Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As quickly as he came and dashed the cast’s hopes, Caine vanished.

The basket of soaps fell to the ground. With it came a thick and oppressive silence.

Nobody spoke up. Nobody moved.

All anyone could do was stare at the red and blue buttons on the console.

Stay. Leave.

None of it was real.

Escape was never an option.

And yet, for a moment, for just a spare few hours, it felt like it might’ve been.

And then it was over.

For most, it was a cruel reminder, a harsh demonstration of what their environment and ringmaster were capable of.

For one, it was that and then some, a planned, deliberate tear-down of everything he had started to believe about this place, one only revealed after admitting he’d choose it over the alternative.

For one final member, it was a somber remembrance of his creation’s capacity for harm, regardless of intention.

The suffocating silence continued, drowning everyone in their thoughts, their actions up to this point, and their memory of everything before it.

Zooble was the first to pierce the surface, uttering a single question.

“...why?”

Eyes turned to them, a welcome opportunity for the others to focus on something besides their inner turmoils.

They turned their eyes up, back to the blinding white light Caine had emerged from.

“Why do this?”

Their claw clenched.

“Why spend all that time lying, convincing, setting things up-”

They brought their hand up to their head, shaking in anger, desperation, and fear.

“All for a STUPID F#%$ING ADVENTURE?!?!”

Gangle stepped closer to Zooble, wrapping a ribbon hand around theirs and lowering it.

Her horrified expression didn’t change.

Pomni was the next to speak.

“A-Abel, he… kept bringing up that Caine couldn’t leave… that we’d be leaving him behind. Before he sent me to the office, he told me to ‘make the right choice’.”

A beat passed as her mouth twisted into a wobbly, manic smile.

“That’s what this was…? Validation? The good ending?”

Kinger took a few steps back. Towards the corner. Towards the darker parts of the room.

“Oh, no…”

He looked down at the floor.

“What has he done?”

His eyes had an intense, frenetic look of focus. Like he was struggling to keep a handle on something he had just barely been able to grasp.

“Kinger?”

He looked up to see Ragatha. She was eyeing him with a look of pleading. A want for answers.

He needed to tell them. Here and now, in this moment of lucidity. While he could still remember.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to bring it up earlier, before you all found out the hard way.”

He looked at the others.

”We’re… not able to leave the Circus. I know for sure because I… helped make it.”

Silence settled once more as the cast processed the information, their worst assumption now confirmed.

Pomni’s expression turned sour, an angry grimace painted across her face.

“That’s why Abel… Caine didn’t want to involve you. You’d know the whole thing was fake.”

She shook, her balled fists unfurling and covering her face as she let out a muffled scream.

Gangle spoke, her tragedy mask a mixture of shock and fear.

“...the exit. The one Pomni brought up on her first day… the one Caine said she didn’t see… the one Kauffmo kept joking about…”

Eyes widened in horror as the implication she was making sank in.

“Wait. Wait! Was that an exit door I saw out there? Is that a way to leave?”

“How is Kauffmo doing? I hope he’s not still mad at me for not laughing at his jokes.”

“I do have to apologize for lying about the exit. I knew how much all of you have been wanting one but…”

All this time. The door Caine tried to hide. The one he swept under the rug as another unfinished project. Was this whole adventure what it became?

Minds wandered to the scribblings etched all across Kauffmo’s walls: “NO WAY OUT” painted in bright red, “EXIT” covering it and everywhere else in the room, the portrait of him about to be devoured by Caine.

If he was obsessing over that door… If this is what that door became…

A shared conclusion swept across the room.

Kauffmo abstracted… for this?

Pomni turned her head to the blue button. It sat there unpressed.

Beside it, a choked noise began.

“Heh. Heheh…”

It emanated from the only member who had yet to break silence.

“He-HAH! HA! HHGK-GAHAHA!!!”

He pulled himself away from the white light, stumbling and turning around to face the others with tears streaming down his smile.

Jax was laughing again.

Chapter Text

He remembered walking down the hallway with Ragatha and the newbie. Rags was spouting off about something, he wasn’t quite paying attention. Some spiel about trying to find an exit, unobtainable goals, and… abstracting.

It was an apt topic of conversation. They had stopped at Kaufmo’s room, and from the moment Jax was made aware he hadn't shown up that day, he’d already had his suspicions.

He’d prepared for this. Adventure after adventure of distancing himself from the clown, ridiculing his jokes, laughing off any and everyone else who tried to make him “talk about it”. They all needed to understand who they were dealing with, Kaufmo most of all.

He was Jax. The funny one. The jokester who didn’t care about anything, especially not… the previous abstraction.

So that was the role he played out, going as far as to jab at Pomni’s insistence that the circus was a dream. Out with the old, in with the new. What did it matter who was around for him to make fun of? They were all just cartoon characters anyway. None of them were real. They couldn’t be.

Real people didn’t have detachable heads or floating appendages. Real people didn’t live in a brightly colored purgatory or have their swears replaced by sound effects.

Real people didn’t abstract and carve gouges out of the hearts of those they cared about.

He needed to see Kaufmo. The bandage needed to be ripped off.

It was all as he’d rehearsed in his mind. A nonchalant mention of having the clown’s room key.  A joke about leaving a centipede in Ragatha’s room to cover his tracks. 

They’d see the abstraction, call Caine, and that would be that. Quick, clean, and simple.

But then he’d opened the door.

Confronted with a room of glitching eyeballs surrounded by pleas to escape, Jax willed himself to look anywhere else.

He couldn’t do this.

By his leg was an object, something divorced from the rest of the nightmare in front of him. A single solitary bowling ball.

He grabbed it like a lifeline, excused himself, and ran.

He didn’t remember much else of that day, short of the end of that adventure. It had all passed in a blur, one he smiled through, autopiloting jokes and gags to deaden himself to another castmate fallen.

Caine had put the abstraction in the cellar, and he recalled making a joke at Kinger’s expense about it. A quick barb to avoid having to say anything meaningful.

The only other thing Jax could remember clearly was what the ringmaster said afterwards.

“I do apologize for lying about the exit.”

The exit Kaufmo had obsessed over was his doing. Because of course it was.

All the realization did was make him smile wider. So what if one of Caine’s unfinished projects drove another cast member to madness? So what if that member was the last one remaining he had ever gotten close to? So what if he had spent some of his final moments with him shutting him out and running away?

Abstraction was already coming for the clown. The “exit” was just the straw that broke his back.

By tomorrow, Caine would have another adventure ready, and he’d move on.

Jax could forget a cartoon character. He could forget a stupid door.

He just had to keep smiling.

It’s not like this hellhole would ever have a way to leave anyway.

When the others began to speak, Jax stayed still, staring at the buttons.

When they turned their heads, each trying to comprehend the situation, he kept staring at the buttons.

Red. Blue.

Stay. Leave.

All of Caine’s planning. His NPC he convinced everyone was human, his chinese room, his “incredible worldbuilding”, his dinner date, his office, everything.

Bit by bit it had gotten to him, worming the premise, the possibility into his head.

Then Mix’n’Match and Ribbons just had to start talking about what it'd be like afterwards, as if exiting was a foregone conclusion.

The lie was too big. Too convincing.

By the time they reached the console, Jax’s suspicion, guilt, and grief had all given way or converged to fear.

Fear that the buttons were real. Fear that the blue button would let them… make them leave.

For those agonizing moments, for long enough to shatter everything, Caine had made him believe.

So he pressed the red button.

He wanted to stay.

“What’s the rush, you got someone waiting for you outside?”

He needed to stay.

“Don’t you?”

There was nothing for him out there, nothing that wanted him back.

“And if I do have problems, I talk about them. With the people I trust.”

The only people he had, the only people he used to have, were all in the Circus.

“Good thing I don’t have any problems, then.”

He’d told himself he wouldn’t care. Who was he kidding?

“I’d move on, and probably forget about you.”

He’d never move on. He’d never forget. He couldn’t leave them behind.

No matter how much he tried to. No matter how much it hurt to remember.

He was tied to this place, trapped in the hell he preferred.

Better the devil he knew.

At least, until the screen opened up.

And Caine revealed that the whole day was a farce, that the option was never real to begin with.

And all but confirmed that his inability to affect minds was also a lie, that the first abstraction was his doing.

And left, leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces of their shattered beliefs.

The playground of an all-powerful ringmaster willing and capable of fabricating a deception of this magnitude just to bolster his ego.

That was what he picked.

Jax felt heavy. His face felt numb, and his eyes were stinging.

He stared at the buttons. The others were spouting about something, he didn’t want to pay attention.

He looked at the red button. The one he’d pressed in a panic, making his decision for everyone else.

He knew it was an adventure, he called it. Yet he’d believed anyway.

His eyes shifted to the blue button. The exit. The way out.

The lie.

…

Wasn’t that familiar?

The day Pomni arrived. The day he tried to forget. The day he wished he could forget.

The day Kaufmo left him, long after he left Kaufmo.

Gangle’s voice came into focus.

“...the exit. The one Pomni brought up on her first day… the one Caine said she didn’t see… the one Kaufmo kept joking about…”

Why did he think he could get away with trying to forget?

He thought he’d done everything in his power to cut him off. He thought he’d left things behind.

But of course the Circus would never let him. No matter how high his walls, no matter how detached he tried to be, the Circus would find a weakness, a crack to push through.

The gun adventure with Pomni brought out too many old yet familiar memories. It’d made him soft.

This escape adventure was the final blow. A stab through the heart at his most vulnerable, built from an unfinished door he thought he’d forgotten.

Kaufmo abstracted for this.

Wasn’t that just priceless?

It was the perfect punchline, as hysterical as it was horrifying. All that time spent preparing for Kaufmo’s abstraction, dealing with it, living with it, only for its catalyst to come for him next.

He was doomed the moment he decided to try.

“Heh. Heheh…”

Every strategy he learned, every tactic he developed to survive this hell before and after he lost her, was pointless.

First Ribbit, then Kaufmo. It was only natural for him to follow.

His eyes felt wet. He laughed harder.

“He-HAH! HA! HHGK-GAHAHA!!!”

He chose this. Even with things as they were. Even- no, especially when the others were clamoring for the alternative.

He’d shown in front of everyone what he couldn’t leave behind.

Jax turned around, tears flowing down his face, and smiled.

The others were staring at him, expressions a mixture of shock, anger, and concern. They were silent, anticipating what he’d say next.

His focus passed over each of them, before settling on Pomni.

This jester he failed to keep away, who got close and weakened his walls, who got him to care again.

The entire day she’d asked him for help, making him do things he wouldn’t have otherwise. He didn’t want to think about how she’d react if he refused, didn’t want to relive the guilt he felt seeing her face at the end of their fight.

Why couldn’t she have left alone? Why did she have to be so familiar?

Why did he let her tear open old wounds and invite new ones?

He wanted to hurt her, to lash out at her for getting him to go along with this whole charade, guilt be damned.

The rug had already been pulled out beneath them, what was one more cruel joke?

He tilted his head at her.

“... you were right, Pom.”

She looked up at him, her eyes bagged.

His smile widened, his face was bitter.

“Everything turned out okay.”

He doubled over and began cackling.

“Everything’s okay!”

He grabbed the sides of his head, twisting his body up to stare at the ceiling, laughing all the while.

“Everything’s AAAAAA-Okay!”

He slammed his arms back down on the console behind him. His breathing became heavy. His body was growing numb.

“So what if an omnipotent god toys with our minds and dangles an exit on a fishing line? So what if he lied to us and faked an entire backstory and plan for this adventure? So what if the exit was never real? It’s just like you said! Everything’s going to be ooooookay!”

Pomni took a step back, thrown off by Jax’s outburst.

“Wh-... I didn’t… I thought-”

“Jax”

Zooble spoke up. They eyed him with concerned, then frustrated determination.

“You pressed the red button. Why?”

Jax’s face stilled. 

He looked at Zooble. Didn’t they already know?

His eyes widened, stretching as far as his smile, with his pupils blowing to match.

It was an expression he was used to hiding behind and lying through his teeth with, one that would cover his pain, his cares, his fears.

This time, he’d reserve it for the truth.

His voice was low and eerie.

“Because I don’t want to leave.”

Zooble raised their eyes before squinting.

“Why not?”

Jax was silent. A moment passed before exhaustion took hold and he sighed, shedding his smile for tired eyes and a small, thin mouth. He glanced at Pomni before looking down at the ground, or rather under it. Where the cellar was. Where they were.

“You shouldn’t have woken me from my nap.”

It took Pomni a moment to realize he was referring to her.

“Huh? Why?”

He thought of the picture, of his friends, of his dream.

“You want to know why I’d stay? Fine.”

No point in hiding things, he didn’t have the energy. The adventure had already done its job tearing down his walls. It wasn’t like he’d be around for much longer anyway.

“It’s because I've got nothing out there, while they’re still here.”

He spat it out with vitriol, finally verbalizing what he’d been dancing around with Zooble all day.

They were taken aback, not expecting to be privy to the problems Jax claimed not to have.

Ragatha covered her mouth with a hand. She’d wanted to know what would become of those they’d lost if they left. The answer she received hadn’t been satisfying.

He looked up again, his eyes sunken.

“I dreamed of them, you know. Ribbit and Kaufmo. I almost joined them… I could’ve.”

There was a pause before a sob rang from Ragatha. She walked towards Jax.

“What do you mean, ‘almost’?"

Her voice was shaky.

“When we were at your door, were you-?”

He thought of his dream again. Of the vast landscapes of colors and faces. Of the music in his head, of sounds and of memories.

He thought of the panic and shame afterwards. Of the patdown and reassurance, only to be followed by the want for more.

“...was about to…”

He’d felt weightless then, free. Nothing like how heavy he was now. There was a peaceful serenity to the dream, one that treated his senses. Now all he felt was numb.

The only similarity was just how tired he was, both currently and in the process of abstracting.

In his room, he was offered a reprieve, an escape from the exhaustion of grief and denial.

Right now, being tired just served to amplify how… numb he was feeling, and how…heavy…

He was really heavy right now, wasn’t he?

Maybe if he stood up and-

Jax lurched forwards and collapsed on the ground.