Archive of Our Own

Everything in the circus was still bright and vibrant, to the point Zooble thought it might burn their eyes. They were pretty sure it was 10:00pm, at the earliest, but nothing looked any different than when they had woken up that morning. Hell, it almost looked brighter. Time didn’t work the same way in the circus, they had gathered, but after almost two years of doing the same exact things at the same exact times every single day in the hospital, they had developed a decently strong circadian rhythm. This was actually surprisingly helpful when it came to trying to keep the others healthy; they might not’ve had access to the right medicines anymore (and didn’t quite trust the non-nurse Caine to make medicine that was safe or functional by any means) but making sure everyone went to bed at a decent time and got enough sleep seemed to be holding them over for now, albeit, shakily so. 

Jax, however, (or, well, “Pajamas”) either did not fully understand that good sleep and people caring for him were the only things keeping him from complete and total abstraction without his medicine, or, he did not care. Probably the latter. Zooble had made a point of letting him stay up later than when he was normally expected to go to sleep back in the hospital, as they agreed it was too early, but he still fought them like hell when they put their foot down and said it was time for him to go to bed, around the time their body clock sensed it was about 2:00am. They understood it on some level—they were the same age, and they knew that they would feel unbelievably patronized and disrespected if someone tried to force them to sleep—but they also weren’t teetering on the edge of the digital equivalent of death, so. And with everything that Stars had told them yesterday, they just…didn’t want to take their chances. They couldn’t let themselves make anything worse than they already had. 

Zooble stopped in front of one of the doors, the one labeled with Stars’ face. It almost looked just like the placard on Pomni’s door back in the hospital, with both of them featuring the same big-eyed, sad, sappy look, but of course it had Stars’ defining features instead—longer hair, little blush marks, stars on her hat. Pajamas had become unreasonably attached to her as of late, and after they were unable to find him in the empty room that was designated for him, or any of the fun new hiding places he liked to frequent in order to trick Zooble into accidentally opening the doors that punch you in the face, they were very sure that he was in there. At first they thought it was just him who had formed this attachment. He was half-abstracted, and already an immature child of a man-rabbit-thing before that, so when they or Nurse Caine or, anyone else really, told him no, got upset with him, or tried to help him in a way he didn’t like, he turned to the almost-stranger who never really ever seemed upset and couldn’t help him, and stayed by his side even as he continued being generally terrible, because she couldn’t even remember him being generally terrible. She was like his new teddy bear or something; he wouldn’t go anywhere without her, and it took her to convince him to. It was plain weird, Zooble thought. But after the…disaster…that was yesterday, it came to light that Stars felt a similar attachment. She seemed equally upset when she came to and realized that she & Pajamas had been forcibly separated, if not more upset. They had an even harder time wrapping their head around why that might be, but still, they couldn’t help but cringe at the memory that separating the two like that was their idea. They especially regretted how they had made Stars feel. Pajamas screamed his head off about anything, really, but Stars seemed incredibly kind, even while lucid. And they had pushed her enough to yell at everyone there. Zooble dreaded the fight that tearing the two of them away from each other again would be, but, they had to make sure Pajamas went to sleep, and frankly, with all the revenge pranks that he had pulled on them that day, they were starting to get over the idea of protecting his feelings, at the very least. They didn’t want to upset Stars again, but, working in a hospital, they got used to gritting their metaphorical teeth and pushing through fighting, pain, and all sorts of other unpleasant sensations, because something just needed to be done. They took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

…No response. They knocked a bit harder. They didn’t really know what was going on with Stars, but they knew Pajamas’ ears both didn't work as well since he had abstracted, so maybe he couldn’t quite hear them. They doubted that, but, it was possible. And maybe Stars had some ear thing, too. It was a lot easier to extend the benefit of the doubt to her, and it wasn’t like they had any way of knowing…There was no response again, but Zooble could hear some murmuring from behind the door, one the voices unmistakably being the glitchy, hard-on-the-ears one that Pajamas had acquired since his abstraction. Zooble groaned and rolled their eyes. Nothing could ever be easy with him.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. 

“Pajamas?! Stars? I’ve knocked three times already, are you even in there?” 

The murmuring came to an unnatural stop, like when a teacher walks in on an unruly classroom. Zooble couldn’t make out what was being said, but it seemed like whoever was speaking stopped right in the middle of their sentence. It was dead quiet, except for the sound of their plastic foot tapping impatiently on the floor. They sighed. This was, admittedly, an expected outcome. Luckily they had had the foresight to borrow the key to Stars’ room from Ragatha, who had borrowed it from Rags. It felt wrong to just enter a random person’s room without permission like that, but, the guilt that would come if Pajamas abstracted significantly outweighed the guilt of invading someone's privacy. 

“I’m coming in, don’t stand where the door could hit you,” They said, honestly a little quieter than they should’ve, still a bit ticked about the bucket-of-water-on-the-door prank Pajamas had pulled on them that morning. “I just need to make sure Pajamas goes to—Holy [%$!#].” 

To call the room “messy” would be like calling Pajamas “annoying”, or the sun “hot”. A wild understatement, but, no other words could even begin to suffice. Papers, sticky notes, a few napkins, even, all blanketed the floor and walls, to the point that Zooble couldn’t even tell what color they were. Blue, maybe? They weren’t reading the words on the papers very carefully or anything, but the first few that caught their eyes seemed to either hold no information of true importance, or were scribbled down so quickly and emotionally that they were illegible. They couldn’t linger on the notes for long though, as their attention was immediately grabbed by a mirror, face-down on the floor, with shards of broken glass surrounding it. Back in the hospital, they would’ve grabbed a broom and swept up the glass without even thinking twice, but with how disorienting and new the circus was to them, they of course had no idea where a broom even might be, and they froze, just staring at the mirror, not really sure what to do. It was completely dark in the room, which really should’ve been a relief after days of being bombarded with eye-burning colors, but all Zooble could think about was the fact that you couldn’t see where any smaller shards might be. 

“Uh, h-hello? Zooble? How did you get in here?”

Zooble blinked, having to forcibly pull their own attention away from the mess. Stars and Pajamas were both sitting on the floor, across from the bed, with their legs crossed and a board game sitting between the two of them. Pajamas rolled two different die, one red and one blue, and moved his piece, a little purple rabbit token, notably quite a few more spaces than the die showed. He seemed to be purposely ignoring the fact that Zooble had entered. That was his most recent strategy, since they could now barely understand his voice and he couldn’t insult them—He’d set up pranks and make messes and generally make Zooble’s life as hard as possible while they weren’t looking, and when the two actually interacted, he would ignore them. Normally, him ignoring them to this degree would upset them enough they’d yell at him, but they were so shocked by the state of the room—and the state of Stars—that they couldn’t muster anything but sympathy. They didn’t really want to just leave her in there, but, she wasn’t their patient. They couldn’t really make her do anything. That was up to her. 

“I—Not important. Ja-I mean, Pajamas, really has to go to bed now. I just came to get him.” Zooble stepped into the room. Pajamas didn’t look up, even at the mention of his nickname. 

“Can't he just sleep in here? I don't see why you have to take him again.” Stars’ tone was notably more frosty than it was before, glaring at Zooble as she spoke before turning her attention back to the game, picking up a card before moving her own piece, a little yellow star, back two spaces. Her stubborn expression barely changed as she did so.

“Yeah,” Pajamas huffed. Zooble couldn’t actually make out what he was saying, but it was pretty obvious from the context. 

They sighed, as their eyes panned around the room again. Before they could even begin to express their concerns, Pajamas interrupted, speaking for much longer than he had spoken to Zooble for weeks. They couldn’t make it out in the slightest, but his tone was clearly, very, very upset, and his distress was evident in his facial expression. Part of Zooble wanted to roll their eyes and groan, but part of them felt bad that they couldn’t understand, and just wanted to sigh yet again and manage to comfort him somehow. They looked over to Stars as Pajamas finished his little tirade, as she usually had much better luck than the others when it came to understanding him, and “translated” for him when she could. 

Stars’ eyes flickered from Pajamas and back to Zooble again. “He said-“ 

“OW!” 

A giant wooden block about equal in size to Zooble’s head suddenly knocked them in the face, pushing them to the ground. “Ohhh that is it,” They snapped, pushing the block off of themselves and rolling on their side so that they could more easily get back up on their feet. “Jax,”—They said as they stood—“You are coming with me.” They began walking towards the two. “To go to your room…” They stopped right before them, crossing their arms. “To sleep.” Pajamas stayed sitting where he was, glaring up at Zooble like he could somehow push them away with his eyes. “Now.” Zooble grabbed his un-abstracted arm, tight, and managed to lift him a little bit off the floor. He refused to stand up with them, trying everything he could to make himself heavier and push their hand off of his arm, screaming like he was being kidnapped, and saying things that Zooble was quite sure would just translate into equally incomprehensible frustrated screaming if they could understand a word of it. They didn’t enjoy seeing him this distressed by any means, but the pain from where the block had hit them made it a bit difficult to feel sorry for him. 

“Stop it! Why won't you just listen to us?!” Stars had wrapped her hands tight around Zooble's right arm, desperately trying to wrench them away from Pajamas as she pulled with all her might. It wasn't quite enough to cause any damage to their pieces, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. “Let him go already! You're not dragging him out of here against his will, no matter how badly you want to-”

Zooble looked back and forth between Stars and Pajamas, juggling the attention that was required to both keep Pajamas in their grasp and pull their arm away from Stars’. They knew that if they pulled too hard either way their arm would pop off, so they couldn’t truly win the fight, but they were stronger than the two of them just enough to stand their ground. “Oh for [%$!#]’s sake, I’m trying to help him, Stars! He can’t sleep in here! Frankly, neither of you should! I’m sorry if I’m being a bit harsh, but it’s hard to be nice to someone who just tried to give me a concussion!” 

“Help him?! That's kinda hard to believe. Pajamas told me what happened- How are we meant to know you're telling the truth, huh?! You don't even have a good excuse to take him out of here! There's a bed he can sleep on and the lights can be turned off, whaddya mean he can't? I'm pretty sure that's all you need.” The comment that she herself shouldn't be sleeping in here either went completely unrecognised by Stars.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry for that, okay?! I was just trying to help you both then, too. And just look at this place! One of you would have to sleep on the floor and there’s broken glass and paper everywhere!” Zooble finally managed to haul a still-screaming Pajamas up to his feet, but Stars still held fast onto their other arm, and they couldn’t exactly drag him out of there that easily. “I’m not lying this time, I promise,” They said, turning their head so that they could look into Stars' eyes. 

Stars’ grip still held as strong as she was able, but her own eyes looked up slightly more softly into Zooble’s, searching them for some sign of deceit. She opened her mouth to respond, but couldn’t before she was interrupted by yet another “OW!” from Zooble. Zooble let go of Pajamas and pulled their hand away, wincing as a giant bite mark appeared on their arm. “[%$!#]! What is wrong with you?!” They shouted as they stepped backwards. Pajamas grinned at them, proud of his work. They looked at their hand for a moment, and almost went to grab him again, but not before Stars could step in between the two. 

“You both know that isn't gonna go anywhere, so let's just leave round two for another time, yeah?” Stars expression was frustrated at first, but then it slowly melted into something that resembled exhaustion. “Is there anything we can do to get you to leave us alone?” Desperation coated her tone. She just wanted this to be over already.

Zooble’s face mirrored the same exhaustion. They wished they could leave them alone. “Listen, I—If Pajamas’ abstraction is spreading, like you said, it’s probably ‘cuz he doesn’t have his meds and…and the only way I know how to stop him abstracting without them is to try and make sure he stays healthy, somehow…gets enough sleep and stuff, y’know? I-I can’t leave him alone, at least. I know you’d let him sleep on your bed and all, but, you can’t sleep on the floor here. Just look at it,” They said, gesturing to the floor, but mostly to the broken mirror. “I…” Suddenly their face lit up with an idea. “How about a compromise?” 

Stars started to look extremely guilty, shifting her gaze away. She didn't- she shouldn't have told them all about that, and she still regrets it but… she also didn't want to lose Pajamas. And if making sure he didn't abstract required having to be civil with Zooble, even after… She could do that. She had to do that. 

“...What kind of compromise?” All Stars could really hope for was something that at least took a bit of their wishes into account (after all, all that really mattered here was that Pajamas was taken care of), but she didn't want to let on that she was willing to settle for anything other than a 50/50 split on both parties' wants and needs. 

“Your Caine put a couch in Pajamas’ room, since at least one of us is usually in there keeping an eye on him. It’d…It’d be better for you to sleep in there than in here. And that way the two of you wouldn’t have to separate. Plus, honestly, it’d be nice to have an extra set of hands in case anything happens.” Zooble put their hands in their pockets, making an attempt at easing the tension in the room. 

The last of their reasonings was what hit Stars the hardest. In case anything happens, huh? They kept bringing up the possibility of something bad happening with Pajamas, she- She wasn't sure if they were just trying to mess with her head or what but if they were? Well, it was working. Maybe a… cleaner space would be better for him, and if Stars got to come with then there wasn't really much reason for her to decline. Except…

She turned her attention towards Pajamas. “Are you alright with that?” Stars wasn't up for anything that Pajamas wasn't, and, whilst she appreciated the compromise, it was worthless if he didn't approve. They would agree on this together or disagree on this together, no middle ground in sight.

Pajamas looked at Stars with a much softer expression than his usual self-assured grin or straight up scowling, instead, something that wasn’t really a smile and wasn’t really a frown. He had sat back down on the floor as soon as Zooble let him go, and did not seem to have any intentions of getting back up. But he still thought for a moment before responding. Stars nodded a bit as he spoke, while Zooble just watched the two like they were speaking in a foreign language. They didn’t catch a word, but Pajamas pointed at the game when he finished, and they didn’t really like the possible implications of that.

“What did he say?” 

“He said he’d be okay with it, but he wants to finish our game.” 

Zooble threw their head up and groaned. “Of course he does.” 

“Could we…? We'll go with you when we're done, I promise.” Stars honestly didn't expect Zooble to say yes, but… it was worth a shot, right?

“I…” Zooble stammered. It was blatantly obvious to them that Pajamas would attempt to make the game run as long as possible so that he might be able to stay up later, but as they thought for a bit longer they began to wonder how he would even manage to stretch out a game like that much longer than it would run naturally. He might try, but, honestly it was becoming more and more possible that he wasn’t thinking through this sort of thing all the way anymore. Besides, the look that Stars was giving them seemed so… genuine. They regretted separating the two even worse at that moment. As much as they were fed up with Pajamas, they actually kind of liked Stars. She seemed…honest. They wished they hadn’t completely ruined their chances of becoming her friend. “Fine. But don’t act surprised when you finish the game and have to come sleep,” They said, addressing Pajamas, who did not acknowledge them and instead pulled a card and pretended it said to move his token back five spaces. 

“Pajamas! You didn't even let me read it first, how are you meant to know what it says?” Stars softly berated, peeking over at the card. “It says move forward three spaces, not back five. Dang, your luck is really good today...” 

Zooble and Pajamas exchanged glares, Zooble pointing at their own eyes and then at his. Between the abstraction damaging his vision and some of his cognitive ability, he had pretty much all but lost the ability to read anything but absolutely massive, bold lettering—and they unfortunately did not make game cards in the size he needed. Pajamas rolled his eyes and begrudgingly moved his piece forward as Stars reclaimed her own spot on the floor, sitting across from him. Zooble leaned against the door frame, suddenly awkward and completely unsure what to do with their body, but hiding it well. They glanced around the room again, but decided the notes probably weren’t theirs to read. Besides, it was better to keep an eye on Pajamas. The circus was so strange and random, after all, it was completely possible that he was aware he was sitting on some secret trap door underneath all the papers and would try to escape through it the moment he actually needed to go to bed. Zooble lightly chuckled at the thought of the Looney Tunes-style chase scene they envisioned happening next. 

Stars glanced over in their direction at the sound, but quickly averted her gaze back to the board and drew her own card. “One space? Well, at least it's forward. Could be worse...” As much as she wanted to win the game, her mind was sort of in another place right now. With the unexpected company, it was kind of hard to focus on any possibilities of victory instead of trying to decide whether ignoring Zooble's presence or watching their every move was the best for her sanity right now. Both had their pros and cons to be weighed.

Pajamas, meanwhile, seemed unbothered by the company. (Well, at least he did now.) He had gotten used to never really being alone, she figured. He flipped through the stack of cards to look for one that benefited him (something that was not allowed in the game, but, again, he could hardly read them and was more so guessing based off colors, so it wasn’t really worth stopping him), grabbed one, and handed it to Stars to read…Only to find himself stuck holding it out to her as she snuck glances at Zooble and ruminated on what she should do. 

“Whaat, are you afraid the cop over there is gonna snap and lock us up if we take too long or something?” Pajamas had found some silver linings in the fact that few people could make out what he was saying anymore, (that is, talking about people when they were in the room), but it was actually quite a lot easier to understand him when he spoke with his voice hushed. Stars smiled a bit, appreciating what seemed to be an attempt to make her feel better, although she didn’t find it that funny herself. She took the card, but was interrupted yet again before she could read it aloud. 

“Hey!” Zooble snapped, pretty solidly directed at Pajamas, as they apparently understood what he said for once, at the worst possible moment. But Stars couldn’t help but feel her own heartbeat quicken, even while Pajamas stared up at Zooble with his usual uncaring grin. “If I’m a cop, I’m at least, like, a rogue one or something…If Nurse Caine and Dr. Abel had their ways you woulda been outta here and locked in your own room at seven pm. So. You’re welcome.”

Pajamas just laughed in response.

“Just…finish your game,” Zooble said, shaking their head and rolling their eyes, but not in a particularly angry way. More annoyed than anything. 

Stars felt a little guilty for smiling now, knowing it was most likely misconstrued, but she tried to ignore it. After all, what Zooble had done was way worse than her smiling at a slightly mean joke, no matter how funny or unfunny it may have been. She turned her attention back to the game as they'd instructed, looking down at the card in her hand. “Move back 2 spaces… guess your luck couldn't last forever, huh?” She teased.

“I’d say that’s still pretty lucky,” Pajamas said as he moved his piece back, tapping it on each space as if he needed to actually count. He…might’ve, actually, but it was impossible to tell from the outside, really. “The game ends when one of us gets to the end, so, the farther back we both get, the longer it’ll take for it to finish, and the longer we get to avoid whatever torture Pieces over there has in store for us. Well, me. They probably won’t torture you too bad at least…They just target me! I don’t know why!” Pajamas feigned sad, innocent puppy-dog eyes. Zooble luckily didn’t seem to hear that, and instead they were focused on examining the fresh bite mark on their arm. 

“Oh…” Was all she could think to say. After all, Stars didn't have the luxury of being unable to be understood by Zooble, if you could even refer to it like that. She glanced over at them, before picking up her own card.

“Uh… three spaces back.” A complete and utter lie. It felt heavy on her tongue, but as much as she didn't want to deceive them in fear of the consequences, she also wanted to make sure Pajamas felt safe. And it wasn't like Stars herself was in any rush to leave her room. This was where all her notes were. Her safety net. It felt awful to not be lucid here, if she was going to be anywhere. She knew this couldn't last forever, but she could at least help it last a little bit longer. Stars carefully moved her piece backwards before staring at the ground. She swore she felt Zooble's gaze pierce through her. She didn't want to check. Pajama's warnings of torture weighed on her mind, and any suspicious acts might screw everything up. He knew them better than she did, after all. She was inclined to trust him.

For all Pajamas knew, the card really did say move backwards, but, he figured not, and smiled as ridiculously wide as he normally did. He grabbed another card and pretended it said four spaces back, then on his next turn that it said five, until eventually it almost looked like they had only just started. He seemed rather pleased with himself. 

Zooble meanwhile, had looked away for a few moments and looked back to find that. Their first instinct was to immediately yell at Pajamas, but they didn’t want another fight on their hands. “Hey, what’s going on over there?” They asked, trying not to sound too accusatory, but failing a bit. 

The smile that had managed to find its way onto Stars’ face the past few turns dropped along with her stomach as Zooble finally noticed what they had been doing. She glanced over at Pajamas before realizing that there was zero way he could get them out of this. Damn it. “Just a bit of bad luck, I guess. You know how board games can be.” She shrugged. Stars just had to hope they'd believe it. After all, it was really unlikely for something like this to happen. “Maybe uh… the deck was shuffled bad?” Yeah. That helped. That definitely made the lie better. Lies are always better the more you say and the more you have to convince yourself the lie is good- Yeah, they're screwed.

“Hm.” Zooble didn’t buy it, of course. But they couldn’t risk being wrong and blowing up at the two for something they were actually innocent of. They already looked like the bad guy here, and that certainly wouldn’t help their image. Their face still showed some trace of suspicion, but they decided to treat the blatant lie as the truth. “Well, okay, listen…I know I said you could finish the game, but it’s gonna take way longer than I was expecting, so…He needs to go to sleep. Alright?” 

Pajamas scoffed as Zooble pointed at him. 

Oh. That was… more reasonable than she was expecting. They'd… they'd honestly been pretty fair so far. It didn't mean Stars trusted them or anything, far from it. But… she didn't find herself wanting to be mean to them. Maybe that was the point? She wanted to take time to think it over, but Zooble could still switch up any second if she tried to take advantage of their generosity, and Stars really wasn't up for giving that a try. 

“Yeah- yeah, you're right. We can play again another day, Pajamas.” She tried to give him a reassuring smile as she stood, knowing there was zero way he was okay with this. But she didn't really see any other option here. They'd tried to drag it out, and they'd failed. Nothing else they could do other than see what was in store for them. Once she was to her feet, she held her hand out to help Pajamas stand. Even if she wasn't much help with dealing with Zooble, she could at least do this.

Pajamas hesitated for a moment, his eyes flicking back to the game. He wanted to keep playing, to keep fighting, but it wasn’t like there was much he could do now. At least he didn’t have to ask for the help up. He hated asking. He took Stars’ hand, making sure to glare at Zooble like they were the actual devil as he stood. 

Zooble just breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Stars. You’re good with him.” 

Pajamas repeated “you’re good with him” in a mocking tone, but it was a bit lost under the staticy, glitchy changes to his voice, and a bit of stuttering as he struggled to get the words out. Zooble didn’t ask Stars what he had said. 

Stars couldn't stop herself from huffing out a little laugh at Pajamas’ repetition. After all, it was a bit of a strange thing to say, at least to her. “I wouldn't put it like that… you're making it sound like I'm- handling him or something… He's my friend.” Honestly, hanging out with Pajamas was one of the easiest things Stars had done in a long time. Before they'd gotten ambushed, she'd simply been happy, comfortable and relaxed for once in this damn place. No constant draining and overwhelming overthinking or dwelling on everything she'd forgotten and was soon to forget. She was just… tranquil. Or as much so as she could be whilst playing a board game. She wouldn't call that being good with him, or him being good with her… maybe just… good for each other. Helping, not handling.

“Oh,” Zooble’s expression softened a bit. That honestly made a lot more sense than how they were thinking about the two’s friendship. Honestly, in their mind, Stars was basically just doing what their job was, watching out for Pajamas, but was just…better at it. On one hand, they were a tad relieved to know that they weren’t just so awful at their job that a random person could do it better than them, but on the other hand, they found it a bit frustrating. There wasn’t a single universe where they could actually be friends with Pajamas, and if being friends with him was the only way to get him to do anything they said, then, well, they were screwed. Stars could always help out as needed while they were here, but they would have to leave the circus eventually. They also suddenly felt a bit stupid that they seemed to have had subconsciously come to some sort of conclusion that Pajamas couldn’t have normal friendships anymore. Well, they still didn’t view Stars and him as having a very normal friendship, but…it was a lot less one-sided than they had presumed. 

“Yeah, yeah, of course. That’s good. Better, maybe. I just, y’know, do ‘handle’ him, so that’s how I think about it.” 

“It is better, yeah.” Stars had already had more than enough experience with feeling like she was supposed to be handling the people around her. She was done feeling like she had no other option but to be the one responsible for everyone. But helping? She was always happy to do that. It made her feel useful, whilst also giving her the choice to be. Even if she rarely ever felt like she shouldn't make that choice. Then she'd just regret it. “That- that makes sense I guess but yeah, no, this- this isn't that.” Stars wondered if this was also Zooble handling her. She squashed that thought as quickly as she could, which was far slower than she would like. She's… she's doing fine. She's doing great, even. They didn't even have a reason to consider that they needed to do that for her. She'd honestly be offended if they had.

“Oh my god, I thought you wanted me to leave. Why are we all just standing around chitchatting? My legs hurt…,” Pajamas groaned, interrupting before Zooble could respond. Zooble only heard a series of static noises, so they looked to Stars for some sort of translation. 

“Ah, right, sorry-” She quickly apologised to him before turning to Zooble. “He's asking why we aren't leaving yet. After all that's the whole reason you came in here, right?” Stars tried to put it in a slightly nicer way. Not super polite, she was still upset with them after all, but not as bad as how Pajamas had said it. She left out the fact that he was in pain, unsure if he would want them to be aware. Zooble was kinda the enemy, and that's usually not the person you want to disclose your weaknesses to. 

“Oh! Right, right. Let’s go,” Zooble said, holding the door open. They were kind of unaware of just to what level they had solidified themselves as “the bad guy” in not only Pajamas’, but Stars’ minds, and the level of cooperation they were getting was giving them just a touch of false hope. 

The few minutes between leaving her room and arriving in Pajamas’ were a complete blur, which was something her memories and current vision had in common. Switching between dark and light and back again so quickly was always disorienting for her. Usually, it would just be her leaving Jax's room to go to her own, so she was able to just slump down and deal with it alone, but lucky for her, she instead had to try and stay as alert as possible so she could protect Pajamas from Zooble, which was a pretty difficult task when it felt like her brain had just done a soft reboot. Stars just hoped nothing had happened during the short walk. She'd hate if Pajamas got yelled at and she hadn't been able to do anything about it. 

Pajamas was standing next to her when she came to, but quickly plopped down on the couch with his arms crossed. He was shaking his head, which was a common tic of his, but it was hard to tell whether he was ticcing or actually saying “no,” especially ever since his voice changed with the abstraction. Zooble was standing next to the bed, rubbing the space in between their eyes where the bridge of their nose would be, if they had a nose. Which was…not a great sign, to say the least. “Will you please just lay down? You can sleep there, let Stars have the bed for all I care! Just! You are acting like a stubborn little kid!” 

“Just leave me alone!” Pajamas shouted back, apparently a bit too tired to come up with any more smart little remarks, or much of anything that made any sort of a coherent argument. Zooble looked over to Stars with pleading eyes. This time, not so much asking for a translation, but more so for…help. 

“Hey, Pajamas, do you think the bed in here is softer than mine? Caine made mine first so it kinda sucks but maybe this one will be nicer because it’s newer? Could you check real quick? It's a bit tall for me so you'd probably have an easier time getting up there.” Whilst yeah, she wasn't exactly up for embarrassing herself in front of Zooble trying to get up on that thing, that wasn't really why she was asking him. She didn't even want the bed. Stars just knew this was the only way he would actually lay down. Even if he didn't sleep, it was better than nothing. And with how exhausted she knew he was, she was pretty sure this would work out fine.

Normally, this would’ve easily registered as a trick to him, but he was exhausted. And he was more inclined to trust Stars than anything else at the moment. Lately, it felt like everyone was out to get him…except Stars. Even if something in the back of his mind somewhere whispered that this was just a trick to get him to sleep and keep him away from abstraction, he trusted that she had her reasons for doing it. Plus, he could be helpful. He wasn’t normally one for being helpful, but, Stars had helped him, a lot, so it was only fair. He wordlessly got up on the bed and lied down, making sure NOT to pull the blanket over himself. If he did, it would look like he was going to sleep there, and while Zooble may have won when it came to getting him out of Stars’ room, he was NOT going to actually sleep. Or, well, that’s what he told himself. “Y-Yeah, it’s a bit softer.” He nodded. 

“Good. I'm glad Caine finally figured out how to make a decent bed. Y'know, we didn't even have rooms when I first got here. Caine just found me passed out on the ground one day cause I didn't have anywhere to actually sleep. When I woke up he'd figured it all out himself… although I would've preferred to help him. Caine has… strange ideas of what a room should look like. But hey, it's something, right?” She turned to look at Pajamas, awaiting a response, and a small smile slipped onto her face as she realized he was already asleep. 

Stars had figured if she just rambled on then he would pass out eventually, but she hadn't expected it that fast. He must've been more tired than she thought. Thank god she managed to get him to sleep. Based off how Zooble had made it out, things could've been disastrous if he'd stayed up much longer. It was like a weight had been lifted off her chest… only to be replaced with another one. Because now she had a different problem. She was alone. With Zooble. Great. 

“Holy crap, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him fall asleep that quickly. Especially without his meds. Thanks,” Zooble said as they put the blanket over him, sort of unaware of just how much their presence was weighing on Stars. They weren’t completely unaware, though, and sensed a palpable tension in the room, almost even more so than back right before Pajamas bit them. Not that they had any idea what to do about it, though. “So, uh…I kinda figured I’d just like, sit at the desk and get some reading done…I’ll be here if anything happens so, y’know, you could like, sleep on the couch or whatever you wanna do.” 

“Eh, I'm used to having to help people get some sleep. It's pretty rough the first few nights, but it's even rougher if you're not keeping a schedule. Makes you feel human- or… as human as you can. You- you probably know that already, though, huh? With your… job and all…” A job that somehow led them to believe that they had the authority to rip her and Pajamas apart whenever they damn well pleased. “That sounds… fine, yeah. I'll just…” 

Stars awkwardly set herself down on the couch, placing her hands in her lap as she fiddled with the ruffles on the cuffs of her sleeves. Usually when Pajamas was asleep, she had a lot to do… mostly just taking new notes and reorganising or rereading old ones, but that was a relatively large task. However, in here, she had squat to do other than sleep as Zooble suggested, and there was zero way she was going to do what they wanted right now. Sure, she didn't really want to start any conflict with them or whatever, but Stars drew the line at leaving Pajamas completely unprotected. Even though they said they'd be here if anything happens, she knew that Pajamas would hate to have to get help from them, especially right now. If anything happened, it was gonna be Stars who made sure he got through it. The only person she trusted right now to be there for him was herself. 

“Yeah, helping the patients go to sleep is a pretty big part of my job. Well I mean, it mostly is with Pajamas. The others struggle sometimes too, but he’s the only one who outright fights it every single night,” They said, a twinge of annoyance evident in their tone. Suddenly their expression changed from that annoyance as they thought back over what Stars had said in its entirety. “Wait, why would you have to help other people sleep? It’s not like you’re some sort of…I don’t know, circus orderly or—or—I don’t know what sort of jobs there are in a circus, it’s just—not like it’s your job.” 

Any thoughts Stars had in Pajamas defense dissipated at Zooble's question as she tried to figure out how to answer them. Her mind still felt like it was melting a little. Maybe… maybe if she just talked a lot they'd leave her and her brain to melt in peace. They didn't seem like much of a talker. “I’m sure you've interacted with my Caine enough by now to have realized he isn't really much of a… care-taker. He's kinda the opposite of that, to be honest. So when new people arrived at the circus, they looked to me for everything instead of him. I'd been there the longest, after all, so clearly I was the one who was best suited to handle that sort of stuff. I helped people get settled in and everything and made sure that they, y'know, didn't lose their mind before they even lost their circadian rhythm. And it kinda just… devolved over time. At first I didn't really care because it had been so long since I'd even spoken to a human, but after you break up the billionth fight between people older than you...” 

Stars barely even had the energy to finish her sentence. Thinking that far back was exhausting. The vague basics still stood strong in her memory, but that didn't mean it was easy to think about, nor that she liked thinking about it. She missed them, even if her vague recollections weren't as positive as they could be. “Sorry… I shouldn't say that. S'rude to speak ill of the dead. It… it was fine. I like to help. Gave me something to do. I'd take all that over constant Caine adventures any day.”

“Oh. That seems kinda..unfair,” Was all Zooble could really think to say in response at first. “But I guess that explains why you’re good at this kinda stuff,” They added, trying their best to give Stars something to at least be proud of. “But I mean, jeez, how did you do that? Hell, I get burnt out just taking care of four people, and most of them are actually pretty nice. And back at the hospital we at least had a lot of downtime and everything. Just…how did you even manage to take care of yourself here with all that going on?” A part of them was genuinely curious. Another part was mostly just concerned about her wellbeing. And another small part of them was kind of hoping that maybe Stars would have some sort of advice. 

Unfair was kinda a good word for it, at least in Stars’ opinion. Nobody else wanted to or was willing to do it, so it fell on her to, no matter if she was willing to do it or not. Stars knew if she hadn't done it, though, things would've gotten a lot worse a lot sooner… or… maybe if she hadn't let them rely on her so much, when she started losing herself they wouldn't have-

She… she shouldn't focus on that right now. Zooble asked her a question. She- she should answer. They'd probably get mad if she didn't, and Stars was the one who started all this, after all. “I… I managed fine enough, I mean- you don't really need to take care of yourself here to survive. Eating and sleeping and stuff is good but it isn't necessary. What's the point in me doing that stuff if it means nobody else can or will? I just did what I could when I could and focused on bigger problems. The adventures could get… bad, to say the least, and people need support through that kind of stuff. I wasn't just going to leave them to suffer alone. I doubt I would get any sleep even if I did. There were only six of us, anyway, including me. And… that only lasted so long. I didn't have as much time with them as I would've liked.” 

“Oh, [%$!#],” Zooble muttered, without thinking. They shook their head once they realized what they had said and that it wasn’t particularly helpful. “Sorry, sorry, I just…man, that sounds rough. I think I’d go crazy if I wasn’t at least a little selfish sometimes…and then they just…[%$!#], I’m sorry about that. That sounds awful.” They glanced at Pajamas, who was practically comatose, hugging a pillow tight in his arms as he slept like it was something valuable that would be stolen. “Are you…sure you don’t wanna sleep? I mean we can keep talking if you want too, but…I’m here, ‘kay? I can keep an eye out in case anything happens. You can take a break.”

“You don't have to apologise. I think that's a pretty normal response.” Stars was honestly shocked they were apologising for something that small. Sure they ‘apologised’ for what had happened yesterday, but it sounded so… sincere this time. Maybe it was sincere both times. She wasn't sure… it was already slipping a little. “It was kinda rough I guess… I mean, why else would I be… this? You said it yourself, people go crazy like that. But… y'know. Things… things happen, right? Can't change all that now. Not that I regret it or anything. Just… would've been nice if things didn't end up how they did.” She would be a lot happier if she'd done a better job, but dwelling on her mistakes didn't help anyone, especially not her. 

“I… are you sure he'd be okay with that?” Stars stared over at Pajamas as she spoke. “He doesn't have a very… high opinion of you. I… wouldn't it just be better if I was here for him? To help in case…?” Taking a ‘break' kind of sounded like the worst thing she could do right now. She couldn't just… abandon him like that. It wasn't fair. After all, Pajamas was the only one actually doing anything earlier. It was her turn. 

“I’ll wake you up if anything happens.” 

And oh, she… she really shouldn't believe those words. But she kind of wanted to, despite it all. And Stars really was tired… She'd only ever slept when she physically couldn't avoid it any longer, which, even if lack of sleep wasn't fatal, still sucked. And, if she did sleep, it meant she would be able to talk to Pajamas even sooner… Hopefully not too soon, as he also needed some damn sleep, even more so than she did, but… sooner. “I… okay. Okay, I- I can try.” If that's what Zooble wanted, then Stars would have to at least attempt to get some rest. Things would be easier that way. 

Stars shifted herself so that she was now laying down on the couch instead of sitting on it. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but she could honestly care less. She'd slept in worse places. It felt awkward, trying to go to sleep in a room that contained someone who she had such complicated feelings on, but Stars tried her best to ignore it. Thinking about whether or not she could or should trust Zooble was only going to upset her, and it was likely better to just bite the bullet here than annoy them to a point where they stopped acting so strangely nice to her.

Zooble’s eyes squinted in the closest approximation they could get to a smile. “Night, Stars,” they said, and sat down in the chair next to the desk. A medical textbook had already been placed on the desk, so they opened it up and started reading, at least, as much as they were able to read now that they were pretty much alone with their thoughts. They glanced at Pajamas again after what could’ve only been time to read about three words or so, and again after just another paragraph. 

As Zooble read, Stars found herself staring at the ceiling. It… it was always difficult, purposefully trying to sleep somewhere other than her own bed. Even if those efforts usually failed, it was nice to be able to follow a routine, one that she was completely unable to utilise here. But… It was okay. She just had to shut her eyes, real tight, and try to clear her mind. Which… was easier said than done, now that Stars had completely adjusted to the sudden change of the brightness of her surroundings, but it couldn't take that long for her to fall asleep. After all, tonight had been pretty exhausting already. She had gone from not wanting to come near Zooble with a ten foot pole to awkwardly rambling off stuff no one else had had the privilege of knowing (not even Pajamas, he had enough to deal with), and it had taken a lot out of her. It didn't make sleep as easy as she would like, though. 

It still evaded her for a while there. Even with her eyes closed, body still and any threatening spiraling thoughts kept carefully at bay, she was still awake far longer than she would've liked. But, eventually, she finally slipped into it. It was dark, and peaceful, for just a bit. Exactly the way she liked it. There was nothing she needed to worry about here.

Until there was.

Rather than feeling as if she were just floating in an endless void of dark, Stars was suddenly very aware of the ground below her. She took a few awkward steps forward. “Uh- hello? C-Caine? Is- is this you?” Stars wasn't even sure if she was awake or not. She- she had to still be asleep, right? But then… why did this feel so real?

She continued to stumble through the darkness, which suddenly felt a whole lot less comforting than it usually did as it stretched onward and onward with no clear end in sight. But then, she heard something.

“Pomni? Pomni, please, you gotta help me!” A familiar face, one half coated in abstraction, grabbed at her ankle, trying to pull her down. She couldn't remember their name. Why couldn't she remember? “I’m scared Pomni, please! Why aren't you here? Why won't you help? Why are you just leaving us here to rot?” 

“Wh-what? No- No, no, I- I'm not, I promise, I-” If Stars could get down to the cellar, she would. She wanted nothing more than to comfort her old friends, but the only way to do that would be… and- and she couldn't. Not yet. There was still someone who needed her. She had to stay, for just a little while longer. Stars had already scared him once. She refused to do it again.

A second hand grasped at her other ankle. “Why are you abandoning us?! You said- you said you'd be there- you're just a liar! You never cared about us! You only care about yourself. You use us to make you feel better! Was it worth it? Making us feel loved just to satisfy your own ego? I bet you hated every second of it. No wonder you started losing it. Why would that happen if you actually loved us?”

“Wh-what? No, I- I did love you guys, I did want to help, I did, I just-” Stars pulled her ankles up, but she still felt like she was sinking lower and lower no matter how hard she tried to escape.

“You're still trying to run!” Another hand, this time around her wrist. It was cold, so cold. She couldn't bring herself to look. Her legs hurt. Her wrist hurt. Stars didn't want to see why. It would make it all the more real. “What kind of love is that? You're always running away from us, running away from everything. You never face your mistakes. But you'll have to.” A fourth hand, around her other wrist. She needed them to let go, they had to let go. She felt like she'd been set aflame at their grasp. “The more destruction you leave in your wake, the heavier you'll feel. And one day, when you just can't handle it anymore… you'll be dragged down here with us. Isn't that right?”

Someone appeared before her. She could feel it. Stars wrenched open her eyes to look, and oh god did she wish that she hadn't. Pajamas was on the ground, just out of reach but abstracting right before her eyes. He was looking up at her to save him, and she couldn't even move.

“Le-let me go, please- I have to comfort him, I can't let him do this alone, I-”

“Who's that going to help? Him? Really? No. You just want to help yourself. You want to say that you were there for him in the end, as if you didn't cause this in the first place. You should've been there for him the whole time, but you weren't, and now you have to face the consequences. You don't get to feel like you're some kind of savior right now. Look at what you did. Look at what you caused. You can't save anyone. You just drag them down with you. He would've been so much better off if anyone else was his friend. But no. It had to be you. It always has to be you, right? All your other friends abstracted. Why would this one be any different? 

“There's only one common denominator here. Just accept it. You're the one who ruins people.” The voices all rang out at once. The abstraction spread further. Stars couldn't even cry out to him. Her throat felt like it had never even been there at all. Numb. With fear or the spreading glitching, she wasn't sure. She didn't want to look. “You're the one who drives people to this. You think you can prevent the inevitable? You are the inevitable. Why else would you be the only person who's lasted anywhere near this long? You say you're helping, but you haven't helped anyone. He got hurt, and you're befriending the one who hurt him. Is it because you want to hurt them too? It would be a good plan. Look at your last friend. They exist for shorter and shorter periods every time. Maybe you can get rid of this one even faster. Look at him. Is this you trying to make up for your mistakes? Is this you trying to repent for your sins against him? Look at him, and tell me you can fix this. That you can truly say you did everything you could. Can you?”

Stars couldn't do anything but allow desperate tears to flow. She couldn't pull herself away. She couldn't get out of this. She just had to let herself be dragged down as she listened and looked. Pajamas gaze pierced her as he lost himself, and she didn't have any right to say she lost him. Because it was her fault. She caused this. To say she lost him would be a lie. A way to cover up all the horrid things she's done. Stars never lost anyone. Stars took them, and put them somewhere they could never come back from. She knew where they were. She knew what she'd done.

As she was dragged down, the murky darkness comforting her and putting out her pain, she felt as if this was too nice a fate for the inevitable. They shouldn't let her be with them. She would just make things worse, something that should be impossible yet she knew deep down was always what she ended up doing. Why would they let her have something like this?

As her friends' voices spoke, their eye-opening words cradling her, Stars wished that they had just left her up there alone, where she could never take anyone again. That sounded right. That sounded fair. Maybe she could help people if she were in her rightful place. As far away from anyone as she possibly could be.

What a selfish thought.

Her limbs began to burn again as she was left writhing on the ground. Neon lit it up beneath her. Even when she closed her eyes, she could still see it taunting her. Her friends' voices stopped completely. They granted her wish. She was alone. All alone, with nothing but a guiding light beneath her, reminding her of what she had taken. She burned. Everything burned. 

Is this what she deserved?

A stupid question.

She almost wished there was something worse.

Stars shot up, her breathing ragged as she was finally able to catch it. It wasn't even something she needed. Selfish, selfish, selfish- Her cheeks were wet. What was the point? She was the one who caused all this. She didn't deserve to cry over it. Selfish, selfish- She clawed at her chest, as if that was going to help her in any way. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing she should do. Stars curled up, hands desperately scratching at her chest, at clothes she couldn't even dare to tear through, suffocating her. What was she doing? Nothing. She was always doing nothing-

“Stars? Oh my god, Stars, are you okay?” Zooble closed their book without even bothering to bookmark their page, and came over to try and check on the jester. It was their first instinct to put their hand on her shoulder, as that usually helped Ragatha and Gangle, but they resisted, since it was Stars, and they knew that their Pomni didn’t like touch and figured it extended to her. They weren’t really sure what else to do with their hands, though, and just stood there, trying their best to express concern through their limited facial expressions. 

“J-just stay away- I don't- it's better if you- I- just go away!” She cried as she curled into herself more, still grasping at her chest for dear life. Stars couldn't be doing this. She couldn't be dragging other people into her stupid, stupid problems. How selfish is that? They- everyone else had better things to deal with than this. More important things. They were just gonna get hurt if they got close to her. They shouldn't be here. It was rude of her to shoo someone else off when it should be the other way around, but she didn't know what else to do. “I- I don't wa-wanna hurt you… please… go a-way.”

Zooble stared for a moment, thinking, deeply unsure what to do and trying to make sense of what she had said. It was a pretty familiar feeling for them, with their job. Constantly being thrown into random medical situations that they were by no means qualified to help with had taught them after a while to try and think on their feet. They rarely got lucky and made the exact right move, but they had learned not to freeze. “It’s okay, Stars, you just had a nightmare,” They said, sitting down at the other side of the couch. “You aren’t gonna hurt me.” 

“How wo-would you know? You just go-got here- You ba-basically just met me. Y-you don't know.” Sure, she likely interacted with Zooble plenty when she wasn't lucid, but her interaction with them when she was was limited. It wasn't their fault, but it did mean that their assurance that she wouldn't hurt them was meaningless. Stars knew better than that. She knew herself, far more than she would want to. “All-all I've done is hurt you. Yell at you, pu-push you away- How do you know that i-isn't all I do? You- you can't.” Stars always lied to herself that she was helping people. But she didn't like lying to others. It wasn't helpful. They'd just get more hurt in the end. Zooble deserved to know how terrible she was before they suffered more than they already had. Why had she even been yelling at them at all? She couldn't think straight. It was probably something stupid. Stars never had a good enough reason to be doing the things she does. What reason could be good enough for something like that?

“Well, yeah, but you…,” Zooble rubbed the back of their neck, suddenly finding themselves at even more of a loss for words. Honestly, they had assumed that the thought she might hurt them stemmed purely from the nightmare, but now they saw that it was clearly rooted in issues that they had no chance of unpacking in just this one night. “…I kinda deserved all that, after everything yesterday…And-and you wouldn’t be getting this worked up about it if you meant to hurt me. And that’s what matters, y’know? Your intention. I don’t care if you hurt me as long as you don’t set out with the express goal of it or anything. A-anyway.” They shook their head. “You’re clearly freaking out, just…Try to take a deep breath.” 

Oh. Okay. Maybe… maybe that was deserved, then. Or Zooble was just being nice. Stars wasn't quite sure right now. She was so tired and everything hurt, she- she wished it would stop, just for a little while. Her mind already felt like it was working overtime to just exist in this very moment. 

“Ma-maybe, I just- I-” Stars wasn't even sure if she meant to hurt them or not. Had she? They… they shouldn't be this calm around her if she did what she had on purpose, right? Or they were just really good at keeping their cool. Zooble could be terrified right now and she wouldn't even know it. Stars wished she could do that too. She was pretty sure her terror was clear, despite how much she had tried to hide herself away. They wouldn't be asking her to breathe if they didn't think she was scared, right? There… there wasn't any other reason to breathe in here. God, she must be weirding them out. She… she shouldn't…

Stars inhaled as deeply as she could before breathing it out, repeating it a few times over, enough to say that she'd at least tried to listen. She- she was trying. To help and not hurt. She'd done what they'd asked. She wasn't even freaking out anymore! Not at all. Stars simply felt like she'd gotten hit by a truck and that another one was going to hit her any second now. That was normal, right? She was doing… normal.

“Yeah, yeah, there you go. That’s a bit better, isn’t it?” Zooble was of course completely unaware of everything that was racing through Stars’ mind, only really able to see her breath slowing. It was true, she wasn’t freaking out anymore—at least externally. And that was what Zooble saw, so, the unsure feeling left them, and they felt like they could fall into the script they normally played out with Ragatha or Gangle in the hospital every other night. “You wanna talk about it?” 

“I-I guess, yeah…” Stars… Stars definitely felt better. She… she had to, right? Zooble seemed convinced that she did, anyway. So that must be the case. “It- it wasn't that bad. I- I don't think there's anything to talk about, r-really… and besides, I'm s-sure you've heard enough from me tonight.” She still felt embarrassed that she had told them so much earlier. Her stupid little plan hadn't worked at all and all she got out of it was making someone who at least seemed nice have to listen to all her stupid problems. Stars wasn't going to make that mistake again. They- they shouldn't even have to be dealing with her right now. After all, there was-

“Pajamas!” Her head shot up from her lap as she recalled the worst part of her dream. “Pajamas, is he okay, is he-” As she caught his sleeping form out of the corner of her eye, safe and sound and decidedly not abstracting, Stars let out a sigh of relief. She was lucky she didn’t wake him. He must really be exhausted. She would've felt terrible if she'd woken him up for nothing. “Thank god, I thought he- [#%?!], that was stupid, sorry.” She allowed her head to fall back into her knees, the only option she had to cover up the useless tears that were bound to flow. Stars didn't know why she felt like they were going to fall. Nothing even happened. Everything was fine. Was she- why is she still freaking out? She's fine. Like- Like Zooble said, it was just a nightmare. It wasn't real. None of it was real. So why is she so upset over this?

Zooble’s eyes shifted over to Pajamas for a minute. They felt they might be cobbling together an idea of what Stars’ nightmare was like in their mind, although they were only accurately grasping a few very basic general concepts from it. Pajamas had abstracted, Stars had…hurt someone? They thought? Really they were just finding themselves confused again, but they knew that they had to help. They turned back to Stars. “Pajamas is safe, I promise. We’ll keep him safe. But it sounds like the nightmare was…pretty [%$!#]ing bad, so, like, you don’t have to apologize for worrying. I think that’s fair.” 

“I… I know that. I-I should know that. He's fine… he's fine…” Stars repeated herself to make sure her brain got the memo. Her heart still felt like it was going far too fast for a situation with so little urgency. She glanced at Zooble for a moment, before shifting her gaze away again. She figured if she was going to be talking to them, then she should at least stop being rude and actually look at them, but… it felt like just a little too much right now. “I-Im probably blowing it out of proportion, really… it wasn't too much worse than an-any of my other nightmares, from what I can remember… Just… different. He- he wasn't in any of them before now. Usually I can handle it, but- th-that part caught me off guard a little, I guess… I… I couldn't stand seeing him hurt because of me. H-he's only been here for so long, the thought that I had already-” Stars cut herself off, bringing a hand up to her mouth as quick as she possibly could. Why did she have to talk so much in the dark? She was used to people now, or at least far more used to them than she was before Jax joined. She should have control of herself now. Zooble didn’t need to hear this, so why wouldn't she just shut up?

“Because of you?” Zooble echoed, tilting their head, genuinely befuddled. They couldn’t think of a single reason that Pajamas would end up hurt because of Stars. Hell, she was probably one of the only things keeping him from being hurt right now. 

At first, Stars just nodded jerkily, her body barely feeling like it was responding to her thoughts, but then, it hit her. Oh. Maybe this was actually important for Zooble to know. Then they would finally leave or something so she wouldn't do anything. “Ev-eveyone… everyone I've ever tried to help is gone, Zooble. Or at the very least on the edge of it. There's only one c-common denominator here. Me. I ju-just… I make things worse. I don't know why I th-thought I could help him. Anyone else would've done a b-better job, but I just had to be s-selfish and want to be friends with him. And now he's g-gonna- I don't wanna leave, but- I'm- Im gonna have to, right? I can't take him too, I-I can't, I- I j-just hurt everyone. Pajamas, you, Rags, Kinger- every last person here would be better off if I j-just left them alone. So w-why am I still trying? Why are you still here instead of leaving me to face what I've done? Wh- What are we doing here, Zooble?”

“I—I’m trying to help you,” Zooble answered. “Listen, I don’t know the whole situation but I don’t think that’s all your fault. The common denominator can’t be you, I…What you’ve done to try to help in the first place can’t be something that hurts people. The common denominator is this damn circus. I was just saying that this place would drive me crazy.” They were quiet for a few seconds, until they realized that that by itself likely would not convince Stars, and tacked on a bit more. “Besides, I mean, he threw a giant wooden block at my head,”—(they pointed to Pajamas)—“And I’m still helping him. Or. Well. Trying to help. 

And you know, Kinger said that when he was with him and you two were separated, Pajamas was an inconsolable mess. I mean, for the record, not that I think that’s normal…but it goes to show you definitely aren’t hurting him or being selfish, at least.” 

“I- You- You shouldn't have to help me. Sorry, I- I'm better than that. Y-you're… you're probably right, yeah…” Stars should just stop complaining and agree. She… she wasn't quite sure that it was right to attribute it all to the circus’ influence, but it was easier to pretend she believed that. For Zooble's sake. Something that was a bit easier to believe though was what they had said next, although it did surprise her to hear, lifting her head to look towards them with a wide-eyed stare once she had realized exactly what they'd said.“R…really? Poor Pajamas, I…” So the selfish thing to do was leave, then. That's… that's good. Stars really wanted to stay. It was rare that things could go her way without having consequences that were never worth the small amount of joy that had previously been provided. She… she was glad he liked being around her. She should've already known that, but… it was nice to have confirmation. 

Stars turned her gaze towards Pajamas as he slept. Her mind was slightly clearer now, and she remembered how it felt, being torn away from him. When it came to memories, it wasn't much, but it still brought her so much pain, despite how little her brain had allowed her to have. She'd… she'd make sure they stayed together. She wouldn't leave him like that again. She refused to.

“Everyone needs help sometimes,” Zooble said, not really able to think of anything else to say besides generic platitudes. “What do you mean you’re ‘better than that’? No one is better than that.” 

“I- I don't know, I- I just figured I should be used to this by now. I've been stuck here so long, this… this should be normal. I should be able to help myself.” Stars knew it was normal to need help, but… not for something that should be almost second nature to her now. Maybe she was doing worse than she thought. “I already know nothing is real here. So why would a stupid nightmare be any different?” 

Zooble purposely let the room go silent for a moment. They needed a second to think of what to say, and honestly, it seemed like Stars might need a little bit of quiet right now. “Stars, I…Listen. Just because something is normal for you doesn’t mean it should be…If you’re having nightmares then you deserve the help to get them to stop. Or at least the help to not feel totally distressed by them. It doesn’t matter if they’re not real or if…anything, is real, really, because…well…how you feel is definitely real. And I think that matters. If something’s upsetting you, then it is, and that has to be dealt with…whether it’s “real” or not.” 

Stars just stared at Zooble for a moment there, not quite sure what to say in response, before feeling her eyes well up with tears again. She brought her sleeves up to wipe them away, smiling a little as she did so. “[%#?!], Zooble. You're really good at this…”

She dried her eyes till they felt like they were at least going to chill out a little, and then brought her arms back down so she could look at them properly. “I don't- I don't kn-know if they can be stopped, but… yeah, maybe we can figure out how I can stop getting so… freaked out by them, somehow. I don't know, I- I'm not really used to talking about this kinda stuff. Or, well… actually dealing with it. But… I should. I… I can.” It was so hard to find something real in this place. It was sometimes hard to believe she herself was real. But… her emotions are. They definitely are, right? So Stars should make sure one of the few real things she had was protected, as much as they could be.

“Thanks,” Zooble said, smiling. They looked away, thinking for a moment. “Oh! I know. Ragatha has pretty bad nightmares too, and we’ve been trying this new thing with her—Basically, you imagine a new ending for the nightmare, that’s not scary. Then you rehearse that ending in your head over and over while you’re awake, and when you go to sleep again, that’ll be what actually happens in the dream. It’s been helping her a lot. Dr. Moon usually does it with her, but it seems pretty straightforward, so I could help you with it.” 

“Huh…” It sounded a bit too good to be true to Stars, but if it had been working for Ragatha, then maybe it could work for her too? “Okay… so uh… how do we start then, exactly?” 

“Well, what usually happens in your nightmares?” 

“Uh, well… There's a couple different ones, I think, but the most common one is the one I just had… and that's probably the easiest one for me to recall right now, anyway… For a while it's just nice and peaceful and dark, but then all of a sudden everything just feels all too real, and like its both closing in around me but is also far too wide and- Sorry, sorry, I'm getting off track. Uh… my friends, the- the ones who abstracted, they start… grabbing at me, pulling me down and making me start glitching out. They start asking why I abandoned them and why I'm not down in the cellar with them yet like I should be. They… they call me a liar and say I never truly cared, that- that I was just using them to feel better about myself and act like some- some kinda savior, and that all I do is ruin them all and drag them down with me whilst pretending I'm helping which I'm obviously not because then why are they all trapped down there whilst I'm still wasting away up here doing nothing but making things even worse than they already are which shouldn't even be possible because this place is already hell but somehow I find a way and I just can't stop thinking about how right they are, I-”

“Whoa, whoa, Stars—Stars, hold on.” Stars was clearly getting worked up, Zooble thought, and the best thing they knew to do in that situation was just to try and interrupt the spiral. They also, honestly, needed a minute to gather themselves after hearing about the imagery in the nightmare. Sure, they themselves had only witnessed about three abstractions, and they wouldn’t exactly call themselves friends with all of them, but the idea of something like that made their heart drop to their stomach. They had to make sure not to show that, though. Stars was clearly struggling, bad. She needed a rock. And, well, right now, they needed to be that rock. They could do that. It’d be easy. They had done it for Gangle and Ragatha for so long, and Stars had done it for so long with so many people. Yeah, they could do it. They just needed to keep their cool. “Try to take another deep breath. Do you think sharing like this is helping? If it’s making it worse, we can stop.” 

Stars was thrown for a loop a little, being cut off so suddenly, but she managed to listen to their advice, inhaling and exhaling as deeply as she could. “[#%?!], sorry, I- No, no, we can keep going I… I've just never talked about this stuff with someone out loud before, at least… not for a very long time. I can… I can stay on track. Uh… eventually, Pajamas was there. Just out of reach. I wasn't allowed to move or even call out to him… I think at that point the glitching had moved too far up, and I couldn't exactly break out of their grasp. They said comforting him would only help me and I had to deal with the consequences with what I'd done, but…” Stars stopped herself for a moment, breathing a little before she continued. She didn't want to spiral again. “Eventually he abstracted fully and they dragged me down fully. They were still yelling at me but it just felt… nice down there. Too nice, I- I didn't feel like I deserved it, even though they were still being so… And uh, then they left me glitching up there alone. I guess cause I wasn't very appreciative. Which, I can't really blame them for, I mean, it must be pretty annoying to finally see an old friend for the first time in forever just for them to start complaining…” She laughed to herself a little, a hollow thing, but Stars felt like she needed it right now. Everything was just… it felt like a lot. And she knew it wasn't, but… She couldn't just tell her brain that. It didn't like to listen to her very often. 

Zooble didn’t exactly return the laugh. They glanced at Pajamas again, the idea of him abstracting fully getting to them just a bit, then downwards as they thought. “I mean, I don’t think I’d be very grateful if my abstracted friends came back to life and did all that…An-and you know,” (They tacked on haphazardly, as they had only just thought of this), “Pajamas started abstracting back at the hospital. You weren’t around. You can’t blame yourself for that, at least…” 

“I know, I know, I don't blame myself for that, obviously, I was more just- scared I'd be that last push… After all, I didn't tell you guys it was getting worse… I had my reasons at the time, but… if I hadn't accidentally spilled, then he could've- I was just trying to protect him.” She knew nightmares could be illogical, but there was a reason that the fears they were born of existed in the first place. That situation was just proof she'd hurt him whilst trying to help him.

“Well, you…did the right thing telling us, in the end. And I don’t think you’ll be ‘the last push’, I mean…Pajamas definitely sees you as his best friend at the moment. I don’t really see how you could be driving him to abstraction….Anyway, right, the actual whole nightmare therapy thing umm…So all we need to do is just think of a better ending to that nightmare. Like…I dunno, maybe…Maybe you do break free and get to help him? I don’t know if that’ll help much if that’s not usually a part of the dream, but that’s what I’ve got.” 

“Yeah… yeah, it's stupid. Let's- Let's just get back on track, yeah. I… I think that could work, maybe. Prove to myself that I can help. If he's not a part of it next time, then it won't exactly do much, but I have a feeling that bit is here to stay for a while, even if I do know that wouldn't actually happen.” Stars kept her eyes trained on Pajamas as she spoke. She was a little more sure now that he wouldn't abstract, especially now that he seemed to be getting the proper rest he needed, but it was difficult to get past her worries despite it all. At least she knew Zooble would wake her up if there was any issues. Even if she doubted it a bit before, they knew exactly how worried about this she was now. If they didn't let her help, that would just be cruel, and Stars was starting to see that, at the very least, cruelty was never their intention. 

“Oh, good. Honestly I wasn’t sure how good of a new ending that was…I’m not sure how much more specific Dr. Moon gets with it, but now you just basically rehearse that ending in your head over and over again. And I figure maybe after a while of doing that, you’ll feel better and be able to go back to sleep?” 

“I think you came up with a great ending. Thanks, Zooble.” She smiled as she spoke. Stars appreciated that they were so willing to help her after… everything. “I can try that, yeah.” She really hoped it would work. Finding a way to get more than what was likely only a few hours of sleep, if that, would practically be a godsend for her. She'd have much less time to overthink things and worry about Pajamas and Caine and everything, plus it would hopefully limit those things even when she was awake. 

Zooble smiled back (or, well, squinted their eyes in an approximation of a smile). “Of-,” 

“NO!” Pajamas shot up out of his previously deep sleep, panting like he had been running for miles and holding onto the pillow he had fallen asleep with even tighter. His pupils went small and darted around the room, trying his best to reorient himself but failing miserably. “[%$!#],” Zooble muttered. They immediately got up and came over to the bed, but not before Pajamas saw that they were with Stars, which made his fur stand on end. He didn’t want to be separated again. Everything since he had abstracted had been so confusing, and so, so, miserable, he felt like he had been thrown out into a storm at sea with nothing keeping him afloat, just being violently tossed around by the waves. Stars was like a piece of driftwood that he had finally managed to grab onto that could at least help keep his head above water. And like hell he was going to be thrown back into that ocean alone again. 

“You just had a nightmare, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Zooble said, trying their best to ground him back to reality. Pajamas did not appreciate the gesture, the black abstraction across his face glitching and writhing and spasming even worse than usual. 

“Get away from me!” He shouted, and pushed Zooble away, having to exert significant effort to do so, but succeeding. Zooble’s first instinct was to grab him and make him lay back down, like they were taught to do back in the hospital, but instead they balked and stumbled back, not wanting to do such a thing with Stars watching. He immediately ran to her and grabbed her in a hug, tight enough that Stars felt like if the cartoon logic of the circus were to take over, he could break her bones. 

“Don’t leave…please…” was all he said to her. 

Stars paused for a second, registering his words, before throwing her arms around him and hugging him back as tight as she could. “I won't leave, not ever. Why would I ever do something like that? I'm always gonna be here for you, I promise. No matter what happens. Everything is gonna be okay.” She felt like no words could express the sentiment as strongly as she wanted them to, but Stars hoped that her tight hold would aid them a little. Pajamas was the only person she could handle this from, and even if she couldn't, she'd still deal with it anyway for his sake. She refused to let go until he did. She would be here for as long as he needed. 

Tears rolled down his face. He just couldn’t hold them back anymore. It was too much. He was too tired. 

“O-okay. Okay…” He was muttering and sobbing and gasping almost too much for even Stars to make out what he was saying. “Don’t make me go back to sleep, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I gotta—you gotta—please,” He coughed and jerked his head to the side involuntarily, another one of his tics. “Please.” 

Zooble still stood awkwardly where Pajamas had pushed them, watching the two. They didn’t understand what Pajamas had said at all, but man, they were not looking forward to having to convince him to sleep again, just based off how tightly he was holding onto Stars. Hopefully she could calm him down, they thought. 

“I won't make you do anything you don't want to do, Pajamas. I get it. I can stay up with you for as long as you need, yeah? But first you gotta breathe with me, okay? Like this.” Stars exaggerated inhaling deeply before exhaling. It wasn't like he could see her doing it, after all. “I promise you'll feel better after. Could you try? It's okay if you need a moment.”

Pajamas finally let go from the hug, but still held tight onto Stars’ hand. He coughed and sniffed, gasping and wiping his tears with the back of his free hand, for a while before he was able to force himself to stop and breathe. Even then, his “deep breathing” was more like gasping desperately for air, and it began another short fit of coughing. Finally, after that, he was able to breathe slightly more steadily, although tears still ran down his face nonstop. He wasn’t that big a fan of doing what he was asked but…maybe if he did what Stars asked and breathed, he could make her happy…and that would guarantee that she wouldn’t abandon him. God, he sounded like Ragatha. But, he couldn’t afford to mess this up, so…maybe it was better that way. “Thank you…” He muttered. 

Zooble looked on with trepidation. Stars was succeeding in calming him down, sure, but they weren’t completely onboard with the notion that Pajamas wouldn’t be forced back to sleep. Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world, if he just stayed up one night, but they just weren’t entirely sure that letting him do so would be the best move…and they didn’t want to regret it later. 

“You don't need to thank me.” Stars assured with a smile. He was her friend and he was suffering, of course she was going to comfort him. Why that was something that even necessitated thanks was beyond her. “Do you wanna talk about it? You don't have to if you don't want to, but if I can help, I'd like to.” She made sure to exaggerate that she wasn't going to force him to do anything. Stars didn't want to become someone he didn't feel safe around, and pushing Pajamas too far too fast would definitely be a fast track to such a situation. “We don't even have to talk at all if you don't want to. I'm fine with just sitting here if that's what's best for you.”

Pajamas sniffed and coughed again, nodding, although what part he was agreeing to wasn’t really obvious. He might’ve not been entirely sure himself, honestly. Really, he was just trying to communicate some positive feelings that Stars was there and trying to help him at all. He squeezed her hand to reassure himself that this was real, as he slowly started remembering the details of his dream, trying to talk about it. The memory came fully crashing back to him, and he shot Zooble as hard of a death glare as he could muster. 

Zooble just held their hands out in a gesture of utter confusion. 

Seeing his ire towards Zooble, Stars wanted to give them at least an apologetic look, but she found herself not wanting to look away from Pajamas for even a second. Not right now. She'd… she'd talk to them later. For now, she just squeezed his hand in return. She wasn't sure if she was handling this as well as she could be, but at least him glaring at Zooble was a good sign that he was getting a little closer to his usual self. 

“I need them to leave…,” Pajamas said, not bothering to whisper or do anything to make sure they didn’t hear. Not that Zooble could understand him, of course, but he honestly wouldn’t mind if they could in this specific instance. 

“I… I don't think they will. I mean, it was already a fight for me to be in here with you guys, I… I don't think it can just be us. I'm sorry...” Stars wished there was something she could do, but… she wasn't really up for fighting Zooble on this. After all, they hadn't been malicious to her whatsoever tonight. The exact opposite, actually. They shouldn't have to leave, but that was the only way Pajamas would feel safe. She… she had no idea what to do. Was there anything she could do? 

“Don’t think I’ll what?” Zooble asked, not exactly content being desperately confused anymore. 

“I, uh… he said that he needs you to leave.” Stars chose now to give Zooble the apologetic look she'd wished to earlier. She didn't exactly know enough about everything that had happened at the hospital to be able to accurately judge whether Pajamas' hatred of them was valid or not, but she didn't find herself hating them with what she did know. She wasn't sure if telling them what he said was the right choice but… They seemed reasonable. Maybe they could come to another compromise? 

Zooble sighed. “Of course he did. Yeah. Yeah, I can’t do that. Sorry. I—Listen,” They started, addressing Pajamas now. “I’m sorry for whatever I did in your nightmare, or whatever, but that wasn’t real, okay? You can take a couple of minutes to recuperate and chill out with Stars, but you gotta go back to sleep eventually, man. We’ll try our best to help you calm down and everything, but you can’t just stay up all night.” 

Pajamas looked Zooble up and down, shooting them yet another death glare. “[%$!#] you,” He said, making sure to speak slightly more quietly and enunciate his words better, so that Zooble at least had a chance of understanding. 

Zooble rolled their eyes. They did understand (whether that was fortunately or unfortunately depended entirely on which of the three you asked), but they decided they would not take the bait and start yelling back at him, like he seemed to want. They just crossed their arms and sat back down at the desk chair. “I’ll give you until I finish this chapter.” 

Sure, maybe it would work better if they acted a little nicer, a little more lenient—but the still-present pain on their arm and head, their own exhaustion, and Pajamas’ attitude made it hard to be nice. 

Stars wanted to say something, but she couldn’t quite find her words before Pajamas decided to let go of her hand, and go and slam Zooble’s book shut, right in their face. 

Zooble shot back one of Pajamas’ own death glares at him, but his own gaze remained unwavering. 

“Oh that is it,” Zooble said, for the second time that night, which only frustrated them more. “Bed. Now.” They stood and pointed at the bed, maintaining their eye contact, trying their best to leave no room for argument. Pajamas managed to find room for argument anyways, defiantly keeping his feet planted right where they were. 

“Why should I listen to you?!” Pajamas shot back, too wrapped up in his emotions now to make his words actually comprehensible. “You’re a filthy liar! You tricked us into separating before and I have no way of knowing you won’t do it again!” 

Zooble, who did not understand, groaned. “If you’re just gonna spend all night being like this then you might as well just go to bed now.” They pointed at the bed again, phrasing the last part of their sentence like an order. 

Pajamas turned and looked at the bed for a moment as Zooble pointed at it. Then he immediately turned and shoved Zooble back into the desk. 

“AUGH! You-!” Zooble lunged and grabbed Pajamas’ unabstracted arm, tight, tight enough that he yelped in surprised pain. “Do I need to force you?” 

Pajamas just glared at them in continued defiance, seething through the pain. 

Whilst all this went down, Stars had found herself frozen, not quite sure what to do. She didn't want to yell at either of them, but when it was clear both parties were willing to make the fight physical, the jester realized that she had to do something. She considered putting herself in-between the two for the second time that night, but it dawned upon her that with how they were right now she likely couldn't do that without entering the fight as well, and if she accidently hurt Pajamas trying to wrench Zooble’s hand off of his arm then she wasn't sure what she'd do, and it wasn't like Stars was up for accidentally hurting Zooble, either. There only seemed to be one option she could think of.

Stars shakily stood, preparing herself. She knew that her full height wasn't particularly intimidating, but it certainly gave her more power than sitting curled up on the couch did. “Guys. Knock it off. Now. There are far better ways to handle this than hurting each other, so just stand down, okay?” She was almost certain she'd expressed this exact sentiment to her old friends forever ago. It didn't feel nice, having to do this sort of thing again, but if she had to she would. It gave her a use, at least, even if she would much rather that nobody in the circus fought like this. Wishful thinking, she supposed. 

Zooble immediately let go of Pajamas’ arm, still staring wide-eyed at Stars. It wasn’t so much that they had been interrupted—it was that it was Stars who had to do it. They felt the gross feeling of guilt wash over them again. Stars had just told them how she was forced to keep the peace with everyone else in the past, and they had been honestly a bit disturbed at how she had been treated. And here they were, treating her the same way. They blinked and shook their head once they realized they had been staring, and that that staring would do little to relieve their guilt. 

Pajamas came back over to Stars and sat on the couch behind her, like she would protect him. Like he wasn’t the agitator. 

“Sorry,” was all that Zooble muttered once they were able to find their words. Pajamas was an adult, in the end. The same age as them, even. Maybe…maybe he had the right to choose to do what might not be best for him…As annoying as it might be.  

Oh. She… Stars wasn't quite expecting that. Usually it would take a while to calm the situation down, but they just… stopped. And… apologised, even. Huh. And here she thought she wouldn't be as good at this as she used to be. Although, she had a feeling her own skill at managing these sorts of situations wasn't quite what caused them to back down so fast. Zooble had been relatively reasonable, other than when they were fighting with Pajamas. Maybe they just needed an outside voice to realize what they were doing. It was a relief, honestly. Stars really didn't have the energy to spend who knows how long disarming the situation, although she was willing to bite the bullet if she had to.

“You don't have to apologise, maybe we just- stop with the fighting for tonight, yeah? Try something else.” Stars still wasn't quite sure why they apologised to her, but she was trying her best to not overthink it. 

“I don’t want to fight, I just-,”” Zooble found themselves getting a bit worked up again, but forced themselves to stop. “Yeah. Yeah you’re right. Just…do whatever, I guess. I’m here if you need me.” They sat down and started reading again, having to put some conscious effort into making it seem like they weren’t pouting or anything. They felt like the immature one here, but by god they weren’t going to let themselves show it. 

Zooble backing down so quickly honestly made Stars a little worried. They'd been so adamant that Pajamas needed to sleep before, but now they were just… leaving them be? What about everything they'd said before? How Pajamas would abstract if he didn't get proper rest? Whilst she didn't want to force him to sleep if he didn't want to, Stars was surprised they'd just… given up like that. They didn't even try another compromise. Had that even been true? Were they just trying to trick her into making Pajamas sleep? She wasn't quite sure anymore. It just felt… off.

“That was easy,” Pajamas said, chuckling a bit. “So what do you wanna do now? If I don’t have to sleep then we can do something fun instead.” 

Stars turned to face him with a small smile. Easy wasn't exactly how she would put it. Maybe it was meant to be a joke. Either way, she was glad he seemed to be doing better now. “Yeah, we could do something. I'm not sure what, though. We didn't exactly bring anything with us…” Stars was kind of regretting that. She should've brought at least a couple of notes… maybe her beetle… Zooble probably would've judged her for that though. 

Pajamas looked around the room for anything interesting. Caine hadn’t had much time to furnish the empty NPC rooms with anything the guests would like—or even anything that would psychologically torture them. “We could mess with Zooble,” Pajamas suggested, pointing at them. Zooble was the only “toy” in the room anyways, he had decided. 

“If I have to stop a third fight tonight I don't know what I'm gonna do but it won't be anything pleasant. Any other ideas?” As close as she was with Pajamas, Stars knew that there was zero way she was going to let him mess with Zooble, at least not tonight. She already felt like she was running on empty, so breaking them up again was off the table. The emotional exhaustion was beginning to get to her, especially because she wasn't used to conversing with two people for this long whilst lucid. And besides, they'd been way nicer to her tonight than they probably should've been. Stars wanted to return the favour, and if she was able to keep Pajamas off their back, at least for a bit, then she would.  

“I dunno….” Pajamas muttered, visibly upset that his plans to make things worse were interrupted.

“I could go grab some stuff from my room maybe- Oh, wait, no… stupid idea.” Stars knew she wouldn't make her way back to Pajama's room if she went out on her own. And she knew Pajamas wouldn't be allowed to come with her to help. It was the worst, being unable to trust herself in the light. To need supervision for something that should be easy. But there wasn't really anything she could do about it. 

“You need something from your room? I could go get it for you real quick, as long as you can keep an eye on Pajamas,” Zooble interjected, only having caught the tail end of the conversation. They had been making a conscious effort not to listen in, as to not upset themselves, but when the opportunity to make themselves look “mature” and to take care of the others again arose, they couldn’t help but perk up. 

“Oh! Thanks, I uh- I appreciate the offer but I wasn't really looking for anything specific… we were just trying to find something to do.” Sure there were specific things she wanted, but nothing that she was willing to tell Zooble about. Stars would much rather retrieve them herself if she could.

Zooble figured suggesting that the two of them sleep wouldn’t go very well, so they ignored the urge to say so. “Oh, right. Alright then.” They looked around the room for anything to offer. Maybe if they got them to do something a bit calming they would fall asleep anyways. They thumbed the thin pages of the medical textbook as they thought. “Oh! There are some books here. You could just, like, read something.” There was in fact a small bookshelf next to the desk—It only had about three shelves and equally just three books (and three books likely written by Caine at that) but it was there. Zooble grabbed the three books and began looking through them for one they thought Stars would like. Pajamas didn’t seem like he would enjoy any books at the moment, but he would probably listen to Stars if she read, they thought. “Ummm…How about this?” They said, handing one of the books over to the jester. 

Stars scanned the cover before flipping it over to the back, carefully reading the blurb. It seemed decent, as decent as a book written by Caine could be. It had been a while since she'd read anything she hadn't written herself. “Huh… I guess we could give that a try. Are you up for some reading?” She smirked at Pajamas, holding the book up next to her face. “Caine's writing is pretty bad. I'm sure it'll be entertaining.” Reading it aloud was probably going to be awful, but Stars was willing to take one for the team. She was pretty sure Zooble knew this wouldn't be her first choice, so it couldn't be too bad.

Pajamas tilted his head to the side, attempting to look at the cover of the book with his unabstracted eye. He still couldn’t really see it, so he just shrugged. “S’long as there’s nothing better to do…" 

“There probably isn't, at least not right now.” She shrugged. Stars thought for a moment that maybe she should ask Caine to put more actual stuff in the room, but she quickly dismissed that thought. She didn't want anything to do with him right now, favours or otherwise. They would just raid her room tomorrow or something.

She cracked open the book, gliding her fingers across the pages. It felt… nostalgic, somewhat, which was absolutely not a good thing, and the fact that she was nostalgic for something Caine made was even worse, but Stars crushed her complicated feelings for now. She didn't want to leave Pajamas waiting, after all. 

“Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two miles from the nearest post office….”

The book wasn't that bad, at the start. It just seemed like some regular old children's story, something she probably would've read when she was younger. However, as it continued, it started to develop the nonsensical oddities that were prevalent in Caine's work. Characters who had never been mentioned before were treated as if they had always been present within the narrative. Moments that likely used to be far calmer had dark plot twists half-hazardly thrown in to add tension. The time period had switched a total of 8 times at her count. It was a mess, but it wasn't a surprise to her. She was far more used to this kind of stuff at this point than things that actually made sense. Caine had the idea in his head that he needed to improve everything, which meant nothing here ever really made sense. It was why she had stopped reading the things he made, but she didn't mind dealing with it if it meant Pajamas was entertained.

Pajamas rolled his eyes when she had first started, being frustrated that it was obviously some children’s tale, but as it went on he found himself so confused that he couldn’t even be mad about it anymore. Nothing made sense whatsoever, but that meant nothing was predictable, so he found himself excited and trying hard to focus on everything Stars was reading. He enjoyed the dark plot twists, their contrast between the child-friendly characters being kind of hilarious to him. He couldn’t really see the few illustrations very well, but whenever one showed up on a page Stars would try to hold the book so that he could at least have a better chance of seeing it, and that made him feel…good. Considered. Safe, even. 

Stars yawned a few times as she read, her pace as she spoke slowing down the further and further she had gotten into the book. Eventually, she read a line, accidentally spacing out the words by about ten seconds each time…then fell asleep completely, before she could even finish the sentence. 

Pajamas considered shaking her awake again. He didn’t want to be left alone. She was still physically here, sure, and that wasn’t half as bad as him being locked in some room while she was off somewhere else, but still, he didn’t like it very much. But shaking her awake would…be mean, maybe. She might get mad at him. People were always mad at him, he was used to that, even liking it sometimes, but…but he didn’t want Stars to be mad at him. Besides, she seemed really tired. He had learned that she rarely slept, and although he loved having her around and not being alone at night, he figured she must be exhausted. So…he would just have to be alone.

Besides Zooble. 

He didn’t really hate Zooble, he just…he was mad at them. They lied. When he lied, he got yelled at. When they lied, nobody did anything. And when he did try to do something, he got yelled at again. It wasn’t fair. Honestly, he was mad at almost everybody—Zooble, Nurse Caine, Dr. Moon, Ragatha, Pomni, Kinger, Gangle…—they “cured” him, and for what? He was stuck, in pain, all the time. Nurse Caine subjected him to all sorts of injections and IV’s and x-rays and tests, to try and find out more about abstraction, meanwhile the others either didn’t interact with him at all or were mad at him every moment that they did. And he had felt like he had earned it. He wasn’t nice, he never offered anything of value to the others. It wasn’t like they loved him. He was convinced that they were keeping him alive and suffering just to punish him for the things he had done and to use him to study abstraction. He resented them on a biblical level, as much as Lucifer resented God. 

But, he was in such a position that he needed help, with almost everything. And besides Stars, he had nobody else but the people he resented so much to turn to. 

“Zooble?” 

Zooble didn’t know that it was their name that had been said, but they turned at the sound anyways, now seeing that Stars was asleep. They were tempted to remind Pajamas to let her sleep, but they figured he’d take that as a command and therefore be unable to stop himself from waking her up anyway.  

Pajamas carefully took the book out from Stars’ hand, trying not to wake her. He handed it to them, keeping his thumb on the page they had left off on, since he couldn’t exactly tell Zooble the page number. 

Zooble looked at the book, then back at Pajamas and sighed. They found it kind of…sweet, maybe, but, needless to say, they were not in the mood. “I’m not gonna read to you. I’m exhausted. And you bit me.” 

Yeah…yeah, that was about the answer he expected. He still thought the biting was deserved. And not to mention a decently funny way of retaliating. Zooble needed to learn to take a joke. Still, though, he almost felt like crying. But he couldn’t let himself cry. Only a little kid would cry because someone told them they wouldn’t read to them, and he was sick and tired of being babied all the time. He couldn’t give Zooble a reason to do it. He was not going to play that character. He just sort of looked around the room, as if he would find anything to do. He almost thought of messing with Zooble, since Stars wasn’t awake to stop him, but he found himself honestly too tired to do so. 

Zooble just quietly took the book and put it back on the bookshelf. 

“So what am I supposed to do?” Pajamas asked, honestly forgetting that Zooble couldn’t understand him for a moment. 

Zooble shook their head, not so much as an answer, but more so reminding him that they couldn’t understand. 

Right. Great. Awesome. Pajamas had to fight a little harder to hold back his tears. He still didn’t want to go to bed, but it would be easier to hide his face under the covers, so, he got up carefully, (as to not wake Stars), and buried himself under the blanket on the bed, hugging his pillow tight again. He let a few tears fall, but made sure that he didn’t sob. 

It was quiet now, for Zooble. Stars was asleep, Pajamas had finally settled down. They sighed, and tried to read a bit more of their book, but the information just wouldn’t get through to their brain. Textbooks were never really the best learning tool for them, and a medical textbook made by the non-Nurse Caine wasn’t exactly…accurate, to say the least. They decided it was best to give up on that particular study session and closed the book. It was then they noticed Pajamas’ breathing. He wasn’t whining or anything, and they couldn’t quite explain it, but they could tell he was crying. They sighed again. 

Pajamas jolted as he felt an unexpected tap on his shoulder, quickly wiped his tears away and sat up from under the blanket, his fur now even more unkempt from having been under it. 

“Hey,” Zooble said. 

“Uh…Hi?” 

“You ok?” 

Pajamas froze at first, then scoffed and rolled his eyes, putting on a big smile rather than bothering with trying to respond. 

“…Ok. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t feel too alone. I’m here if you need me. Goodnight.”  

Zooble pat the side of his shoulder, on the arm that was untouched by the abstraction, then sat back down at the desk and buried their head in their arms, (as well as they could with their odd body) so that they could get some sleep. Pajamas stared at them for a moment. Now would be the perfect time to pull another revenge prank on them, or to do…something, anything. They had let their guard down, and he was still mad. But something about what they said just…confused him too much to be mad anymore. They had comforted him. Really, actually, comforted him, rather than talking down to him like a baby. He still wanted to be mad, but he was also lonely and upset, and they had fixed that just a little bit, but he was almost also mad that it had worked. Eventually the mess of emotions in his head and his attempts to understand why Zooble had even said that at all just became too much to deal with at the moment. He wasn’t…too upset, anymore, at least. Just upset enough that he could still sleep. Finally, he decided to just lay back down and wait until morning, falling asleep about three hours after Zooble had first knocked on the door. 

The peace could only last so long, though. At what would've been 6am at the hospital and what would've been considered ‘far too early’ in the circus, despite the lack of any time-keeping, a certain loud-mouthed ringmaster had decided to let himself in. “HELLO MY LITTLE CHARMING CALZONES! ARE YOU READY FOR A BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW ADVENTURE? THIS ONE IS GONNA BLOW YOUR SOCKS OFF, I JUST KNOW IT!”

The three all shot up, not immediately thrilled with Caine’s performance as a morning alarm. Zooble fell backwards in their chair and hit their head on the floor. Luckily the strange, plastic material their body was made from meant this didn’t give them a concussion or anything, but it still hurt. 

“Count me out,” They muttered, still laying on the floor and rubbing their face. 

“WELL, THAT’S TOO BAD… I'M SURE YOU'LL COME ON THE NEXT ONE, THOUGH! WHAT ABOUT YOU, POMNI? YOU MUST WANT TO COME… RIGHT?” Caine had a desperate sparkle in his eye as he spoke.

Stars barely felt conscious, but she was awake enough to know that she had zero interest in talking to the ringmaster right now, nor did she have any interest in talking to him at any point in the future. She pointedly ignored him, laying back down, curling up and shifting herself so she was facing the back couch cushions instead of the cause of her ire. She held onto the back of the chair, tightly, as if that was going to help anything. She knew this was childish of her to do, but Stars wasn't ready to confront him. She wasn't sure if she ever would be.

“I'LL TAKE THAT AS A YES!” 

“No!” Pajamas shouted, standing from the bed. He wasn’t entirely sure that he was being invited to come on the adventure, and although it hadn’t exactly been promised that he and Stars would be able to hang out in the morning again, that’s what he had been telling himself, and he had felt like it was heavily implied. He didn’t want to have spent all that time fighting Zooble in an attempt to win even the implication of a promise that they would get to be together, just to immediately be locked in a dark room with whoever begrudgingly agreed to keep him from abstracting while Stars was yanked off on an adventure, again. 

“WHADYA MEAN ‘NO'? I WASN'T ASKING YOU, OTHER JAX! I'M SORRY BUT THIS PARTICULAR ADVENTURE MIGHT BE A BIT TOO MUCH FOR YOU… I WOULDN'T WANT YOU ABSTRACTING ON US! MORE THAN YOU ALREADY HAVE, ANYWAY!” Caine pat Pajamas on the head as he spoke, somehow of the belief that this would help him calm down. 

“Don’t touch me!” Pajamas swatted Caine’s hand off of his head, his face flushing red. “Stars didn’t say yes, you can’t just take her! You—you can’t just leave me here, alone!” Tears were beginning to well up in his eyes, but he tried hard to fight them back. Zooble didn’t catch a word he said, but they did catch onto this. 

They decided it was their job to interfere, clambered up out of the chair, and tugged on Caine’s coattails to get his attention. Pajamas immediately ran to hold Stars’ hand once Caine turned to face them, afraid that she would randomly fall through some portal at any given moment. 

Stars shifted herself so she could see Pajamas once she realized what he was doing, trying her best to give him a reassuring smile as she squeezed his hand. However, she was pretty damn sure that at this rate, she wasn't gonna be able to comfort him for long.

“Listen, dude…,” Zooble said, audibly still exhausted, and very done with Caine even so early into the morning. They were tempted to tell him to just back off, but they had a feeling that wouldn’t go too well, and decided to meet him where he was at. “If Pajamas stays here, that means that Kinger and me and Stars all have to stay and look out for him. Last time we tried to leave him alone here with just Kinger didn’t go so well, remember? Kinger isn’t always aware, so I need to be here, and right now separating him from Stars is even more of a recipe for disaster. 

So could we maybe all just, I don’t know, have an in-house adventure, or something lowkey? I doubt any of us will enjoy an adventure that would exacerbate Pajamas’ abstraction. And don’t you want as many of us to participate as possible? It isn’t really fair to leave him out of all the….‘Fun’…is it?” 

“HMMMMM…” Caine scratched his ‘chin’. “I SUPPOSE YOU'RE RIGHT, NEW ZOOBLE! EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN MY MARVELOUS ADVENTURES, EVEN HIM! I'LL START COOKING UP AN EVEN BETTER ADVENTURE THAT YOU ALL CAN BE A PART OF! I'LL BE BACK BEFORE YOU CAN SAY ‘XSHSLHXPSHSLSJX!’” 

Stars would question how he even managed to pronounce such a ‘word’, but 1. She didn't want to and 2. He had already left before she could even consider opening her mouth. She sighed with relief at his disappearance, shifting her gaze towards Zooble as she sat herself up. “Thanks for changing his mind… I don't really wanna go on whatever new adventure he comes up with either, but at least I'll get to go on it with Pajamas.” She smiled over at him as she spoke.

Pajamas smiled back at Stars as she mentioned his name, more of a small, genuine smile, than his usual sly one. It had been a long time since anyone considered him capable of making things more tolerable rather than less. Zooble smiled as well. 

“Of course. I’m just…doing my job.” 

“Still, you helped me out. Gotta thank you for that, even if you were just ‘doing your job’. And it's not like I'm one of your patients, so it wasn't really your job just then.” Stars shrugged. 

“…Thanks. I-I’m glad I helped, then. I’m just…trying to be a better person.” 

Stars frowned a little in concern at that. “What's that supposed to mean?” Whilst Zooble trying to be better was admirable in a vacuum, she couldn't help but be worried over the statement. What had made them feel like they had to be better? Had something slipped her mind?

Zooble froze, apparently not having fully thought before they spoke and only just now realizing what they had said. “Oh, it—I—it’s, it’s nothing I just…I just keep [%$!#]ing up lately, y’know? I wanna…wanna stop…doing that.” 

“Its not like you were doing that intentionally though, right? Mistakes are human. Making them doesn't make you a bad person, just… a person. It's nice that you want to do better, but don't discount yourself because you messed up here and there.” Stars wasn't quite sure what Zooble meant, but she was certain that nothing they had done was worth making themself feel like they had to be better. And besides, that wasn't a very pleasant path to go down. If Stars could help prevent them from doing so, then she happily would. 

“I mean, yeah, not intentionally, but…after you make a certain number of mistakes it starts to become…,” They hesitated. “Unacceptable, I guess. You have to do something about it eventually. Otherwise you kinda are…,” Zooble shrugged, not wanting to say “a bad person”. 

“Unacceptable by who? The fact that you want to do better proves you're not. Bad people don't work to correct their mistakes, at least not in any meaningful way. Good people do.” She smiled as she spoke, trying her best to assure them. Stars had zero idea if it was helping, but it couldn't hurt.

Zooble returned the smile, a bit. “…Thanks, Stars,” They said. They weren’t fully reassured, honestly, but they weren’t sure what else they could say, and they really did appreciate the effort. It was quiet for a moment, before Zooble tacked on, “But, like—like there’s gotta be something you can do by accident that’s bad enough that…that it being a mistake doesn’t excuse it at all. Like—like I dunno, being complicit in a murder or something.” They waved their hand in a gesture to sort of represent the “something” part of their sentence. 

“If you managed to be complicit in a murder in this place it would honestly be more impressive than anything.” Stars joked. “But I dunno… I guess it depends on how you were complicit. Did you knowingly help kill the guy or were you the cashier who innocently sold the murderer a block of knives without knowing what they'd do with ‘em?” Was that a good analogy? She wasn't sure. They weren't exactly her strong suit, and she was still pretty exhausted, but the jester was kinda having fun completely ignoring the numerous other possibilities and focusing as hard as she could on the example Zooble has given.

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I…,” Zooble shook their head. “I guess that last bit wouldn’t be unforgivable or anything…” 

“Exactly! It's not like you could've known. No point in blaming yourself for something nobody else would. All you can do is recognise that it wasn’t your fault and be more cautious next time. Maybe ask what they're gonna use the knives for first.”

Zooble cringed slightly. Now they sort of wished they had asked what the metaphorical knives were metaphorically for earlier than they did. But otherwise, Stars had a point. They nodded. “Y-yeah. Thanks.” 

“You don't need to thank me.” Stars reassured. She hadn't really done anything worth that. And besides, she was basically just returning the favour.

Zooble squinted their eyes as a sort of smile back. They might not’ve felt completely absolved, but not being completely alone in it anymore helped, if only a little. 

“I’m boreeeed,” Pajamas whined, dragging his hands against his face. 

“Sorry, Pajamas. I'm sure Caine will finish up his new adventure soon! And then once that's over with we can go hang out in my room and play some games or something.” Stars wasn't looking forward to the adventure at all, but at least she had the saving grace of not having to be aware for it. And besides, Pajamas would be there with her. It could've been a whole lot worse.

As if speaking his name was all that was required to summon him, the ringmaster appeared in the room once more. Stars was used to his sudden appearances, but that didn't mean she was any less freaked out by it. She figured they'd have at least a little more time. Wishful thinking, really. She should've just kept her stupid mouth shut. At least she wouldn't have to deal with him for long.

“WHY HELLO MY SENSATIONAL STRAWBERRIES! I'VE PREPARED AN ALL NEW, SOMEHOW EVEN MORE AMAZING IN HOUSE ADVENTURE FOR YOU! I JUST KNOW YOU'RE GONNA LOVE IT! WHADYA WAITING FOR? THERE'S NO TIME TO WASTE, WE'RE ALREADY BEHIND SCHEDULE!” 

Zoobe and Pajamas both jolted in surprise at first, but quickly settled back down. “Well, there’s not much else to do, I guess. You guys wanna go?” Zooble asked, addressing Stars & Pajamas, but mostly expecting an answer from Stars. 

She absolutely did not want to go. Stars was honestly completely done with adventures before there had been a group of interdimensional counterparts of her and her castmates knocking at her door. But now it wasn't really about her issues with Caine or whatever else she felt the need to overthink till she was physically incapable of thinking about it anymore. There was something far more important than that, someone she cared about enough to deal with Caine and his misconstrued idea of ‘fun’. She looked over at Pajamas, for just a moment, before turning her gaze towards Zooble and nodding, completely ignoring the ringmaster in the room. She couldn't quite bring herself to talk with him around.

“Alright.” Zooble held their hand out to Pajamas to help him up off of the couch where he had sat. To their surprise, Pajamas accepted the help, although he had to be careful to make sure he was using the hand untouched by the abstraction, which was a little bit more difficult for him to remember than it was for the others. Neither of them particularly wanted to go on whatever adventure Caine had planned either, but they both figured they didn’t have much of a choice. Honestly, Pajamas was mostly just relieved that this meant he wouldn’t be separated from Stars again. Once Zooble helped him to his feet, he looked back down at Stars and held out his hand to her, silently. He didn’t worry about which hand it was for her, knowing she was willing to tolerate the pain that would come from the glitching. 

Stars couldn't even begin to describe the rush of appreciation and affection that hit her as she grasped his hand like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. It kind of was, honestly. She squeezed it, not too tight but just tight enough to reassure herself that she was with him and she was going to stay with him. She could only hope that that remained the case throughout the adventure, but Stars quickly dashed that thought. She still had a few moments before she had to deal with that. For now she could just focus on the fact that Pajamas was with her and that he was by her side. The jester stared back up at him, gratitude clear on her face as she did so. It seemed impossible, to make her feel comfortable in a situation like this, and yet he'd somehow managed it. It almost felt too good to be true, and yet the best part was that she knew it wasn’t.