, bye, have a nice day, Zackery!” Christine said, trying to get him out of there as fast as possible.

Chapter Text

The second she ripped off her headset, she felt some sort of great joy. Not being stuck with those idiotic masks, ribbons, Jax, just being a person again. Maybe get her old job back? She may have the webcomic she always wanted, finally giving up on her parents “Fast food dream” and do something that she actually enjoyed.

I mean, not like they noticed she was gone in the first place. They probably thought that she had just… burned out. Given up. Ran away to start a new life. She could do that, couldn’t she? She was an adult with free will. She could do whatever she wanted. If she didn’t want to listen to them, she didn’t have to.

She finally looked around. No one was exactly near her. She was in just one cubicle in the abandoned office building. The computer in front of her was rusted, the table dusty and dirty, with a picture of a family on it. She hoped that none of those people got trapped in the game. Like she did.

In the distance, she heard a door open and then slam shut, like someone leaving in a hurry. Maybe one of her fellow cast members? Someone who abstracted? Were the people who abstracted still alive? 

She stood up and started to walk around. How had she even gotten to this building in the first place? It was just… weird. She didn’t remember much of anything, especially how she got out of the Digital Circus.

. . .

Where was Zooble? They had gotten out, right? She looked around the office. No one else was in this room. She went through a door, into a hallway, and just started looking around. There were doors. Lots of doors. 

Some of the doors had… blood under them? Scratches? Like someone stuck in there, trying to get out? No, that wouldn’t make sense. 

It was what it looked like, though. 

She opened one of the doors. Inside, was a rotting corpse. She had no idea how long it had been there. Maybe weeks? Months? Years? There was barely any flesh left on the bones, the hair looked like it had been… black? What was left of a green shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and black converse hung off the body, now bloodied and covered in some sort of… brain juices, blood, and bodily fluids. 

She yelped slightly and jumped back, very concerned by what she saw. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god-” She said, panicking.

She felt someone put their hand on her shoulder, instantly causing her to push the hand away and turn around.

“Heh. Scared by a little touch? Can’t believe you’re still such an easy scare,” said someone in the darkness, most likely Jax due to the way his voice sounded.

“Jax.”

“Hiya there, Gangle!”

“It’s Leah. I think…?”

“Oh, wow, don’t even remember your own name? That’s kinda pathetic. I thought you might be less so in real life, guess I was wrong,” Jax smirked, “And my name is Zackery. A far better name than ‘Leah.’ A name that is so masculine that feminine people die upon just hearing it.”

“I don’t think that you’re killing me right now.”

“I doesn’t work on dorks.”

Leah rolled her eyes, and walked away. 

“Hey! Aren’t we supposed to be looking for the others?!” Jax said as she walked away.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

They kept walking down the hallway, until getting to a door that looks like it’s been forced open recently. 

“Jackpot,” Leah stated upon seeing the door. She pushed it open and walked into the room. Inside, there were three people.

A middle-aged man with blond hair that looked ike it had grown excessively and was now messy and overgrown, wearing a button-up shirt, brown pants, and a tie. There was a girl with dark red hair and blue eyes, and a kind-of plain outfit. Then, there was a third person. They had pink hair, a yellow shirt layered over a green shirt, and shorts. The outfit looked like a hodge-podge of every clothing piece in their closet.

“Well, well, well. Look who crybaby and I were able to find,” Jax- Zackery said, leaning against the doorframe.

“Fuck off, Jax, we don’t have to be architypes anymore. You are stuck being a real person, in the real world, with a real life and real human emotions,” The person with pink hair, presumably Zooble, said.

“Ugh. Just- Just shut up.”

“Okay, how about we all calm down a bit and talk about what we’re going to do next,” Ragatha spoke, calmly. Much calmer than someone who had been stuck in a video game should have.

“My vote: exchange phone numbers and get the FUCK out of here,” Jax said.

“Yeah, there might be an issue with that. We don’t know how long we’ve been stuck in there, and if it’s been years, we most likely don’t have places to go back to. Also, Pomni’s still missing from the group, and if we’re going to do ANYTHING we’re going to need her to be with her,” Zooble stated passive-agressively to Jax.

“We need to figure out if any of us are missing-,” Ragatha started, before Jax cut her off.

“We should all try to forget about the circus and get out of here. We can deal with any missing persons cases later, we can deal with practically anything later. As of right now, I’m sure all that we want to do is sit around, binge Netflix.”

“What’s a… ‘Netflix’?” Kinger asked, confused. 

“It’s like those DVD stores but you can stream it from your computer. Or TV,” Leah explained to Kinger. She remembered having a subscription and watching anime on Netflix regularly.

“Wow! Technology must have really advanced! I can’t believe I missed this!” Kinger stated excitedly. This caused Leah to smile a little bit.

How long exactly had they been trapped in this game?

“Okay, can I get everyone’s phone numbers? I’ll write them down and text all of you about the next time we meet,” Ragatha asked. The rest of the group told them to her, and she wrote them down on a notepad that was left on the desk in the room that they were in, with an old pen with the letters “C&A” on it.

Pretty soon, the whole group was leaving the building. It was the first time that Leah and Zooble had to talk alone.

“Hey, Gangle, wait up-!” Zooble said, running after her as she left the building.

“Hi, Zooble,” Leah said, smiling.

“I actually thought we’d never make it out, and we’d all just end up… abstracted monsters. Glad to be seeing you outside of that stupid game. We never really got around to it in conversation earlier but… what’s your name?” Asked Leah, slightly nervously.

“Asking for my name? What’s next, my home address and social security number?” Zooble laughed, “It’s Ray.”

“Leah.”

“Leah. Pretty name. I like it,” Zooble smiled.

“Yeah. I like yours too. It’s interesting.”

“How long have we been stuck there?” Ray asked.

“Not sure. I’ve been there, what, since the pandemic?”

“What pandemic? There was a pandemic? LIKE THE PLAGUE LEVEL OF PANDEMIC??”

Leah bursted out laughing.

“Ok, yeah, you got there before 2020. There was like…this guy. In China. Who tried to eat a bat. And the bat had this virus. And like, the guy got the virus. And somehow the virus spread all the way around the world. All of the world was on lockdown for, like, 8 months. But the way Pomni talked, since she got there second-most-recently, sounded like the pandemic was over, so yeah, it’s been a couple years probably,” Leah explained.

“So, a guy in China ate a bat and caused a worldwide sickness that made the world shut down?” Ray questioned.

“Yeah, basically.”

“... I certainly missed a lot.”

“That you did.”

Chapter Text

“Sup, Pom-Pom~” Jax said, leaning against a wall outside of the deli.

“You look stupid,” Pomni said.

“Oh, wow, I’m personally offended!” Jax responded, pretending to be hurt by Pomni’s words. He hadn’t really thought this through, had he? It was just… weird. Not seeing Pomni as a jester was… weird, to say the least.

She rolled her eyes at him. He flashed her a grin, kicked off the wall, and opened the door for her. 

“Ladies first,” He smirked.

Pomni stepped inside the building, and the two of them sat down at one of the booths in the deli.

“So, what have you been up to?” Jax asked.

“Not much, after I got back from the circus my parents were super worried about me. I wasn’t really sure what to do. I mean, a two-year gap in my resume did look kinda awful. I had to come here because my stupid apartment got sold to someone else,” Pomni said, annoyed.

“Heh, nice, Pomni. Sounds like you’ve been having sooo much fun.”

“It’s Christine. And no, I’ve not been having fun, thank you sooooo much for asking.”

“So, how are you covering up your time in the circus?” Jax asked, leaning his elbows onto the table.

“What is this, an interrogation?” Pomni asked, moderately annoyed at Jax’s questioning, “If you wanna know so much about me, then maybe tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“Ya know, the usual,” Jax stated nonchalantly, not wanting to give away any information about what he had been up to.

What had he even done that was worth sharing? Sat around all day? Helped his mom? 

The two of them sat there in awkward silence for a while, before Pomni attempted to speak again.

“I kinda wanted to put the circus behind me, but it is kinda nice to… to see you again.”

Jax looked in shock for a second, before looking away. Sure, he was different in real life, but Pomni would never need to know him. Would never need to know the real him.

“Geez, look at the time, I have to go,” he said.

“Huh? We just got here!” Pomni responded, almost instantly confused.

“Yeeeaaaahhhhh I forgot about that I had something today. Sorry, Poms. Maybe next week?”

“You’re doing this? Again? Of course you are. Why would I think you’d be any different? YOU are why I wanted to forget about that digital hell,” Pomni said, already getting up to leave.

“Wait-”

“Here we go. Not falling for this, again. You want me to stay, or do you want me to go? I- I can’t believe I thought that you could possibly be different. Bye, Jax.”

“Stop- Stop Pomni, what are you doing? What are you talking about?!” 

He seemed more in shock than angry, or upset. He deserved this, didn’t he? After the way he acted. Yeah, this was correct. She was already gone from his life, and he deserved every second of it.

Followed by the sound of the door slamming. 

Followed by him walking out about 10 minutes later.