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It’s so bright.
It’s so bright. Has the circus been this bright? Weren’t the lights turned off?! Why is everything so BRIGHT?!
He didn’t remember what exactly had happened since Caine was deleted; it was all a blur. He thinks he pushed Ragatha? He didn’t even know why. He was so angry, everything was too bright, everything was blurring together. He wanted to hit something, he wanted to find someone. Even Pomni had ran away from him, and he wanted her back.
Was he scaring them? Why did he even care if he was? How long had it even been? Hours, days, weeks? There was no point in even counting them now- there one sense of time was gone, and now there was no point. No point. Nopointnopointnopointnopoint.
Just like there was no point in trying to survive any longer. He’s tired, he wants to go back to Ribbit, he wants the decency of being able to abstract instead of being stuck in this stupid body with these stupid people in this stupid circus. He doesn’t want to be trapped in his own mind like this anymore.
Maybe he had rabies or something. He was a rabbit after all. Maybe that’s why everyone was avoiding him; so they didn’t catch it from him. He had gotten aggressive, he had fought, and he did want to cause so much destruction that even the circus couldn’t fix. Maybe he’d die soon.
Yeah, that sounds nice. Drifting away. Not having to think ever again. Not having to put a smile on, not having to try and hold onto a thread of his sanity like he is now. He just needs to sit down for a moment, close his eyes, and he’d be gone.
But every single time he’d tried to do that, he’d been disturbed by another cast member somehow ‘finding’ him. He’s started to think it’s on purpose, what little mind he has left going towards trying to figure out where an isolated area was.
And it’s too bright.
It’s too bright and he can’t think.
It’s too bright, there’s too much red, he feels rage in his chest, and he hates every bit of this falling-apart circus.
He’s walking down the character hallway, he knows that. He knows he’s going to trigger his anger again once he gets to the end, he knows what he’s going to see, but he can’t bring himself to stop. He just needs to keep going, keep running, and everything will be over so-
..why was there a red flag in his path?
He felt primal anger rise in his stomach, waiting only a half a second before running towards it, trying to attack it. He can’t understand why red suddenly made him angry, he can’t understand anything except that he needed to catch that flag and he needed to rip it to pieces.
He ran into the door that the flag was sticking out of, lunging at it, before it was fully retracted faster than he could adapt to the motion. He fell to the floor, hitting his shoulder painfully, the darkness completely surrounding him except for a single, dim flashlight. He laid there for a moment, dizzy, hearing voices talk all around him.
“Do you think he’s too far gone?”
“No, no. Don’t worry, Pomni. We can still cure him- he hasn’t gotten as violent as the other abstractions have. That means he’s still saveable.. hopefully.”
“…but what if…”
“It’s going to be okay.”
Jax blinked, the darkness slowing his mind a little. He felt warm, fuzzy things being placed on top of him, around him, enclosing him in one small area, but he didn’t care. Maybe he could fall asleep, maybe he could finally go.
“Jax?” He heard a name called out- his name called out- from another man in the room. They stopped placing the warm things around him a moment ago, and he finally opened his eyes again to plushies surrounding him, a weighted blanket over him. “Jax, can you stay awake for me?”
Jax groaned, trying to slowly sit up before a hand on his shoulder forced him back down. He felt vulnerable in this situation, but he was much too tired to fight back. He didn’t know why the dark was having this type of effect on him, it had never had it before, but he felt calm. Is this what Kinger felt like?
God, he HAS gone crazy. Maybe he’s the crazy one.
..He can’t even go by archetypes anymore, can he?
“Hey, Jax.” He heard someone say above him, their voice soft and quiet. Kinger, maybe? Who knows, he couldn’t really think right this very second. He felt a hand come to pat the top of his head, though, a grounding force pulling him down. “You’ve been pretty anxious, huh?”
That’s one way to put it, he wanted to say, but all that came out was a pathetic whimper. He immediately felt embarrassed at it, but when he tried to break away from the situation to save his pride, another hand came to hold down his shoulder. He could see the respective red glove, and he immediately wanted to bang his head against the wall and knock himself out.
Great, another therapy session.
“Don’t try to speak, it’ll be alright.” The voice he could now definitively rule as Kinger said, trying to ease any anxiety before they started. If they couldn’t get to the root cause now, then Jax would be too far gone later. “We need you to calm down, okay? We’re gonna try something, but we need you to not get violent.”
Why would he get violent when the dark is so comforting, though? It’s so peaceful. It wasn’t overstimulating, it wasn’t painful like the light was. What was he supposed to be doing again? He couldn’t remember, he felt like he was melting. Maybe this is another torture session, maybe this is what Caine’s apology to them was. Maybe deleting Caine was another adventure. Wouldn’t that be funny?! The fact that nothing they did would be real, the circus crumbling, the terror he felt when-
“Jax. Jax, breathe with me, okay? You’re spiraling.” Kinger asked him, pulling him out of the spiral. Was he that obvious?!
Jax looked up at him finally, the flashlight that Pomni was holding illuminating him slightly. The chess piece was breathing, obviously exaggerated, but Jax followed suit as he was told to. The pressure on his voice eased with it, and all he wanted to do was burst out into tears, but that would be incredibly embarrassing. He couldn’t imagine! The resident jerk, the rabbit with no feelings, crying! He bets Gangle’s drawn fanart of that.
He must have stopped breathing again, because he felt his position change, Pomni and Kinger’s hands retracting in favor of two hands pulling him into a bridal-carry position. He felt himself being pulled close to the chess piece’s body, as though hugging him tightly would keep him grounded.
And he’s ashamed to admit it worked.
He finally got his breathing into an okay pattern- still too fast, but not fast enough to constitute for Kinger waiting any longer- his fakefakefakefakefake heartbeat slowing down along with it. “…What’s….happening?” He said shakily, his voice hoarse from the lack of use.
“You’re just.. having a hard time, that’s all. We’re here to help.” Kinger said, almost like he’s rehearsed this before. Jax knows he’s lying- he heard something about abstraction when he got into the room, didn’t he?- but it was comforting to feel as though everything would be okay. As though Kinger would protect him. “Can you tell us what’s wrong?”
Jax shook his head, tears forming against his will. He didn’t want to speak that much, he didn’t know if he could, and he didn’t trust himself to not just rant and sob. He couldn’t even think of some dry humor to throw as an excuse to leave, he was just too exhausted.
Was this the real him?
He hated it.
“I.. It’s bad..” He forced out, hating how much his vocabulary had been taken from him. He was still so confused, so tired, but Kinger told him to stay awake. Plus, Pomni would probably slap him if he started to close his eyes.
Since when does he care what Kinger says?
Kinger nodded, holding the man a bit tighter. “Okay, good job. You’re doing great. Can you tell me what exactly is bad?” Kinger asked, smiling, knowing Jax needed a lot of positive reinforcement.
“Bad….” Is all Jax murmured out again, tears falling down his face now as he shook. “Bad, bad, bad…”
Kinger just nodded along, staying silent so Jax could ramble more. Jax looked around, towards the area he had been pulled from just a moment ago, looking over all the plushies they had collected from his room. Was he in his room? Where was he?!
His eyes landed on a green frog plush, pretty worn from all the times he had clung onto it. It had an ill-fitting bow tie on it from the person it was based off of, its smiling face seemingly mocking him. It took an embarrassing amount of time to realize there was a guttural scream that he could only describe as depressed, even longer to realize it was coming from him. He started reaching out for the plush desperately, feeling everyone’s eyes in him as he acted so out of character.
“..Oh, I see.” Kinger said in response to the motion, looking up at Pomni. “Can you give him the frog plush, kiddo?”
Pomni nodded, reaching for it quickly and putting it in Jax’s desperate hands. He immediately hugged it close to his chest, turning back into Kinger’s body for more comfort. “…Bad…”
The whole room stood silent for a moment, only broken up by Jax’s cries, before Kinger spoke again. “..I had a wife. Years ago.” He said, calmly, with a hint of solemness. “She was.. the most wonderful thing in my life. Beautiful, funny, kind. And I constantly blamed myself for why she abstracted.” He said, rubbing soft circles with the thumb of one of the hands he was holding Jax with. He could see the man concentrated on the story, his pupils small and his eyes filled with tears, at least an improvement from the almost eye-filling way that had been dilated in the light.
“But then I realized that she wouldn’t want me to feel that way, and it got a little better. It takes time, and it never goes away completely, but other people come into your life and make it better, if you let them in. No one stays forever, but.. you can cherish them while they’re with you. You don’t have to hide away to protect.. who?” He said, feeling Jax’s ears finally flop down and relax, taking a breath of relief at that. “Because, right now, all you're doing is hurting everyone and yourself. Ribbit wouldn’t have wanted this for you.” He said bluntly, but in that same soft tone he’d been using the whole time. Pomni looked up in confusion at the namedrop, realizing how important whoever that was to everyone- ever since Ragatha mentioned them, she’d been wondering- but knew now wasn’t the right time.
Jax looked down at the plush in his hands, not trying to hold back his tears any longer at the realization. The fact that Kinger was right, that Ribbit wouldn’t have wanted him to become.. this.
“..What.. happened?” He asked after a few more moments, anxious. “The circus, the.. way I was acting.. I..”
“Hey, shhhh. Don’t think about that right now, okay?” Kinger said, thankful that he was finally stringing together full sentences. He was definitely not going to let Jax out into where the light from the void was leaking in yet, but he could at least split his time now that they only had to deal with the circus, and not having to split with trying to stabilize Jax. “It’s been a couple days, but that’s okay. What’s important is you’re here.”
“..Caine’s dead. Isn’t he?” Jax said, finally letting everything that happened however long ago sink in. He saw as Kinger froze, not expecting Jax to remember that- he thought Jax had lost his mind at that point. “Caine’s dead. And I was hunting people down. And I basically abstracted.”
Jax started to blink rapidly again, his pupils turned to scribbles as Pomni got ready to have to catch him again. “We’re trapped here, aren’t we??” He yelled, even more tears streaming down his face as he crushed the plushie against his chest. He felt Kinger pull him in just a bit tighter, the chess piece continuing to keep his breathing steady as Jax panicked.
“Jax?” He said comfortingly, making Jax’s eyes lock onto him. “It’ll be okay. We’ll make a life here, and we want you to be a part of it. Even if we can’t leave, we can make the best of our situation, right?”
Jax waited a second before nodding, his mouth turned into a tiny scribble as he stopped suffocating his plushie.
Kinger shifted his position after seeing how exhausted Jax was, trying to get comfy for the eventual moment the rabbit fell asleep. “You’re safe. I promise.” He said, and his words seemed to have an instant calming effect on the other man.
Jax sunk into Kinger’s arms, eyes half-lidded as he looked up into the chess pieces eyes, almost all the tears he had gone from his system. After a few moments, he finally closed his eyes, shutting down after everything that had happened.
For once after Ribbit, he actually felt safe.