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Jax stared up at the childish glow-in-the-dark stars on his roof. Exhaustion ached under his eyes, only relieved when he closed them, which he refused to do. If he let his consciousness slip like he had been doing the last few days, he would only be plagued by nightmares.
The stars taunted him. He’d tried to take them off before— reaching them was no problem, nor was peeling them off, but the moment he glanced away from the roof, they would mysteriously return once he looked back. Jax had long admitted defeat and accepted them as a permanent fixture to his already horrible bedroom.
Somewhere in the distance, a loud thud echoed through the otherwise silent living quarters of the circus, followed by a muffled, censored curse in a raspy voice.
In his peripheral vision, a small, dusty table sat in the corner of the room across from his bed, surrounded by three childish chairs, one purple, one green, and one yellow. The chairs appeared to have not been moved in months– years, even. The assumption would be correct, as far as Jax was concerned. He shook the thought from his head before it went any further.
He couldn’t sleep like this.
Jax threw his stupid patchwork blanket off of his stupid overall-laden body and lugged himself out of bed. The day he was trying to sleep off was simply too much right now. Unsure of where to go, but knowing he couldn’t stay in his room, he slinked through the circus for nearly an hour.
It was dark. The dark didn’t typically unnerve Jax– nighttime was the best time to enact pranks and such, after all– but tonight, while he hated to admit this, it was really getting to him.
Eventually his legs were too heavy to walk him, so he settled down on a couch in the main area, pulling his knees to his chin. It was almost cold, but not cold enough to acknowledge if it weren’t the only thing to think about.
He was awake, that much was for sure. It probably wasn’t possible to fall asleep in this physical or mental position, regardless of how tired Jax was. And although he was definitely awake, he wasn’t really thinking. Time passed in a way that didn’t feel unnatural or unusual, but it was time that went by unacknowledged.
The moment Jax had unconsciously decided to remain in this position until morning came and his tiredness was swept away by the rising sun, he heard movement from somewhere in the distance. Great. It was probably Ragatha, going to make herself tea in the middle of the night, as she often did, which literally always woke him up. She could learn a few lessons on sneaking around from him.
He wanted to turn around and confirm to himself that it was Ragatha, but his body wouldn’t move. Well, actually, that wasn’t the best assessment of the situation, he groggily mused. It was more that he just wasn’t actually willing himself to move, only thinking about willing himself to move. If he really tried to move, he was sure he’d be perfectly able to. But he didn’t.
The footsteps steadily got louder as Jax began to dread having to confront another person, whoever it was. It was only when a hand touched his shoulder, though, that he finally moved, jolting forward and immediately turning around— he nearly tumbled off the couch in doing so.
“What do you think you’re–” Jax interrupted himself with a quiet gasp as he stared directly into Kinger’s large, blue eyes. “Oh, it’s just you,” He sneered, recollecting himself.
Kinger slowly blinked, one eye at a time. He gave a short greeting, then gently petted Jax’s head with a hand that was immediately slapped away. “What are you doing out here this late?” He questioned.
“None of your business, geezer,” Jax defensively replied, crossing his arms instinctively. “And, y’know, I could say the same to you.”
“Oh, well, I heard you from my pillow fortress, and I wanted to come check in on you!” Kinger squinted in a gesture that somehow managed to come across as a smile despite his lack of most facial features.
Jax scoffed. He settled back into his spot on the couch, back facing the chess piece. “I don’t need checking in on, so you can go away.” His left ear twitched in annoyance and fatigue. He never paid much mind to Kinger, and he wasn’t planning on changing that any time soon.
Ignoring what Jax had literally just said, Kinger walked around and settled down on the edge of the couch, mimicking the position that Jax sat in. Was he being mocked?
“Can you leave me alone?” Jax snapped, volume increasing more than he intended it to. He looked over at Kinger, whose eyes narrowed into a pensive expression.
After a heartbeat of silence, Kinger shook his head. “If you really want to be left alone, you can always get up and leave.”
“Maybe I will,” Jax said. Yet again, he was unable to will himself to actually do so. He inwardly complained about the inconvenience of the situation for a second or two, but quickly realized that he was lying to himself. Annoyingly, Kinger was right.
He didn’t want to be alone.
“Do you… Want to talk about it?” Kinger prompted.
Jax frowned. “Talk about what?”
“I think it’s obvious that something’s going on. Sometimes it helps to tell someone about your problems.”
Burying his head into his knees, Jax sighed. He considered telling Kinger about his woes— the guy was crazy, it wasn’t like he was going to remember any of it, or even understand it in the first place. It would be nice to get it off his chest. But, at the same time, talking about his… emotions would further cement them into reality, which Jax wasn’t particularly keen on doing. He clicked his tongue, which he noticed made Kinger slightly flinch beside him.
“Since when did you care?” Not daring to look at Kinger, Jax stared down at the checkered floor below him.
“... We all care about you, Jax. Even if everyone shows it differently. I’m sure that’s something you under–”
“HAH!” Jax sourly laughed, interrupting Kinger. “Yeah, right! ‘Everyone cares about you’–” He mocked the chess piece’s voice– “–As if! What do you know? You’re crazy!”
Kinger sighed softly. “I guess I don’t. But… I know I care about you.”
Jax involuntarily inhaled sharply, biting his tongue with a wince. He turned his head away from Kinger. “I…” As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Why don’t you try and tell me what’s going on? See if it helps. If it doesn’t, then I won’t remember this anyways, right?” Kinger sullenly chuckled. “If you bottle it up, you’re only going to end up hurting yourself. Your troubles aren’t only yours to carry, Jax. Nobody’s going to think less of you if you open up. Trust me.” As if. “So… Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Jax growled. How dare someone like Kinger insinuate that there was something wrong with him?
“That isn’t what I–”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong with you? Why are you suddenly acting all serious and– and sane? Now that’s wrong.”
Kinger hummed. “Well… Out there,” He motioned forward, towards literally nothing. “My memory isn’t very good. I don’t act the most…” He trailed off. “I often feel like I’m not even a person anymore. But, in the dark, it’s different. I’m brought back to a certain time, and it lets me think clearer.”
The two sat in silence for a few moments. Jax lowered his head back into his knees as Kinger shifted to settle into the couch better. Aside from the two’s slight movements, the entire circus fell still, silent. Almost a little bit creepy, not that Jax was spooked by the dark. That definitely wasn’t the reason why he felt the need to break the silence.
“I just– everyone else here is stupid,” Jax bitterly mumbled. “They all think I’m this terrible irredeemable villain, when all I do is just… I make this place entertaining. I add drama. I’m– I’m the funny one! That’s who I am!” Exasperated, he threw his hands up.
“I don’t think that about you.” Kinger mused. As if.
“Of course you don’t,” Jax replied. “You don’t think anything. You’ve probably never actually thought anything about anyone in your entire life!”
Kinger tilted his head back. “I had a wife.”
“Oh.” Jax involuntarily stiffened. “I, uh, didn't know that.”
Kinger put a hand over his mouth(?) with a soft laugh. “She would’ve loved you. She was so kind and empathetic, and she loved to help others.” Jax flicked his ear at the implication that he needed help.
“That sounds… Nice,” Jax hissed.
Kinger nodded. “She was a bit like you, when I think about it. At least, right before she… Hm.” A sense of dread tugged at Jax, which he didn’t dare to acknowledge. “She was, at times, very– well, harsh. But we all knew she didn’t mean it. If anything, it was her way of showing that she cared.”
So she wasn’t like him at all, then.
“And…” Kinger continued. “She refused to open up, or ask for help. If only I had known, before it was… Well, nevermind that.”
“What happened?” Jax quietly asked, though he insisted he really didn’t care. Something about Kinger’s demeanour made him want to act differently. More calmly. “Were you separated from her when you came here?”
“Oh, no.” Kinger shook his head solemnly. “We came here together. She— abstracted.”
Silence washed over the two.
Jax tapped his foot against the floor, if only to fill the room with some sort of sound.
Was Kinger saying that Jax was about to abstract? He scowled, something snapping within him. “Well, I’ll have you know that I’m nothing like her. I’m not a ‘jerk’ because I secretly loooove everybody here, no, no, no.” He stood up, arms flailing wildly. His legs ached. “I don’t care about you! I don’t care about anyone here! As far as I’m concerned, you’re all just– just–” He took a sharp, shaky breath, trailing off as he met Kinger’s concerned gaze.
“Is there… Anything I can do to help?”
Jax swallowed, stunned into silence by the complete lack of resentment that Kinger seemed to hold for him. He only looked worried, gentle, even.
“Would you like a cup of tea? I can make great peppermint tea. It was my wife’s favourite.” Kinger’s voice was tainted with affection that was surely misplaced. Even when he was at his sanest (which still really off put Jax), he was still crazy, he had to be. There was no other reason for him to be reacting this way to Jax’s words.
Peppermint tea did sound good, though.
Despite his lack of response, Kinger stood up anyway. “I’ll go make that, then. Sit down, I’ll be right back.” Jax found himself obeying the command, no matter what his logical mind screamed at him.
Leaning back into the couch, Jax looked up at the colourful roof, dulled by the darkness of nighttime. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar movement. A grey-blue hand slinked out of somewhere, fingers outstretched, waiting, yearning to meet Jax’s. He mirrored the motion towards the hand, and despite the seemingly large distance between the two, they only barely touched, as if the owner of the hand was much closer.
Jax let his eyes drift shut as he softly sighed. God, was he exhausted.
Bright, loud colours flashed beneath his eyelids as Jax was yanked from his own body. Somewhere in his mind, he recognized this as the same dream he had experienced the previous day, before he was interrupted by Pomni and Ragatha. Disorienting yet relaxing music echoed through his skull. He opened his eyes only for the visual to be somehow brighter, more so than he had ever seen or believed he was capable of seeing.
Only a small, inconceivable part of his brain thought this, or really perceived what was going on around him, as the rest of it was overtaken by a blissful ecstasy. Euphoria pumped through his veins, breath catching in his throat as he slowly drifted towards what had to be a better place.
Static crawled up his extremities, through his fingers and feet and ears, towards his heart and his brain. Whenever he tried to regain his senses, another wave of swooning crashed through him, washing away any building sense of dread he could rationally conjure. The experience overwhelmed his senses with the feeling of being underwhelmed, if that was possible.
Slowly, the incoherent shapes and colours around him began to morph into something more known to Jax, memories he could detangle if only he could force himself to not be so calm.
A bright, hueless light began to make itself known ahead of him, as though all his mind was being pulled away into this endless abyss of beatitude. He squinted at the light. He had been unable to reach it last time, but this time, it tugged at him, uninterrupted by any of Caine’s stupid adventures.
And he was happy.
“Jax!” Hands were grabbing at his shoulders, shaking him back and forth as his soul was jerked back into his body. His eyes shot open as a wheeze escaped his strained chest. Immediately, whatever was shaking him reeled back.
Jax looked up to see Kinger, hovering over him. His entire form looked stunned by a horror greater than he had ever seen in another person, even after the events of the previous day.
“Are you– are you okay? Can you hear me? Can you see me?”
Jax shook his head. “Wh– Yeah? What are you doing?”
“Oh, thank god.” Kinger visibly untensed. He snatched a teacup from the coffee table beside the couch, holding it out to Jax. “Do you still want tea?”
“Uh, sure.” Jax weakly grabbed the tea, looking down into his faint reflection in the yellow drink.
Kinger nodded, taking his own cup and sitting back down next to Jax. Why couldn’t he go away already? “May we… keep talking?” He asked.
“Does it matter what I say? You won’t leave me alone either way.” Jax complained. He took a small sip of the tea– the intense flavour woke him up further. He had to admit, it tasted pretty nice, especially with its maker in mind.
“If you really want me to, I can leave, but…” Kinger put his cup up to where his mouth would generally be. The tea poured into his model, somehow. “Can we please talk?”
No.
“... Yeah, fine,” Jax grumbled. “Make it quick.”
With an appreciative glance back at Jax, Kinger nodded. “Thank you,” he purred. Followed by a short pause, he continued, “After Queenie— my wife… Abstracted, I felt like I’d lost a part of myself. A part that I would never get back. And at the time, it was like the end of the world. I didn’t see a reason to get up in the morning or to participate in any of Caine’s bizarre adventures. It all seemed… Pointless.”
“I blamed myself for what happened. I felt like it was my fault for not noticing the signs, for not trying hard enough. If only I had done this or that, she would still be here today. I still feel that way, sometimes. And… I felt like if I tried to move on, I’d be disrespecting her memory. Nobody else was still affected by her, and if I stopped grieving, then her presence would be gone.”
“But…” Kinger looked up, his fingers tapping against the couch. “I slowly began to realize that I couldn’t keep living like that. The people around me helped. I learned that continuing to live my life to its fullest wasn’t diminishing her existence, nor was it me moving on. Sure, I was moving on from my grief, but I wasn’t moving on from Queenie.”
“Even now,” he continued. “My memory isn’t the best at times. Most of the time, I can’t even remember her. But… Over time, I’ve grown to be okay with that. I get to cherish the memories I do have in times like this. But that first step to growth came from opening up to others.”
Jax blinked back something in his eyes. He wanted to reply with a snarky comeback that would adequately distance Kinger from him, so he could finally be left alone.
But that isn’t what he wanted.
“If I try this… Opening up to you thing you seem to love so much,” Jax muttered. “Will you promise not to tell anyone?”
“Of course.” Kinger delightfully replied. He mimed zipping up his mouth with his hand, despite not having a mouth.
Jax weakly smiled at Kinger. He put his tea down next to him, placing his elbows on his thighs and resting his head in his hands. He looked down at his feet as the words caught in his throat. His lower lip trembled slightly as he inhaled.
“Everyone is acting differently. They don’t… They’re not doing what they’re supposed to do,” Jax said. “Like– Gangle is happy, even without her stupid happy mask. And Ragatha’s being harsher, and Zooble is being less harsh, and you— just look at you! This isn’t how you normally act at all!” He gestured towards Kinger. “You’re all being… People.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Jax felt incredibly stupid, yet he continued.
“I’ve been horrible. Which– which doesn’t matter because this is all– it’s not real! None of this is… I spend my whole life trying to escape this horrible world where every little thing you do has all of these consequences, and I finally end up here, and now all of a sudden—” Gasping for air, Jax’s entire being heaved under its own weight.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” Kinger prompted.
“I– This.” He threw his hands up, his body limply falling back over the couch’s backrest. “Any of it. I’ve– I’ve had enough.”
Kinger leaned forward, clearly trying to make eye contact with Jax. “I think we all feel that way. Especially after today.”
“No, you don’t get it. Even if there was a way outta here, which there isn’t, I don’t think I could…” He shakily sighed, looking away to avoid having to see Kinger, even in his peripheral vision. “Keep on— living. Y’know? Like, what’s the point? I just wanna give up.”
“But, surely you—”
“I wanna abstract already.”
Kinger let out a surprised sound. He cleared his throat. “... Well… The–”
Jax interrupted him yet again with a furious scream, throwing his weight back forward again. His fingers dug into the couch’s soft fabric. “I hate this! This sucks. Why would I even– Ugh.” He rubbed tears from his face. Since when was he crying? “I can’t– I don’t– I—” He stammered, each word straining him more than the last.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kinger scoot closer to him. The chess piece extended a hand, rubbing circles on Jax’s back as his words devolved into sobs. God, was he pathetic.
“There, there.” Kinger softly spoke. “Let it all out.”
“No! No, this is stupid– I don’t want to!” Jax cried. “I just— 
." Dragging his hands down his face, he screwed his eyes shut. A few seconds passed. Then minutes. Jax wanted nothing more than to abstract right then and there, to not have to face the consequences of his mask fully slipping in front of someone else.
“Jax? Are you still there?” Kinger gently asked. Jax grumbled an incoherent response. “Okay, good. Take as long as you need.”
Eventually, after god-knows-how-long, Jax slowly lifted his head, meeting Kinger’s stare.
“It’ll be okay,” Kinger soothed. He slowly retracted his hand from Jax’s back.
Jax wanted to argue; it obviously wouldn’t be okay, he’d ruined everything in real life, and now he’d ruined everything in the circus. There was no physical escape, and all emotional escape had collapsed onto him. Exhaustion pulled at his muscles, however, and an insurmountable force stopped him from giving any meaningful response.
“Why don’t you come stay with me in the pillow fort for the night?” Kinger offered. “I won’t say anything. It would be a nice change of scenery, I think.”
Jax huffed. “Yeah, fine.”
Kinger got up and held out a hand to Jax, who took it as Kinger helped him up. They walked steadily, Kinger seeming to purposefully match Jax’s slow, wobbly pace.
Soon, the two reached Kinger’s pillow fort, which Jax found himself surprisingly comfortable once he’d sufficiently stolen enough blankets to curl up in like a nest. He didn’t mean to doze off, but he ended up doing so anyway. Every couple of minutes, he sensed a soft tugging at his eyelids, which was annoying, but he really couldn’t’ve been bothered to figure out what it was, and eventually he was too asleep to even notice.
When morning came, Jax fled back to his room before Kinger awoke and silently prayed to himself that he wouldn’t remember their encounter.
Mulling over the conversation they’d had, Jax decided that he’d probably be able to take something out of it, even if Kinger obviously didn’t understand him at all.
What was he doing, taking advice from Kinger?
Surprisingly, his room seemed slightly less eerie when he came back to it.