Chapter Text
“Hey Jax…”
Pomni settled herself against the side of the haphazard circus tent they had been keeping Jax’s abstraction in for the last… what, six months? Since the group had learned the truth about being brainscans, and therefore incapable of ever leaving the circus, time had become something Pomni almost didn’t want to keep track of. She often had the urge to ignore it completely, allow its sand to softly seep through her fingers while she turned to her next distraction.
“We played D&D the entire day today.”
But as usual, her friends kept her grounded. Ragatha had been keeping a calendar in her room that was (hopefully) accurate to at least the month.
“It was actually really nice. Usually we have Caine DM for us, but this time Gangle wanted to give it a try. She even drew all our characters – look, see – ”
Pomni held the paper that had been sitting in her lap up to one of Jax’s many multicolored eyes. She didn’t know if he could really see it. She wasn’t sure if he could process much of anything at this point. Either way, she wouldn’t be able to handle herself if she didn’t have at least the faintest hope that somewhere, inside that black, spiky mass, there was still a lucid Jax, listening to her with his stupid smug grin. Maybe he was still making fun of her like he used to, getting on her case for indulging the urges of someone as utterly lame as Gangle. She smiled faintly at the thought.
All of his many pupils fixed on the point where Pomni held the drawing. She turned away. It was far too easy to get lost in the eyes of any abstraction, mesmerised to the point you couldn’t move, so she usually found herself avoiding his gaze. He blinked blankly.
She was about to return to her original spot leaning against the tent when Jax began to reach out a claw.
“What are you…?”
The claw wrapped around the paper Pomni still held in her hand. It was laughably small in comparison to the abstraction’s giant appendage, but Jax held it gently enough for it to stay relatively un-crumpled in his grasp. Pomni, allowing Jax to take the drawing from her, shifted her gaze in order to observe him properly.
He held the paper up to one of his eyes, appearing to be attempting to get a closer look. A beat of tension passed as his rainbow iris scanned the paper, Pomni almost unable to breathe. What was going on?
Then, as if suddenly reminded of his current predicament and incapable of being careful for too long, he heedlessly tossed the paper back down to her and began to curl back into the fetal position.
What the hell?
She shot him a confused look before sitting back down.
So… he was capable of processing the world around him, right? Why else would he have appeared to be scrutinising the drawing so closely? Why would he have even taken it from her in the first place if there wasn’t something of interest he saw on it? Did that mean…
Was he actually still lucid?
Pomni squeezed her eyes shut. Getting too hopeful based on what could have possibly been a totally random fluke would not bode well for her mental state if things didn’t work out. It’s totally possible he was just… she didn’t know, maybe he liked the texture of the paper? But wouldn’t that still mean that he was processing sensory information?
Ugh. She shook her head. Whatever.
“Pomni!” Ragatha’s excited voice called out through the hall across from where Pomni sat. She was approaching at a frankly concerning speed.
“Pomni, I got Caine to set a softball field up for us! Whose team do you want to be on? Er, I mean, if you want to play, that is…” She was beaming, already suited up in a yellow-and-white striped version of her normal dress and a matching softball cap.
“Hey, of course I’ll play. What are the teams right now?” Pomni began to get up.
Ragatha’s smile somehow grew even wider, and Pomni allowed the question of Jax’s state to slip her mind for just a moment as she waved him a short goodbye.
+++
Her mind was only left in peace, however, temporarily. As she sat on the bench watching Caine ready himself to bat, her thoughts began to coalesce around Jax once more.
Nobody really knew what happened mentally after abstraction, not even Caine. They had all originally assumed that it was an essentially irreversible process in which the mind of the abstractee was completely lost, but that perception had only been created when they were sent almost immediately to the Cellar. What if it wasn’t necessarily true?
Or maybe… Maybe when Pomni had entered his mindscape, something she believed hadn’t been attempted prior, she had somehow been able to prevent him from abstracting fully?
“Wow~ a home run!” Kinger called out from the announcer’s booth, snapping Pomni out of her contemplation.
“Hah… ohhh…” Pomni blinked a few times to re-focus her eyes, fixing them on the ball that had been hit literally out of the park by Caine. He twirled once, clearly proud of himself, before skipping around the diamond and back to the home plate. He then turned towards Pomni and opened the gate to the field for her.
“Pomni! It’s your turn!” he boomed. Pomni looked up at him from under the shade of her cap. Behind Caine, the Sun smiled pointedly at her, intensifying its rays.
“What? Oh, me? Uh… yeah…” Caine walked over and held the bat out to Pomni. She faltered for a moment, clearly out of it, before reaching out and taking it. God, it was almost like a perfect mirror of what had just happened with Jax.
… Stop. No. Stop thinking about that. It was probably nothing.
“You guys going to actually bat or just hang out and talk all day?” Zooble’s slightly annoyed voice shouted from the field. The two of them turned, then looked back at each other.
As if telepathic (something Pomni was actually a bit paranoid Caine was), he assured her, “If something’s on your mind, please don’t hesitate to tell your good friend Caine! I’d love to help out one of my best buds!”
“Right… okay, thanks, I guess…” Pomni mumbled before dragging her feet out to the field. Caine, ever since the group had made the decision to have faith in his good intentions, had been doing all he could to become ‘best friends’ with the humans. While Pomni appreciated that he was no longer waking her up after two hours of sleep to drag her off to horror hell murder mansion #37, she still wasn’t quite sure how to receive this newfound attention. She assumed her friends felt mostly similar – nobody trusted him anywhere near completely.
She locked eyes with Zooble, who was pitching for their team. They looked determined not to let another home run happen. Pomni’s competitive spirit kicked in immediately, and the weight in her head dissipated for a little longer this time. Her grin was almost reminiscent of the one she bore during their gunfight.
“You going to actually pitch, or just stand there?”
+++
Ragatha playfully nudged Gangle with her elbow as they walked through the portal back into the Circus. Pomni and Caine, who had been on Gangle’s team, followed with expressions almost polar opposites - Pomni, who had been disappointed to lose, and Caine, who had just been excited to play. He was now excitedly regaling Pomni with ideas for their next ‘friendventure’ - maybe they would continue their D&D game (he was excited to finally be playing a sorcerer!), or maybe he could conjure up a fair reminiscent of the ones Ragatha had seen in her childhood - while she did her best to nod along. The last pair to enter was Kinger and Zooble, who were mainly just watching the other four with nonchalant interest.
“Well, I’d say it’s almost dinnertime, now, isn’t it? Whose turn is it to help me cook?” Ragatha asked the group. While technically they could just conjure up whatever meal they fancied, food somehow always tasted better when made with their own digital hands. That, and the fact that cooking allowed them some semblance of realism in the technicolor world they inhabited, meant that they had been taking turns nightly acting as Ragatha’s sous chef.
“I, um, I think it’s mine,” Gangle conceded with a soft smile on her mask. Ragatha nodded, and gave her a wave that meant to follow her towards their ‘kitchen’. The remainder of them made their way to their ‘living room’.
Pomni took her seat next to Kinger, while Caine and Zooble made their way to opposite couches. She took a look at her hands, trying not to fidget.
“Hey… Caine?” she started. He looked at her excitedly, seemingly ecstatic that a human was starting a conversation with him.
Gosh, this was stupid. But she had spent most of the day turning this question over in her mind, so why wouldn’t she at least try to answer it by asking that who was probably the most knowledgeable person on the topic of abstraction in the circus?
“Abstraction… it’s… irreversible, isn’t it? Like. It’s permanent. Right? No going back once it’s done?” Her voice was smaller than she had intended for it to be – the question was supposed to sound like a random nonchalant remark, but it was glaringly obvious she was more than a little nervous about the answer.
Immediately, the heads of all three others in the room turned to her curiously. Okay. Yeah. She had messed up.
“I mean - just out of curiosity.”
“Pomni, you…” Zooble scratched their triangle-shaped head, searching for the right phrase, “You’re not still thinking about Jax… or, well, trying to get him back, are you?” They sounded concerned.
“Well. No. It’s just… No, I mean, I told you, I was just curious!” Pomni defended herself.
“Abstraction, to the best of my knowledge, is a completely irreversible process. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been sending all your friends to the Cellar!” Caine answered with a somewhat naive tone.
“Of - of course. That’s what I thought.” Pomni pulled her legs up to her chest and set her back against the arm of the couch. She did her best to ignore the continued concerned gazes of Zooble and Kinger.
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Gangle came in to announce that dinner was finally ready for their eating pleasure. Pomni, trying to casually avoid the gazes of her circusmates, slowly got up and made her way to her seat at the table.
And of course it was spaghetti. Great. She cast Jax’s tent a pitying glance before pulling out her chair.
Zooble had been standing behind their chair, lost in thought.
“Hey, Pomni?”
“Hm?”
“Do you… Do you wanna go eat with Jax, or something?” they carefully asked. Ragatha and Gangle glanced at each other curiously.
Pomni looked up at Zooble with confusion.
“Like, as a group,” they clarified. Oh, so that’s what this was. Everyone besides Kinger had been worried about how often Pomni was visiting the abstraction – Pomni suspected it was possible they believed she was becoming a little delusional. Well. Maybe she was, if her thoughts today were anything to go off of. Zooble was probably hoping to gauge whether or not she was going to need an intervention soon.
“Um…” Pomni wavered. Did she want them there? Logically, she knew her friends would never judge her for how she grieved for a lost friend. But in the back of her mind, she had a tiny feeling that begged her to prevent herself from being seen, scrutinized. Somewhere even deeper inside her feared that they would try to stop her from interacting with Jax. Take him away from her and stick him in the Cellar.
“Okay,” was what Pomni settled on. She was going to be stuck with these people for the rest of eternity, and besides, she trusted them. They were her friends.
Ragatha was now giving Zooble an inquisitive look. Zooble just shook their head and waved their hand. They’d talk about it later. They then turned to Pomni with kindness.
“C’mon. Get your food. Let’s go.” Pomni nodded and collected her plate of spaghetti.
“You said… as a group, right?” Gangle confirmed. Zooble gave a thumbs up. Okay, well, they really were having a group dinner with the abstraction now. Nothing new, but Pomni couldn’t help but find herself a little nervous.
As they walked the horrifyingly long distance of 20 meters, Pomni considered why she had that nerve. It wasn’t really because the group was with her, no… It was more about being with Jax again. She was anxious to see if he really was as lucid as she thought. She wasn’t sure how she’d react if he wasn’t.
They arrived at the entry to the purple tent. It, despite only being a piece of fabric that had been pinned back, felt like a kind of threshold.
“Hey, Jax, we’re going to eat with you. Your favorite food is spaghetti, right? I hope you don’t get too jealous, ‘cause that’s what we’re having.” Pomni almost sat down before looking back up at him questioningly. “Wait… can you have it too? Can we feed him the spaghetti?” She had turned to Caine now, who had his fingers on his chin.
“Feeding an abstraction… I mean, I’m not sure how you’d get the food inside, but it’s worth a shot! Probably can’t hurt if it’s calm.”
Jax’s eyes were staring at her, and she once again turned to meet them. “Do you want spaghetti?”
“Uh, Pomni, I don’t think he wants in gener…” Zooble was interrupted by the ‘head’ of the abstraction leaning down closer.
The head moved up.
And down.
And up.
And down.
After a beat of stunned silence, Zooble exclaimed, “Wait - what the fuck? Did he just nod at us?”
Ragatha let out an astonished chuckle. “I – um – I can’t really think of a better explanation?”
Pomni, too, laughed, but more affectionately. “You do, don’t you?” She used her fork to roll up a small bite of spaghetti. Jax, who was now mere inches away from her face, somehow had an aura of anticipation about him. She held out the fork. The abstraction moved its head to envelop it, spaghetti, fork, and all, almost how Pomni had disappeared inside of him only a few months back. She giggled.
“Guys! He can eat spaghetti!” She turned to her friends, who were all sporting identical dumbfounded expressions. When Pomni looked back at Jax, his eyes looked happier than that of any abstraction she had seen before. They were communicating. She could feel it!
“Yes… He can eat spaghetti…” Caine echoed. He was then the first to right himself, slipping back into his ever-cheery personality. “That’s incredible!”
+++
The dam broke at night, two days after the Incident. Pomni had been concerningly distant, choosing to spend almost all her free time at Jax’s tent, except for when Ragatha or Kinger dragged her off to participate in some random activity. Now, she stood leaning against the door of her room, lost in thought.
She was so lost in her head that she didn’t notice Caine aimlessly floating down the hallway. He seemed to be similarly preoccupied, eyes darting from door to door, until he caught sight of Pomni’s tense body.
Caine tentatively moved toward her, arms awkwardly held behind his back. He, too, had been quieter since the Incident.
“Sooo… Pomni… You remember that we’re friends now, right?”
Pomni looked up at him cautiously. Caine was the absolute last person she would choose to confide in about something like this. He was, after all, the one who had been sending all the abstractions her friends had loved and cared for straight to the graveyard. She got the feeling that despite recently becoming more empathetic to their issues, he still didn’t completely get it – losing someone, that is.
He coughed. It was obviously a way to fill the strange silence.
“I mean… sure. I just don’t really feel like talking right now.” That sounded polite enough.
“Then let me.” Caine looked to Pomni to see if his olive branch was immediately rejected, and when he didn’t catch any fire in her eyes (perhaps due to his strangely serious tone), he continued. “I’ve been giving Jax’s recent behavior some more thought… and, well, I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Ragatha about what exactly went down during his abstraction. I think it may be possible that the reason he still seems lucid is that he hasn’t yet fully abstracted.”
That certainly caught her attention. Pomni was torn out of her reverie, suddenly rapt, eyes wide and owlish.
“Ragatha told me that you told her you were able to reach out to the real Jax. If my information is correct, you were even able to hug him! Someone whose mind is mid-abstraction should theoretically be completely unreachable, at least until they reach a more stable state. That means it’s possible that his condition is different from that of the other abstractions, and he’s stuck in some sort of limbo, where his body has abstracted, but his mind is still present.”
Pomni stood in shock.
“And! I can’t be sure if this is true, so don’t end up getting too depressed if it isn’t. But we’ve seen someone get taken out of partial abstraction before, haven’t we? Or, rather, I suppose you haven’t seen it – do you remember when you brought Jax out from his room, to join you guys on my ‘Escape-the-Circus’ adventure?”
She nodded absentmindedly.
“At that point, Jax was actually mid-abstraction! If you hadn’t talked to him, he probably wouldn’t have survived. And that got me thinking, Pomni, what if we could do it again? What if we could save Jax again?” Caine paused, seemingly finished with his tangent, eagerly waiting for Pomni to respond.
“Sorry – what?” was all she could muster after a moment. Another passed. “Wait, you’re saying – you’re saying he’s not fully abstracted, or something, and so there’s a possibility we could un-abstract him?” She didn’t even try to hide her rabid enthusiasm. “Are you telling the truth?”
“I wouldn’t lie about this. You should trust me more, Pomni!” Caine gripped his cane with excitement. “Are you willing to try?”
“I – yes, of course I’m willing to try! It’s just. Where should I even start?” She was beginning to sound desperate. She could save him! She could make up for –
Caine thought for a moment. “Let me just clarify that I’ve never seen something like this happen before, so I can't really say for sure. But I believe what’s been improving his condition has been your ‘hanging out’ with him, keeping the real Jax occupied. So… keeping him occupied…” He seemed to be struck by a thought, one finger jutting triumphantly into the air. “Oh, I’ve got it! Why don’t we let him join our D&D campaign?”