Chapter Text
Three months.
It had been a full three months since Jax abstracted.
Three months and about twelve days since Caine was deleted. Or… rather, “deleted”.
…
Gangle was doing better for herself…
She felt like she had a voice again, like what she felt mattered…
That- that was because he was gone, right? When she could actually be herself without worrying about him embarrassing her or mocking her or blackmailing her into doing something.
…
Then why did that fact hurt so much?
Gangle sat up in her bed. Slowly, steadily, like a machine. Her eyes were sunken and her mouth formed a shallow frown. She didn’t know what she was feeling right now.
Empty felt like a good word for it, almost.
But “empty” also left out the feeling like melting plastic lining the non-existent cavities between her non-existent organs. The air tasted burnt; she breathed shallow breaths because of it. Her arms, despite being light ribbons, felt like heavy steel cables. She felt strong. She felt weak. She felt sick. She felt…
She felt alone.
She stood up and moved silently from her bed to the door. From the door to the hallway (she didn’t lock the door, what was the point of doing that anymore?). From the hallway to the stairs. And finally to the tent.
Not the big top tent they all lived in, the one made of quilts and pillows.
The one Jax “lived” in.
Normally she’d just go to Zooble for something like this. It was easier that way. Zooble knew what to say. Knew how she felt. Knew how to make her smile. Knew how to let her cry.
She didn’t want to smile or cry or feel anything right now.
Everyone visited Jax, Pomni and Ragatha especially. Pomni sat with him for hours on end, just quietly talking at him as he made distorted noises back at her. Ragatha was much the same, though she sometimes brought him tea in teacups he seemed to like to crack; she replaced them easily so it wasn’t bad. Kinger would stop by in twenty-minute intervals, just telling Jax about the things they were up to and telling him not to give up. Even Zooble made an effort to communicate with their once-resident-troublemaker. Gangle joined when she knew at least one of the others was already inside. They each took care of him, watched over him. Insisted that he wasn’t gone.
Gangle didn’t check in on him often, especially not after the first few tries.
Because she knew. She knew that this Jax was not the same Jax they lost.
Because he backed away and hid whenever she got near him.
It only got worse when she had her now-repairable happy mask on. He shivered and tremored and narrowed his eyes at her. No, not just at her. At himself too. Gauging distance. Smoothing any glitched patches of himself that pointed her direction. Putting things between them like pillows or blankets or the occasional stuffed animal.
Everyone else noticed it too, so why were they so sure this was him?
Jax wasn’t afraid of her.
He wasn’t.
But tonight Gangle realized what he might’ve actually been afraid of.
She kept walking, rhythmically, robotically, until she was met with the entrance. A dark opening into the softest place in the circus.
She saw him there. A curled black ball in the center of the room which rose and fell like he was breathing. His eyes were closed. She sat down and waited, listening to the sounds of her breathing and his ambient static.
God- why’d he have to do this? Why couldn’t he have just messed with them like before? Why didn’t he try to hurt her? Break her down further? Why? Why did he give up?
Is this really all there was left? He’d stopped messing with any of them for a while before he finally abstracted. Even before Caine got deleted. Even before he started torturing them.
Is that when he’d given up, too?
She-
She wanted to hear his voice again. She knew she couldn’t.
She sniffled, a set of tears appearing on her mask and running down her face. They were quickly replaced as her quiet sobbing continued.
Her vision blurred as she looked at him, “her best friend” as he called himself. He wasn’t. Not really. But she had small moments with him. Moments where he was quiet and thoughtful and kind. Moments that were usually followed up with a day of harmless pranks and then a week of worse ones.
He hadn’t pranked any of them in over three months.
A bright, multicolored neon eye groggily opened before its pupil narrowed to a point and every other eye on his body flashed towards her. The static was louder now but sounded muffled.
He stood up and backed away a few feet, keeping his posture small.
She sobbed louder, her hands covered her face. In shame. In grief. In anger.
Jax straightened up suddenly as she wept, eyes scattering around the room. They always did when she cried in here. Always sought the nearest other player and pushed them over to deal with her.
But now she was alone. Alone with what was left of him.
And after a long moment of twisting and turning, he realized that too.
He stepped away from her to one of the secluded corners of the tent. He was out of her sight now, though really, she couldn’t see past her hands anyways. She curled into herself onto the blanket-covered floor, wailing into her hands.
When the crunchy sounds of his footsteps returned she was… confused.
It was the first time he approached her since he was like this.
She uncovered her eyes, tears still streaming down her face, her breath still hitching as that plastic feeling in her lungs tormented her. Jax was sitting about ten feet away holding a sherpa plush. A lavender hare with a salmon colored bow attached to the base of one of its ears.
He placed the stuffed animal gingerly on the ground between them and slowly shoved it towards her. He looked at her expectantly.
She felt herself choking as she watched him until a sudden burst of air shot out of her throat and she sobbed even louder than before.
He was such an asshole. Was- was this a prank? It had to be- right? It- he- he hadn’t pranked anyone in over three months.
She sobbed again, pulling the stuffed hare to her chest and gripping onto it for dear life. She curled herself around it like it would disappear if she gave it the chance.
It did before, after all.
Then the noise Jax was making turned from static background noise to… to a hum. Then it changed, slightly lower. Again. Again. Then a dip and rise of three shorter, rhythmic notes. It was-
She weakly turned her mask towards him, trying desperately to wipe the tears from her eyes. She wanted to see him.
He’d shuffled about a foot closer to her and relaxed his posture. He was singing. He was singing Daisy Bell.
The tune was distorted and choppy at times but she heard it.
It was him.
She didn’t know what to do. The burning feeling in her chest flared and fell again, leaving her nauseous and dizzy. She just listened to him.
When he stopped humming she had stopped crying. She was just breathing, slower now but still shaky. How could she not be shaky right now?
She scooted closer to him, still holding the plush in a death grip. His eyes widened anxiously.
He was afraid.
But he wasn’t afraid of her.
When did this change? The beach adventure? That fateful day in Cafe Cirque? Before he abstracted?
… After he abstracted…?
Pomni mentioned that when she touched him in the dark she could… talk to him. Just for a little while. Just before he went. She told them that she saw lots of weird things. And things she couldn’t tell them about herself, even though she clearly wanted to. She kept her descriptions vague… but told them his last words were along the lines of, “I don’t wanna die”.
He wasn’t dead.
She wanted to hear his voice again.
Not just the chiptune singing he produced. Him.
She wanted an apology for leaving like this. She wanted to apologize for not being there when he needed her. She wanted to forgive him for all that horrible, terrible shit he did. She wanted to make him promise he’d never do it again. Make him promise he’d never leave them all again.
She moved another foot closer. He stood up, his polygonal shape spasming out a bit before it was quickly smoothed back down under his own scrutinizing gaze. His eyes darted back to her.
She was standing now, holding the plushie to her chest. She stepped towards him. He took a step back. She growled in building frustration.
“Stop doing that,” her words sparked coals beneath the abstraction’s feet and he stepped away again.
She stomped towards him, “stop! Why do you have to do this to me?!” she screamed at him. A wave of glitching polygons rushed over him at her volume. She didn’t care. She knew he could hear her.
His eyes darted around the room frantically now, only a handful maintaining view of her. He backed up further, “you let everyone else near you! You let them hurt themselves by being around you! Let me! You- you owe me this…!” her voice cracked and he froze, tears streaked her face again “after everything you’ve done to me… just- let me be near you. You owe me…”
Jax just stayed there. The glitching on his body pulsed across him in rapid succession. His static grew loud and crackling. He squeezed his eyes shut and seemed to shrink into himself.
He’d done this a few times before. With the others. It was familiar to her then but she couldn’t quite put a word to it given his form and the way he seemed so… lost to them all then.
He was having a panic attack.
Now she took a step away, “I’m sorry,” she mumbled and turned around. She took another step. Another. She kept going. She wanted to give him space-
Last time she gave him space he abstracted. He couldn’t exactly do that again but-
Not this time. Never again.
She stepped towards the quivering mass of black polygons and, without getting into arms reach, placed the stuffed animal between them on the floor. She nudged it forwards until it tapped into him and he practically exploded upwards, opening his eyes in horror until he realized it wasn’t her touching him.
He looked down at the stuffy between them. He slowly shrunk down again and curled into a ball of polygons, eyes independently glancing between her and the hare.
She sighed. This wouldn’t go anywhere. She didn’t want to force him either. Afterall, she never spent much time with him in the last three months anyways, maybe she deserved some distance.
She turned around and began walking away. He started humming again.
She felt her throat seize as she choked down another sob. She didn’t want to face him like this. She didn’t want- this.
She heard his humming grow louder and, only barely holding back her tears, she turned around to look at him again.
He was about ten feet away again, he followed her towards the middle of the tent. His eyes were calm. When she turned around he sat on the ground again. Then he tossed the plush between them and closed his eyes.
She stayed still like that for a moment. What? What was this supposed to be? Was he trying to tell her something?
She bent over and picked up the toy and looked it over. She actually hadn’t seen this one before. It was cute with that little bow on its ear. It was clearly supposed to be him but also he hated anything feminine. She wondered why he had this.
One of Jax’s eyes opened at her expectantly. She looked between him and the plush again before stepping towards him. He closed that eye.
Her heart crashed against her chest, threatening to splash melting plastic out onto the soft room around her.
She stepped closer again. Again. Again.
She was only about a foot from him. She pressed the plush against him and for just a moment his body shivered and tremored. Then it calmed once more. He didn’t open his eyes.
…
She embraced him. It hurt, like he was tearing at her ribbons with that pair of scissors. She welcomed it, melting into him somewhat.
Then a white light surrounded her. Her eyes widened as it encompassed her body and filled her vision until-
She stood on one end of a hallway. It was dark, the only color coming from the outlines of the walls and doors. The first two doors on her left were heavily boarded, chains and boards covering them completely. The third had a bar lock over it. The fourth seemed normal. The fifth had a single board nailed across its middle. There were broken chains and loose boards with bent nails scattered on the ground in front of it.
They all had poorly drawn portraits of Jax’s face on them except for the fifth which looked scratched and smudged.
What-
What was this?