Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jax stared at the ceiling, lying in his bed. Normally, right about now would be the time that Caine called everyone down to have an adventure, but considering the... awkwardness (boy, is that the understatement of the year) of what happened last adventure, Caine had decided to finally give them a break... at least for now.

The silence felt... wrong.

It wasn't the peaceful kind of silence. Not the "Oh, finally, a moment to breathe" kind of silence.

It was thick. Heavy. Pressing. Like the world itself was dying, and waiting for him to notice.

Jax shifted, the mattress giving a soft, rubbery squeak beneath him. He draped an arm over his eyes, blocking out the faint, almost-too-bright glow of the ceiling light he didn't even bother to turn off anymore. The light didn't flicker, but in his own mind, it almost felt like it wanted to. Like it was considering it.

Jax couldn't sleep even if he wanted to.

"Great," he muttered to no one, "Guess this is what passes for a 'break' these days."

He lowered his arm and stared again, counting the faint seams in the ceiling panels. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. He lost track somewhere around twenty-five, his stream of consciousness looping back in on itself in a way he didn't like. He'd laughed this sort of thing off long ago. Of course he had. That was his thing. His role. His duty. Someone snaps at everyone, someone screams when they don't mean to, someone gets abstracted... and what does Jax do?

He cracks a joke, bows, exits stage left. Easy.

But not this time.

He could still hear Kaufmo's laugh, even after he was long gone.

He could still hear Ribbit's voice, even after they were long gone.

Jax swallowed and rolled onto his side, staring at the far wall. The colors there seemed a little too... dark tonight, bleeding softly at the edges like wet paint. He told himself it was nothing. A little visual bug. Happens all the time around here, especially in far-away places. The Digital Circus was basically held together with duct tape and broken dreams and shattered promises.

Still, his fingers tapped against the mattress, restless.

He tried counting again.

He tried humming something under his breath.

He tried not to think about how abnormally quiet it was outside his door.

Suddenly, a sound. Jax froze.

It wasn't loud, just sudden. Just... a soft "thump", like something heavy shifting its weight somewhere down the hall. Followed by a faint, rubbery drag. Again and again, he heard it. He held his breath, ears straining to hear the approaching sounds.

"Hello?", Jax called out, immediately hating how small his voice sounded.

Silence answered back.

Jax scoffed, forcing a grin that no one could see. "Wow. Congrats, Jax," he muttered to himself, "You've officially reached 'spooked by your own imagination' status. Reeeaaalll chill of you, man."

He pushed himself upright regardless. His feet touched the floor, and for just a split second, it felt warmer than it should've been. Almost soft. He pulled back instinctively, then frowned and planted his foot again. Normal. Totally normal.

The sounds came again, closer this time. It wasn't just dragging. It was... hopping, too.

Jax's already-droopy frown drooped downward even more.

Jax stayed still for a moment, listening. The hopping was uneven. Wrong. Not rhythmic, like Ribbit's used to be. Not playful, not energetic. It sounded like something trying to remember how to move and failing. Each thump, drag and hop landed just a little closer than the last.

"...Nope," Jax whispered, even as his body refused to listen to him. "Not today... Not dealing with this."

Jax glanced toward the door. He swallowed again. He took one step forward. Then another. The floor felt... yielding and sticky, like the kind of rubbery material used on toys and stuff that's been left to rot and melt for years. He grimaced, lifting his foot a little higher than necessary, as if afraid it might fully stick to the floor. The sound stopped. Jax froze mid-step. The silence snapped back into place around him, thicker than before.

He could hear his own breathing now; it was now too loud, too fast.

His ears began to ring with a high-pitched whine that made his head feel fuzzy at the edges.

"If this is a joke," Jax thought, "it isn't funny. And if it's Caine doing this, it's even less funny..."

Just then, something pressed gently against the other side of the door. Not a knock. Just pressure. The door bowed inward a fraction of an inch, wood creaking softly. Jax felt his stomach drop.

"...Hello?", Jax muttered quietly, "I-Is there anybody... out there...?"

The pressure lifted.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then a voice slid through the crack beneath the door; soft, slow, slightly stretched and multi-layered like it was being heavily edited through an audio program.

"Jax," the voice crooned in a familiarly soft and feminine tone, "You're awake."

Jax's fingers twitched. His trademark smirk grew. "Th-That's... wow. Incredible observation there," he shot back automatically, "I oughta give you a prize for that one, but that's not my style."

The silence that followed felt... amused.

Then another familiar voice joined the other one; masculine, mostly higher and louder, speed and pitch changing constantly (oftentimes not matching up with one another), laughs chopped up and interspersed in all the wrong places.

"Oh, Jax, you've always been a card, you know that?"

The door handle began to turn. Jax stepped back, his frown returning, his heart hammering. Every instinct inside him was screaming at him to run, even though he didn't know where running would even take him.

"You shouldn't be alone," Kaufmo sang. "Being alone just makes the voices in your head louder!"

The door fully creaked open.

Ribbit and Kaufmo both stood in the doorway... or, what used to be Ribbit and Kaufmo, anyway. Outside of their voices, they were completely unrecognizable. Black, stretchy mounds resembling bodies of some description, with polygons jutting in and out everywhere, even at seemingly impossible angles. Glowing colorful eyes on every single limb and body part, every surface. Watching him. Watching everything.

Whatever they were, they were neither human nor player anymore.

Jax couldn't move. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"Wow, uh," he began weakly, "H-How'd you guys get out of the b-basement? And wh-why?"

Kaufmo's shape rippled, laughter bursting out in jagged fragments. Some of it played forward. Some of it played backward. Some of it overlapped until the sound warped into something wet and staticky.

"He's hilarious!", Kaufmo began, "He still thinks there's a 'basement' Caine puts us in! Such a funny joke! He just traps us in our rooms, not expecting us to be able to leave!"

That... explained everything, yet nothing at the same time.

Ribbit wasn't laughing. She stretched forward, their form flowing like tar pulled by invisible strings. Her many eyes blinked slowly, focusing on Jax.

"You haven't been sleeping," she said gently.

Jax flinched. "I-- Y-Yeah, well, it's hard to get some sleep when you've got all this goin' on," he gestured wildly with his arms, "So if you don't mind, I'm gonna--"

He suddenly stopped.

The room around them was now gone. What remained instead was a void of colors that gave Jax eye-strain just to look at. The colors pulsed, shifting and changing hue constantly, just like the glow of the abstracted's eyes.

Jax's breath hitched.

"Oh, don't make that face!", Kaufmo grinned invisibly, "We're helping!"

"H-How?", Jax questioned.

"You don't have to keep pretending," Ribbit murmured. Her voice lowered, smoothing out, sinking into a rhythm that made Jax's head feel heavy. "You're tired of being the 'funny one'. The truth is: you're scared."

Jax shook his head hard, "Ahah! No, nuh-uh. I'm actually very passionate about the funny thing. Big fan. Lifelong commitment. Might as well, right?"

Kaufmo's laughter softened, slowing.

"But you are tired! You are scared," Kaufmo chimed in, "We can hear it in the cracks!"

The lights around him began to dim, like someone turning down a dial.

Jax whimpered, "I... I-I don't wanna hear this..."

Ribbit took a step forward. The floor beneath her rippled.

"You don't just have to hear it," Ribbit said softly, "You have to listen."

Jax squeezed his eyes shut.

"N-No... No... I-I'm not--", Jax began.

"But you are," Kaufmo interrupted, his voice no longer sharp or loud. It echoed from everywhere all at once.

"You've been listening all night. To the silence, to your breath, to your thoughts."

Jax pressed his hands over his ears. It didn't help. The ringing just grew stronger, combined with a low hum that matched the pulsing colors around him, the blinking eyes, the soft rise-and-fall of Ribbit's voice.

"You're so tense," they continued. "You're holding everything up all by yourself."

Jax shook his head weakly, but the motion felt delayed, like his own body was refusing to cooperate with him.

"I-- I'm f-fine," Jax weakly insisted, "I... a-always am..."

Kaufmo giggled, softer now. Almost fond. "That's the joke, Jax, and it's the best one!"

The colors dimmed further. Not darker; simpler. Fewer edges. Fewer places for his eyes to land. The void seemed to narrow, pulling inward, focusing his attention whether he wanted it or not. Ribbit and Kaufmo were closer now. Jax hadn't even seen them move.

"You don't have to be the 'funny one' anymore," she said. "You don't have to perform for anyone."

Ribbit's words sank in, heavy and warm, settling somewhere behind his eyes. Jax swallowed. His throat felt tight.

"B-But... if I'm not the funny one... w-what's left for me?", Jax questioned.

Ribbit's many eyes blinked in slow, synchronized rhythm.

"Quiet," she answered. "Rest."

Kaufmo leaned in from the other side, his laughter dissolving into a soft, looping chuckle that repeated every few seconds. Not loud or intrusive. Predictable. Safe.

"When we broke, it hurt at first," Kaufmo gently murmured, "But then, it got so much easier to accept..."

Jax's hands dropped from his ears. The hum grew steadier. The colors - becoming saturated again - pulsed in time with his breathing; slow in, slow out, slow in, slow out.

"You're scared," Ribbit said again, not as an accusation, but simply fact. "And that's okay."

Jax's knees began to buckle. If he were to look down at this stage, he might've noticed he wasn't wearing his clothes anymore. But it didn't matter now.

"I... I don't... wanna...", Jax uttered, his voice cracking, "...not... like you..."

The two abstractions reached out.

They touched him.

Their touches didn't burn, or hurt in any way.

They were warm. Soft. Gentle and kind.

"You won't disappear," Ribbit promised, "You'll stop hurting."

"And you'll never be alone again!", Kaufmo declared.

Jax's vision blurred. The colors smeared. The thought that followed was small, distant, barely audible beneath the ringing in his ears:

"I'm so tired..."

And for the first time since the silence began...

...he stopped fighting it.

Jax's thoughts didn't stop all at once. They slipped. Like words sliding off a surface that had suddenly become too smooth to grip. "I'm tired" became just "tired", and then became just the feeling itself. His breath slowed without him meaning it to.

In...

...and out.

In...

...and out.

In...

...and out.

The colors pulsed with it.

"That's it," Ribbit murmured, her voice threading itself neatly between each inhale. "You're doing so well..."

"Doing what?", Jax tried to think.

The thought didn't finish forming.

Kaufmo's laughter chimed in again; soft, looping, always the same length now. A broken record that never surprised him anymore.

Jax realized, distantly, that this was on purpose.

Predictable meant safe.

Safe meant quiet.

"See?", Kaufmo whispered, "When you stop trying so hard, everything lines up!"

Jax blinked and found his vision lagging behind the motion, like his eyelids were a fraction of a second too late to report back.

When they caught up, Ribbit and Kaufmo were even closer than before, still touching his shoulders. Still holding him close.

"I should run..."

The thought surfaced weakly, then sank before it could take root.

Run to where? The Circus was gone now. The room was gone.

Even the mere idea of being elsewhere felt fuzzy, incomplete; like a word on the tip of his tongue that refused to come back.

"You're thinking too much again," Ribbit said kindly.

Her hand rested against his arm now.

He couldn't recall when he'd started shaking, only that he now stopped.

"You don't need any of it," they continued, "Not the fear. Not the noise. Not the mask."

"Mask".

That word echoed strangely.

The muscles in Jax's face responded sluggishly, like they weren't entirely his anymore.

"Funny guy..."

"Comic relief..."

"Don't let them see..."

The phrases drifted past him, out of order, overlapping.

Kaufmo giggled.

Ribbit shushed.

"Stop thinking so hard."

"Just stop thinking!"

Stop thinking.

Yes. That felt right.

Jax's knees finally gave out.

The floor caught him.

It didn't hurt.

It didn't feel like anything at all.

He finally stared down at his hands.

They weren't his hands. Not anymore.

"This... This isn't--"

The thought cut off.

"You don't have to finish that," Ribbit interrupted, "You already know."

Know what?

His name floated up then.

"Jax".

He clung to it instinctively, the way someone grabs for a railing walking down the stairs.

But that was the only thing he was allowed to cling to.

Everything else was fading fast.

Colors bled together, like wet paint dripping sloppily.

Jax tried to remember what came next.

A joke.

A quip.

Something clever to say.

Nothing came.

The absence startled him more than the monsters ever could.

"See?", Kaufmo murmured, his voice barely a sound now, "It's quieter already."

Jax's grip tightened around the name in his mind.

Jax.

It felt thin.

"What... am I...?", he tried to ask.

The words didn't line up properly.

His mouth moved, but the sounds got caught in his throat.

Stretching and chopped up and overlapping until they barely resembled speech.

Ribbit knelt in front of him.

"You're nothing," she said, "And that's okay."

"You don't need labels, they're just weighing you down."

"You've been carrying too much for too long."

Kaufmo knelt next to Ribbit.

"No more pretending. No more jokes."

"No more thinking."

"Thinking's how we got stuck in this mess to begin with!"

"So stop it... Just stop... and chill."

The hum grew louder.

Not overwhelming.

Just enough.

Jax's thoughts slowed, stretched out like taffy pulled too thin.

Memories surfaced and sank before he could grab them; faces without names, laughter without context, feelings without reasons.

Five faces in particular.

Jester.

Ragdoll.

Pull-apart toy.

Ribbons.

Chess piece.

Who were they?

He didn't know.

He didn't care.

He couldn't.

None of it stayed.

Ribbit placed a hand over his chest.

"Breathe," she said warmly.

He did.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

With each breath, the world lost a little more shape.

Less sound.

Less meaning.

Until finally...

The last thing Jax felt - really, truly felt - was relief.

Not just happiness.

Not just peace.

Relief.

The absence of strain.

And then...

...there was no one left to notice that the thinking had stopped entirely.

There was no one left.

There was nothing left.

He was nothing.

He was no one.

And that was okay.