plush

Caine

✩ Gravity ↬ Caine finds you second, a bottle of stupid sauce finds you first.

✩ Curtain Calls: Zoochosis (pt. 1) + Intermission (pt. 2)

✩ Zoochosis ↬ Everything is deliberate. Everything is controlled. You were never part of the exception.

✩ Intermission ↬ Caine keeps trying to love you gently. You're still learning what to do with that.

✩ Sideshow ↬ Abel and Caine start acting strange. The rest of the circus notices long before you do.

✩ Interlude (Headcanons) ↬ Small moments, stolen songs: slow dancing with the circus.

Jax

✩ Bullseye ↬ The audience loves the flirting. Caine loves the ticket sales. Jax loves being an unbearable menace to society. You, unfortunately, might love him too.

✩ Tethered ↬ Recovery is messier than expected. So are feelings, apparently.

✩ Suspension ↬ Jax spends an evening pretending he is not emotionally compromised by your return to the trapeze. He fails spectacularly.

✩ Interlude (Headcanons) ↬ Small moments, stolen songs: slow dancing with the circus.

Ragatha

✩ Harvest ↬ The circus’s newest theme calls for velvet, glitter, and far more shopping than originally anticipated. Luckily, spending the day with Ragatha has never been much of a hardship.

✩ Interlude (Headcanons) ↬ Small moments, stolen songs: slow dancing with the circus.

Pomni

✩ Interlude (Headcanons) ↬ Small moments, stolen songs: slow dancing with the circus.

Kinger

✩ Interlude (Headcanons) ↬ Small moments, stolen songs: slow dancing with the circus.

Zooble

✩ Interlude (Headcanons) ↬ Small moments, stolen songs: slow dancing with the circus.

Gangle

✩ Interlude (Headcanons) ↬ Small moments, stolen songs: slow dancing with the circus.

Abel

✩ Sideshow ↬ Abel and Caine start acting strange. The rest of the circus notices long before you do.

crumbs of him (warning: toxic/abusive relationship) in Curtain Calls

“Well,” Ragatha guessed, trying very hard to sound optimistic. “Maybe we’re just taking the scenic route?”

Jax leaned back against the nearest tree, eyeing the log. “The scenic route past Kaufmo’s sad little tree portrait?”

“It’s not sad,” Kaufmo argued.

Jax tilted his head. “It has your face on it.”

Kaufmo frowned at the carving. “Wow. Okay. I’m hearing a lot of judgment from someone who hasn’t contributed artistically to this survival effort.”

Before Jax could answer, Caine’s voice boomed cheerfully from somewhere above them.

“Splendid progress, campers!” Heads tipped up automatically. Caine hovered between two branches with Bubble floating beside him, both of them wearing tiny scout uniforms. Bubble’s sash was covered entirely in badges that appeared to be different pictures of himself.

Caine clasped his hands together. “Remember, the wilderness is not simply a place, but a state of mind! And occasionally, a mildly disorienting maze with educational properties!”

Ribbit squinted up at him. “You said this was a team-building exercise.”

“It is!” Caine replied brightly. “Nothing builds teamwork like shared confusion!”

Nearby, Kinger crouched beside a patch of neon mushrooms, holding one carefully between both hands. 

“...this one’s whispering my tax information to me.”

Ragatha turned sharply toward him. “Please don’t eat that.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Kinger denied.

“You were bringing it toward your mouth.”

Kinger looked down at the mushroom. After a moment, he slowly lowered it. “It was persuasive.”

Jax snorted and leaned more heavily against the tree behind him. The trunk creaked beneath his shoulder with something that sounded suspiciously irritated. He straightened fast, throwing a quick look over his shoulder.

“…great,” he muttered. “Hostile forestry.”

The only person who didn’t seem amused, even slightly, was you.

You stood apart from the rest of the group, near the edge of the path, while you stared into the fake forest ahead of them. Something about your expression had shifted over the past hour. Not annoyed, exactly. Everyone was annoyed. Even Ragatha’s smile had started to fray around the edges.

This was different.

Jax had learned that much about you by now, mostly against his will.

You had been in the circus longer than him. Nobody ever said it outright, but people acted weird whenever time was mentioned around you. Everyone was careful, in a way Jax found immediately intriguing because careful usually meant interesting.

He had pieced together enough over the months to know you were one of the older arrivals. Not Kinger old, obviously. Nobody was Kinger old. But old enough that sometimes you said things nobody else seemed to understand. References to places, people, old adventures that made conversations stall before moving on again. Even Ragatha occasionally looked lost. Then somebody would change the subject, and everybody would move on like it hadn’t happened.

Which was stupid, in Jax’s opinion.

You were not fragile. You were mean.

Not even in the fun way most of the time, which was disappointing. Jax appreciated a little cruelty when it had style. Yours did, occasionally. Most of the time, it just felt sharp in all the wrong places.

You had not been like that when he arrived. That was the annoying part.

For about a week, you had been almost bearable.

You showed him where things were without making it weird, you warned him which doors Caine forgot to stabilize. You told him, very seriously, never to trust the left hallway after midnight, then laughed when he spent the next three nights checking over his shoulder. You were sarcastic, but strangely patient in a way that had made Kaufmo grin a little easier whenever you stuck around.

Then, almost overnight, you stopped. Jax still couldn’t figure out what exactly went wrong.

One day, you were sitting beside Ribbit during breakfast, stealing pieces off Kaufmo’s plate while insulting his taste in syrup. The next, you were at the far end of the table, silent enough that the space around you seemed intentional.

Six months later, you still looked at Jax like he had personally ruined the weather.

A sudden rustle came from the bushes.

Ribbit turned first at the sound, shoulders tensing. “Please tell me that’s not another animal.”

Kaufmo looked genuinely offended. “Okay, in my defense, I didn’t know raccoons could unzip tents.”

Ribbit stopped walking. “It locked you outside.”

“It made eye contact while it did it.”

Another rustle came from the bushes behind them, followed by a small masked face poking through the leaves. The raccoon stared at the group for a moment, wearing Kaufmo’s hat and what looked suspiciously like Ragatha’s emergency whistle around its neck.

Ragatha inhaled slowly. “Oh, come on.”

The raccoon raised one tiny paw and blew the whistle directly in her face.

Chaos broke out immediately.

Kaufmo lunged for his hat. Ribbit grabbed the back of his collar before he could trip over a tree root. Ragatha made a distressed noise and reached for the trail mix bag right as two more raccoons dropped from the branches above her. Kinger shouted something about a hostile kingdom. From somewhere above, Bubble laughed so hard he briefly turned inside out.

Jax stayed exactly where he was, mostly because the whole thing was funnier from a distance.

One of the raccoons made a grab for the food.

You intercepted it before anybody else could react, snatching the bag before the animal could drag it into the bushes.

The raccoon hissed at you.

You stared down at it. “Do not start with me.”

For one strange second, the animal seemed to consider that.

Then it backed away.

Kaufmo blinked toward you, still halfway caught in Ribbit’s grip. “That…that was actually kind of terrifying.”

You barely glanced up from checking the supply bag. “Thanks, Kauf’.”

Kaufmo frowned. “That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Then work on your delivery,” you teased, already tossing the bag back toward Ragatha.

Ribbit’s expression softened. Jax found himself oddly reluctant to look away.

There. That was the version of you he remembered.

You stepped toward Kaufmo, eyes narrowing at the mess of rope tangled around his arm from when he had nearly chased the raccoon into the brush.

“Hold still,” you said.

Kaufmo glanced down at himself. “...I think I’ve become one with the campsite.”

“You’ve become a liability.”

“That too.”

You moved closer and started working the knot loose with quick, impatient fingers. Kaufmo stood unusually still while you untangled him, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and something quieter. Ribbit watched from beside him, less guarded than she had looked all afternoon.

Jax noticed that too. He hated that he noticed.

“You know,” Jax called from near the tree, “if you’re takin’ requests, I’d like to be rescued from this whole adventure.”

You didn’t look at him. “You’d have to be useful first.”

“Ouch.” Jax pressed a hand to his chest. “And here I thought we were bonding.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Common problem for me, apparently.”

That earned him the smallest huff from you. Not a laugh, not really, but close enough that Jax caught himself watching your mouth before he could stop.

Annoying.

You freed Kaufmo’s arm and stepped back just as quickly, like you had only realized after the fact that you had been standing close to anyone. The change was subtle. Most of them probably missed it. Your face closed off as you turned toward the trail.

“We need to stop following the map,” you deflected.

Ragatha looked up from where she was trying to reorganize the supplies. “But…Caine said the map was part of the challenge?”

“Caine also said the tents were emotionally supportive.”

One of the tents behind them gave a wet, miserable wheeze before collapsing in on itself.

Ribbit stared at it. “That one just gave up.”

“Relatable,” Jax grinned.

You ignored him and pointed down the left path. “The loop keeps resetting when we take the marked trail. We go off-path.”

Kaufmo raised a hand. “Question. Is off-path where the knife squirrels live?”

“Raccoons,” Ribbit corrected.

Kaufmo nodded gravely. “They’re evolving.”

Ragatha glanced between the trees, clearly uneasy. “Are we sure leaving the trail is a good idea?”

“No,” you replied. “But standing here waiting for the forest to fix itself sounds worse.”

Kaufmo’s smile faltered before the joke returned to his face.

“Well,” Kaufmo concurred, clapping his hands once. “Off-path it is. Love a terrible plan with confidence.”

For a while, the terrible plan worked.

The forest thickened around them as they moved between trees that were almost convincing if nobody looked too closely.

The bark repeated in patterned strips, and the moss glowed faintly whenever someone stepped near it. Birds chirped the same three-note song from different directions until Ribbit threatened to start throwing rocks. Above them, the fake sky remained cheerful and bright, completely indifferent to the fact that everyone below it was damp, hungry, and tired of being educated through inconvenience.

Jax kept to the back, mostly because it offered the best view of everyone else struggling. Kaufmo nearly wiped out on a root system every five minutes, while Kinger kept falling behind to inspect plants that may or may not have been talking to him. Somehow, Ragatha still tried maintaining morale through all of it.

You stayed near the front, moving with tense purpose while everyone followed.

That should not have interested him. It did anyway.

You were good at this, in the irritating way people were good at things they pretended not to care about. At one point, you caught Ribbit by the back of her sleeve before she stepped into a patch of glittering mud that hissed when disturbed.

Kaufmo somehow ended up with a canteen in his hands before he even asked for one.

“You look like a dehydrated sock,” you remarked when he thanked you.

Every decent thing you did came wrapped in something unpleasant. Jax understood that more than he wanted to.

By the time they finally reached Caine’s designated campsite, everyone looked about two wrong comments away from violence.

The campsite sat in a clearing surrounded by tall, evenly spaced trees. A cheerful wooden sign read CAMP WONDER-WHATEVER in red letters that kept rearranging themselves when nobody watched. There was a firepit in the center, several logs arranged in a circle, and enough camping supplies stacked nearby to suggest Caine had never actually seen anyone camp before.

Ragatha crouched near the supplies, lifting a metal pot with a frown. “Why do we have six ladles and no matches?”

Caine popped into existence above the firepit. “Resourcefulness!”

You shut your eyes briefly before Caine had even finished talking, and Jax found himself oddly unsurprised.

“Campers must prepare their own dinner, construct shelter, and share one meaningful lesson they learned about friendship before nightfall!” Caine announced, spinning his cane as fireworks burst from nowhere. “Failure to complete all three tasks may result in mild penalties.”

Ribbit looked up sharply. “Define…mild?”

A bear roared somewhere in the distance. Caine smiled wider. “Motivational consequences!”

Then he vanished.

For about five seconds, nobody moved.

Then everyone started talking at once.

Kaufmo headed for the food while Ragatha tried redirecting everyone toward the firepit. Ribbit was still muttering about the suspiciously amplified bear, and Kinger had somehow become fascinated by the ladles.

Jax sat on one of the logs and decided not to help.

You stood in the middle of it all, jaw tight enough that Jax expected yelling.

Instead, you started organizing.

“Kaufmo, stop touching things before they bite you,” you said. “Ribbit, tents. Ragatha, there’s a switch under the firepit.”

Kinger turned one of the ladles thoughtfully in his hands.

You paused.

“Kinger, no.”

Kinger lowered the ladle carefully. “That seems premature.”

A second later, blue flames burst to life from the firepit.

Ragatha let out a small breath. “Oh. Good eye.”

“It was obvious,” you mumbled.

“Hidden under a rock,” Jax pointed out.

You looked over at him for the first time in several minutes. “And somehow I still found it before you.”

Kaufmo laughed under his breath.

Jax tilted his head. “You always this charmin’ in the wilderness?”

“Only when I’m trapped in it with idiots.”

“Aw,” Jax said. “You think about me in groups.”

Something moved at the corner of your mouth before you looked away again.

Jax found himself watching as you redirected Kaufmo away from a suspiciously twitching cooler, irritation written plainly across your face.

The artificial sunset cut through the trees, spilling gold across the clearing in a way that made the whole scene look a lot warmer than it felt. For a moment, with Kaufmo complaining nearby and Ragatha crouched beside the fire, Jax could almost picture how you might have fit among them once.

The thought sat strangely with him, irritating enough that he looked away before he could think too hard about it.

The peace lasted maybe ten minutes. Then dinner started falling apart.

By the time Ragatha finally got half the food arranged near the fire, Kaufmo had somehow dropped an entire pack of buns into a stream that had not been there five minutes ago.

You stared after them without moving.

Kaufmo lifted one hand slowly. “In my defense—”

“Don’t.” The word came out sharper than expected.

Kaufmo lowered his hand, and everyone stayed quiet. Ragatha took a cautious step closer.

“Hey,” she consoled, voice gentler now. “It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.”

You didn’t answer.

Ragatha hesitated before trying again. “Kinger mentioned you used to like stuff like this. Campfires and cooking and…” Her expression softened, uncertain around the edges. “All of it. With the others.”

Jax saw the change instantly. Whatever had briefly eased in your expression disappeared.

Ragatha seemed to realize she had stepped somewhere wrong a second too late. “I just thought maybe it’d be nice,” she said quickly. “Since you used to—”

“Stop.” Your voice stayed quiet, which somehow made it worse.

Ragatha froze. “I was only trying to help.”

You laughed once under your breath, humorless.

“Help?” you echoed. “Right. Because waiting around for everybody else to mess it up has gone great so far.”

Ragatha lowered her hands slowly. “That’s not fair.”

Your attention dropped toward the fire before lifting again.

“You think bringing people up fixes anything?” you asked, voice lower now. “You weren’t there.”

The clearing went quiet. Ragatha opened her mouth, then stopped.

Something unreadable crossed your face before hardening again.

“I’m serious, Ragatha. Go sew something. Rearrange a shelf. Whatever it is you do when you’re trying to feel useful.”

Nobody moved.

Kaufmo stared hard at the ground. Ribbit looked like she wanted to say something and thought better of it.

Jax felt his own expression flatten.

That was the part that landed wrong. Not because you were being cruel. You were cruel all the time.

But because for half a second, right before the words came out, something in your expression had looked less angry than trapped.

Your hand closed around the nearest camping mug before anyone could say anything else. It struck the rocks beside the firepit with a crack loud enough to make Kinger flinch.

You stared at it briefly after it shattered.

“Enjoy dinner.”

Before anyone could respond, you had already turned, disappearing into the trees.

The hallway felt quieter after the adventure ended.

Quiet enough to notice, anyway. Bubble was still yelling somewhere farther down the hall, insisting he deserved emotional compensation for “repeated camper disrespect,” and somewhere overhead, Caine narrated some unrelated catastrophe with the enthusiasm of somebody who had never once experienced consequences.

But still, it felt quieter.

The six of them stood scattered across the main hall, carrying the kind of exhaustion only Caine’s adventures could manufacture.

Kaufmo scrubbed both hands down his face. “Okay,” he groaned after a second. “That officially sucked.”

Ribbit brushed confetti from one sleeve. “You almost died for bread.”

“I was trying to help.”

“You chased floating buns into a moving stream.”

Kaufmo hesitated. “In hindsight, sure.”

That got the corner of Ragatha’s mouth to twitch, though it faded quickly. Her attention switched down the hallway instead.

Toward where you had disappeared. Jax noticed before he meant to.

Kaufmo exhaled quietly and shoved his hands into his pockets. “She’ll cool off.”

The words came too easily. Practiced.

Ribbit followed the glance, expression harder to read. “…hopefully,” she muttered.

Ragatha pulled at the edge of her sleeve. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“C’mon, don’t say that, Rag,” Kaufmo responded.

“I know, I just…” Her voice trailed off. Nobody finished the thought for her.

Jax leaned one shoulder against the wall, eyes moving between them.

“Well,” he said eventually, because the silence had started to itch, “good to know we all just let each other storm off into dramatic lighting now.”

Ribbit looked at him flatly.

“She just needs to clear her head,” Kaufmo insisted, quieter this time.

Nobody bothered to disagree.

Breakfast the next morning felt even faker than usual.

Bright syrup shimmered unnaturally beneath the circus lighting, and all of the fruit had a strong synthetic scent. Toast steamed politely in perfect rows like it had unionized.

Jax hated it on principle.

Kaufmo arrived late, dark circles sitting heavy beneath his eyes, and started loading food onto a tray before even sitting down.

Kinger sat at the end of the table, staring suspiciously into a bowl of cereal.

“The milk keeps changing opinions,” he informed no one.

Jax leaned farther back in his chair, ignoring Kinger as he watched Kaufmo add toast, fruit, and what looked like an aggressively over-sweet cup of coffee onto a plate.

Ribbit scanned the table. “Did Caine do bacon today?”

Kaufmo jerked his chin toward the other side of the table. “Think so.”

She reached across the table. Jax moved his plate away immediately.

“What do you think you’re doin’?”

Ribbit ignored him completely and plucked the last strip of crispy bacon from his plate.

Jax stared.

“…seriously?”

“She likes crispy.” The words came absentmindedly, like Ribbit had not realized she said them out loud until after.

Kaufmo nodded once, already adding it to the tray.

Jax frowned. “You people are weird.”

“Thanks,” Ribbit said.

“No, I mean weird weird.”

Kaufmo finally glanced up. “That narrows it down exactly zero.”

Across the table, a chair scraped softly against the floor. “We should take it up,” Ribbit said, already standing.

Without much discussion, the tray ended up in Kaufmo’s hands.

Jax watched them head toward the hallway.

Then, because minding his own business had never once improved his life, he followed.

Neither of them questioned it.

Kaufmo balanced the tray carefully while Ribbit walked a few steps ahead, checking over one shoulder when the coffee sloshed too close to the edge.

“If she throws this at me,” Kaufmo muttered after adjusting the plate for what felt like the fourth time, “I’m blaming both of you idiots.”

“You chose to bring it,” Ribbit laughed.

“You stole bacon off Jax’s plate.”

“A necessary sacrifice.”

Jax crossed his arms. “Nobody asked me.”

“You survived,” Kaufmo elbowed him.

“Emotionally?” Jax asked. “Still debatable.” Ribbit made a quiet sound that might have been amusement.

The hallway stretched longer than Jax remembered.

At first the doors looked familiar enough, brightly colored icons stamped across each one. Closer to the dining hall, most belonged to the people he actually knew. The farther back they went, the stranger things got.

Faces disappeared first, giving way to blank mannequin heads, smooth and expressionless beneath polished glass. Then even those changed. Characters Jax didn’t recognize stared back from the doors instead, bright designs buried beneath thick red X’s painted across their faces.

More unsettling somehow, Ribbit passed them without slowing, while Kaufmo only adjusted the tray higher against his chest and kept walking like none of it deserved attention anymore.

Jax found himself looking back once anyway.

“Okay,” he started after a second, pointing at one of the crossed-out faces. “What’s with the horror hallway?”

Kaufmo shrugged lazily. “You ask a lotta questions before lunch.”

“And yet somehow you avoid answerin’ every single one.”

That earned him a tired snort.

By the time Kaufmo finally slowed, the hallway had settled into silence.

Your room sat near the end beside Kinger’s, tucked between faces Jax didn’t recognize anymore than the others. The bright red X’s painted across the doors on either side made yours stand out.

Kaufmo hesitated briefly before knocking twice.

“Breakfast,” he called after a second, voice lighter than yesterday deserved. “Before Ribbit starts stealing from your plate again.”

Ribbit crossed her arms, shaking her head. “One time.”

Silence.

Kaufmo adjusted the tray against one arm. “Coffee, too. Extra sugar and creamer, just the way you like it.”

Jax waited for the inevitable insult through the door, maybe something sharp enough to bounce back into the hallway.

Nothing came.

Ribbit crouched first, lowering the tray carefully to the floor. The movement displaced the fork slightly before she straightened it out of habit.

“She’s ignoring us,” she muttered.

“Maybe she’s asleep,” Kaufmo said, though he sounded unconvinced. “She sleeps when she’s upset.”

Kaufmo lingered near the door. “Used to, anyway.”

Jax waited for somebody to get annoyed.

For Kaufmo to knock again. For Ribbit to mutter something sharp under her breath.

Instead, Ribbit turned toward the hallway and Kaufmo followed after one last glance at the tray.

Jax frowned.

“She’ll take it eventually,” Kaufmo stated, motioning for Jax to follow.

Jax looked between them. “Okay. Seriously. What the hell is this?”

Ribbit and Kaufmo exchanged a look.

“Not here,” Ribbit said finally.

Kaufmo jerked his head toward the hallway behind them. “C’mon.”

Jax fell into step beside them with an exaggerated sigh. “Love when everybody starts actin’ mysterious.”

“You’d complain if we told you to mind your business,” Ribbit replied.

“I’m complainin’ now.”

“Yeah, but now you’re moving while you do it,” Kaufmo joked.

The walk back felt shorter. Maybe because Jax wasn’t paying attention this time.

Kaufmo stopped a few doors down and pushed his room open without ceremony.

Jax wandered in after Ribbit automatically, already familiar with the uneven mess of the place. Kaufmo’s room had a habit of becoming wherever the three of them ended up after dinner, after adventures, after boredom got too loud.

Nothing about the room had really changed.

Bright blankets sat thrown unevenly across furniture, shelves crowded with random circus junk and half-finished gags Jax vaguely remembered helping create. Props leaned against walls in ways that probably violated several imaginary safety codes. Mugs lingered near the desk long past the point they should have vanished, abandoned there because nobody cared enough to move them.

A camera sat near the edge of a cluttered table beside scattered photographs and mismatched frames. He had probably seen it before. Just never really noticed.

Ribbit dropped automatically into a familiar spot near the bed while Kaufmo drifted toward the desk, already pulling open a drawer.

Jax watched him. “Okay,” he said slowly. “You two are bein’ weird weird.”

Kaufmo lingered with one hand still inside the drawer. Something uncertain crossed briefly over Ribbit’s face before she leaned back against the bed.

“You gonna tell him,” she asked, “or keep pretending this is normal?”

“...I was thinking about easing into it.”

Jax frowned. “Into what?”

Kaufmo pulled something from the drawer and shut it with his hip. A thick photo album, edges worn soft from use.

Nobody rushed to speak. Ribbit leaned back against the bed while Kaufmo turned the album once between his hands, thumb lingering against the worn edge.

Jax shifted where he stood. “You gonna explain why this suddenly feels like an intervention?”

Kaufmo’s mouth twitched faintly before the expression disappeared. “You’re the one who wanted answers.”

“Didn’t think the answer involved arts and crafts.”

Ribbit finally reached over and flipped the cover open before Kaufmo could argue.

The first photograph made Jax pause.

You sat on the floor between Kaufmo and Ribbit, turned halfway toward whoever had taken the picture with the distracted look of somebody interrupted mid-sentence. Kaufmo seemed seconds away from laughing at something outside the frame while Ribbit sat close enough that one shoulder brushed yours, annoyance softened by something warmer.

Jax frowned. “…that’s you?”

The question slipped out, directed at nobody in particular and strange enough that he almost corrected himself.

Kaufmo kept his eyes on the photograph. “Yeah.”

Jax studied the picture again. Nothing about you had changed, really. Same face. Same vaguely irritated relationship with existence. Still, the photograph felt unfamiliar in a way Jax could not place. Maybe it was how easy you seemed there, shoulder brushing Ribbit’s while your arm rested loosely around Kaufmo, as if closeness had once come naturally.

Ribbit turned the page.

A beach stretched across the photograph, the water blue to qualify as real and the shoreline crowded with ridiculous details Jax suspected Caine had found funny. Palm trees leaned at impossible angles near the edge of the frame while something inflatable floated in the distance with an expression Jax found mildly threatening.

You stood ankle-deep in the water beside Kaufmo, soaked enough that somebody had clearly started something stupid. The two of you grinned openly at the camera. Farther back, Ribbit held a striped umbrella, looking deeply unimpressed with the entire concept of sunlight.

Jax stared at the photograph longer than intended.

“She actually did adventures?”

Kaufmo snorted softly. The next page turned before Jax could ask anything else.

This photograph sat crooked in the plastic sleeve, edges softened from being handled too often.

A grassy hill stretched beneath an open night sky, blankets thrown unevenly across the ground.

Nobody seemed aware of the camera.

Kinger sat near the middle in an embarrassingly fuzzy sweater. Beside him sat another chess-piece figure, similar enough in shape that the resemblance felt intentional.

One of your arms rested loosely around the stranger’s shoulders while your head leaned there easily. Kinger’s hand lingered lightly against your back like it belonged there.

The three of you leaned together, nobody seemingly aware that the moment had been captured at all.

Jax said nothing.

The version of you in the photograph barely matched the person who had snapped at Ragatha the night before.

Finally, he broke the silence, pointing toward the unfamiliar figure.

“Who’s that?”

Ribbit followed the gesture. “Queenie,” she answered.

“Caine took it,” Kaufmo added, thumb brushing against the edge of the sleeve. “Apparently spying counts as friendship where he’s concerned.”

A quieter breath left him. “She hated this one for a while.”

“Why?”

Kaufmo fell silent. Ribbit held briefly at the edge of the page before letting go. 

Neither dared to answer.

A second later, Kaufmo closed the album.

Jax stared at him. “Oh, c’mon.”

Kaufmo leaned back against the bedframe and avoided looking at either of them. “You asked."

“I asked why.”

“...it’s not really a one-answer kinda thing.” Ribbit mumbled.

“Okay, then maybe start with literally anything.”

Kaufmo tipped his head back briefly. “She wasn’t always like this,” he said.

Ribbit traced once at the edge of the blanket. “Not even a little.”

Jax looked between them. Nobody continued.

Kaufmo sat with the album resting shut across his lap while Ribbit picked absently at the blanket.

“...that explains exactly nothing.”

Kaufmo let out a tired breath that might have been laughter on a better day. “Yeah.”

Jax frowned harder. “So what happened?”

Ribbit answered before Kaufmo could. “Something went wrong,” she muttered, gaze still lowered. “One of Caine’s adventures, a long time ago. He thought he was helping and it just sort of…” her fingers twisted once against the blanket. “Got bad.”

Kaufmo turned toward her. “Rib.”

Ribbit went quiet.

“Got bad how?”

Neither of them answered. Kaufmo rubbed once at the back of his neck before exhaling quietly.

“Jax,” he leaned back against the bedframe with a sigh that sounded older than he usually let himself, “it’s not my story to tell.”

That irritated Jax.

The photographs still sat fresh in his head. You laughing on a beach. You asleep against somebody’s shoulder. You, somehow, seeming like the kind of person who stayed in rooms instead of finding reasons to leave them.

None of it lined up.

“Fine,” he muttered, pushing himself upright. “Be weird and cryptic, see if I care.”

Kaufmo snorted at that. “You definitely care.”

“...Wrong.”

Ribbit finally spoke. “You’re pacing.”

Jax stopped moving long enough to notice. “I’m explorin’.”

Kaufmo barked out the loudest laugh yet. “Sure you are.”

Jax rolled his eyes hard enough to count as exercise and headed for the door before either of them could decide to get insightful.

He wandered without much direction at first, hands shoved into his pockets while Caine rambled somewhere overhead about “surprise recreational whimsy.” Bubble yelled something back that sounded legally threatening.

The older end of the hallway found him again before he really thought about it.

Your door stood exactly where he remembered.

The tray still sat outside the door, coffee cooling untouched beside toast and fruit no one had bothered with.

Jax slowed.

The bacon was gone.

Jax spent the rest of the morning pretending he had better things to do.

Mostly, this meant wandering the circus without direction and thinking longer than he cared to admit about bacon.

Which was probably why he almost missed the fact that somebody had redecorated the main hall.

Balloons hovered near the ceiling in colors Jax instinctively distrusted. Glitter littered the floor for no obvious reason, and somewhere near the entrance a cardboard sign informed him he had apparently entered a TEAMWORK ZONE, which felt menacing.

The banner overhead made things worse:

WELCOME TO THE TRUST TUNNEL OF INTERPERSONAL HARMONY™

By the time Jax wandered closer, everyone else looked like they had been there awhile.

Ragatha already looked worried, which honestly felt fair.

She stood near an aggressively cheerful balloon arch while Kaufmo leaned against the wall beside her, arms crossed. Ribbit had apparently given up early and settled onto the floor instead, staring up at the banner overhead with an expression that suggested she disliked where any of this was headed.

Kinger stood near the wall, studying a cardboard standee with narrowed eyes.

“I feel like he’s waiting for me to go first.”

Jax lifted his head toward the ceiling automatically.

“Caine,” he called out, “...what did you do?”

“THANK YOU FOR ASKING!”

Caine appeared upside down directly above him, close enough that Jax nearly stumbled backward into a balloon display. Bubble floated beside him in a tiny referee shirt, whistle already hanging from his jagged teeth.

“Today,” Caine announced, spinning upright with theatrical enthusiasm, “you lucky contestants will participate in a thrilling interpersonal exercise involving trust, cooperation, emotional honesty, and proximity!”

Jax groaned.

“That sounds threatening.”

“Nonsense!” Caine replied. “The Trust Tunnel of Interpersonal Harmony™ is a carefully engineered collaborative labyrinth designed to strengthen emotional bonds through teamwork!”

Kaufmo rubbed at his face. “See, the problem is somehow that explanation made me feel worse.”

“Aw, c’mon.” Jax nudged his shoulder lightly. “Best case scenario, we get paired together and spend the whole thing bein’ unbearable.”

Kaufmo shook his head once, grinning.  “You say that like we aren’t already.”

“Partners,” Caine continued brightly, cane sweeping through the air as confetti burst from nowhere, “have been selected personally by your wonderful ringmaster, ME! Certain participants have…demonstrated a troubling reluctance toward collaborative growth.” His smile widened. Slowly.

Jax followed the look around the room.

“…where’s grumpy?”

Kaufmo and Ribbit exchanged a look. “Didn’t come out,” Kaufmo muttered.

“Again,” Ribbit added.

Caine’s expression brightened with sudden purpose.

“NOT TO WORRY!”

He snapped his fingers.

You appeared beside Jax fast enough that coffee sloshed over the rim of the mug in your hand.

You only stood there, eyes widened. Then you looked toward Caine with the kind of calm that usually arrived seconds before violence.

“…did you just teleport me out of bed?”

“TRANSPORTATION!” Caine corrected cheerfully.

Jax watched from beside you.

Exhaustion sat differently on you today, your clothes rumpled, expression flattened beneath what looked suspiciously like genuine irritation instead of the usual, sharpened version.

Then he noticed what sat pinched between your fingers. Jax tilted his head.

“…is that my bacon.”

Your eyes narrowed immediately. “You gonna cry about it?”

“Depends,” Jax replied. “How attached are you to your kneecaps?”

Kaufmo glanced between the two of you, expression already drifting toward concern. “Okay, cool. Great start.”

Ribbit pushed herself upright from the floor. “I give it ten minutes before somebody gets shoved into a wall.”

“Five,” Kaufmo corrected.

“You people say things about me like I’m not standing here.”

“You were in bed thirty seconds ago,” Ribbit replied. “Emotionally, we’re still adjusting.”

Your eyes moved toward her once before returning to Caine. “What exactly…is this?”

Caine clasped both hands together, visibly delighted to have regained control of the conversation.

“A marvelous collaborative labyrinth!” he announced. “A whimsical maze of emotional growth, teamwork, and interpersonal trust! Participants will remain with their assigned partner while navigating increasingly enriching obstacles designed to strengthen your emotional connection!”

Jax frowned immediately.

“…you keep sayin’ emotional connection like that’s supposed to help.”

“Partners must also remain within one friendship unit of each other at all times,” Caine continued, pointing his cane toward the banner overhead. “Failure to cooperate may result in temporary rerouting, environmental instability, or mild consequences!”

“…what the hell is a friendship unit?” Jax probed.

“Approximately two feet!” Caine replied cheerfully. “One, for optimal bonding.”

Somewhere near the wall, Kinger straightened. “I don’t like when consequences are mysterious.”

“Nobody does,” Ragatha muttered.

Caine spun once in place, somehow producing cue cards from nowhere.

“Now! Pairings!”

Kaufmo immediately pointed toward Jax. “Calling him.”

“Denied!” Caine exclaimed.

Kaufmo lowered his hand. “…that feels targeted.”

“Kaufmo and Ragatha!” Caine announced.

Ragatha blinked once. “Oh.”

Kaufmo looked almost alarmed. “No offense, Rag, but I think we panic differently.”

“Ribbit and Kinger!” Ribbit looked up slowly.

“…huh.”

Kinger brightened. “Boy, we’re not very good at this, are we?”

“And finally…” Caine turned with theatrical delight.

Jax already felt dread creeping in. Your expression suggested homicide.

“Jax and our delightfully participation-resistant friend!”

The whole room fell silent. Kaufmo took a moment to shut his eyes. Ribbit looked toward the ceiling. “Wow.”

You stared at Caine. Then at Jax.

Then back at Caine.

“…no.”

“Aw,” Jax tilted his head toward you. “C’mon, dollface. Try to contain your excitement.”

“I would genuinely rather walk into traffic.”

“Lucky for you,” Caine interrupted, “the maze will not permit separation!”

You glared, your expression flattening further. “You cannot seriously think this is a good idea.”

Ribbit sounded almost thoughtful.“No, this actually has potential.”

Kaufmo looked mildly alarmed already. “I’m just saying, statistically, somebody’s getting threatened before we hit the entrance.”

“Threatened?” Jax tilted his head. “Kinda rude.”

You looked toward him slowly. “You’ve been here five minutes and somehow made yourself everybody’s problem.”

“Damn. You rehearse that one?”

“Try harder.”

Ragatha clasped her hands together, gaze flicking toward Caine. “Could we maybe hear the rules before everybody starts arguing?”

“A wonderful suggestion, my bombastic, blossoming buttercup!” Caine spread his arms wide.

Reality tore open beside him in a bright burst of color.

The portal hovered several feet above the floor, glowing edges crackling around a sunlit entrance that looked suspiciously cheerful for something already making Jax nervous. Beyond it stretched twisting hedges, oversized flowers, and pathways folding in impossible directions beneath a sky far too blue to be trustworthy.

Jax raised a brow.

“…still sounds threatening.”

“Partners who cooperate may discover shortcuts, rewards, and enriching interpersonal experiences,” Caine explained with excitement, gesturing grandly toward the portal. “Partners who resist cooperation may encounter rerouting, instability, or motivational consequences.”

You stared toward the opening with visible concern.

“Temporary discomfort!” Caine announced. “Marvelous for growth!”

Jax stepped closer before catching himself near what was probably the invisible limit. “Relax, dollface,” he replied. “It’s only a few hours. Try not to miss me when it’s over.”

Your attention slid toward him. “You say that like it ends.”

Kaufmo pointed once between the two of you. “See? This is exactly what I meant by potential.”

Ribbit dragged a hand across her face. “We’re doomed.”

Caine clapped his hands together, delighted with himself. “Wonderful!” he announced. “Please proceed toward interpersonal enrichment!”

Nobody moved. Bubble blew the whistle hanging from his mouth. “MOVE IT MAGGOTS!”

Ragatha startled. Kaufmo muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer while Ribbit rose from the floor with the exhausted acceptance of somebody who had already decided resistance was pointless.

Kinger, somehow, looked encouraged.

“Well,” he said carefully, “I suppose if worst comes to worst… we could always try not thinking about it.”

Nobody acknowledged that.

One by one, everyone made their way toward the portal. Ragatha disappeared through first after a hesitant glance toward Kaufmo, who followed close behind, already mildly overwhelmed by responsibility. Ribbit walked beside Kinger.

You stayed exactly where you were.

Coffee still sat in your hand. The half-finished strip of bacon had disappeared at some point, though he had no idea when. You stood facing the portal with the same flat expression you had worn since Caine dragged you out of bed, posture drawn tight.

Caine tilted in midair.

“…friendo?”

“No.”

“But the maze!”

“Still no.”

“The collaborative growth!”

“Especially no.”

Jax stepped closer to you. “You know,” he said, tipping his head toward the portal, “this is startin’ to feel personal.”

“You should feel lucky I’m only ignoring you.”

“Aw. There’s the attitude.”

Before either of you could say anything else, a glowing line flickered suddenly into existence between your feet.

Bright lettering hovered in the air: 1.7 FT

“…okay, that feels invasive.” Jax chuckled.

You took one step backward. The number flashed red.

Somewhere inside the portal, something mechanical groaned loud enough to shake the floor beneath them.

Caine lifted one finger.

“Corrective rerouting begins in three!”

Your head lifted sharply. “You’re joking.”

“Two!”

Jax closed the distance without thinking. The number flickered green again.

Then your expression flattened further. “Move.”

“Can’t,” Jax taunted you easily. “Friendship law.”

Somewhere inside the portal, Kaufmo’s voice carried faintly back toward the hall. “Uh…guys?”

A low mechanical sound rolled through the maze beyond.

“Okay, no, seriously, the walls are moving.”

The floor gave beneath the two of you before either of you had time to react.

Caine clapped overhead, laughing maniacally while the floor lurched. Jax barely had time to catch the look on your face before the portal swallowed both of you whole.

Landing hurt less than expected.

That alone felt suspicious.

By the time Jax pushed himself upright, the maze had decided to look welcoming in the most menacing way possible. Sunlight spilled across towering hedges that curved around twisting stone paths, all the while uncannily large flowers swayed to a nonexistent breeze.

Somewhere farther ahead came Kaufmo’s voice. “WHY DOES IT KEEP ASKING HOW I FEEL?”

Ragatha answered something too distant to make out.

You stood close to Jax.

Closer than either of you probably wanted. The glowing number hovered quietly between you: 1.8 FT

You looked once at the number before meeting his eyes again. “Don’t.”

He raised a brow. “Didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

A path curved ahead beneath signs that only made the whole thing worse:

COMMUNICATE OPENLY

TRUST YOUR PARTNER

SHARE A VULNERABILITY

Jax hated every single one.

“Hypothetically,” he started, brushing dust from his sleeve, “if we fake our deaths, you think he notices?”

Before you had time to respond, the hedge beside you rattled violently. A hidden pathway slid open and confetti burst all over you.

WELCOME, PARTNERS!

Silence settled for all of half a second before you turned and headed the opposite way.

The glowing number flashed red.

Stone vanished beneath your feet fast enough to make you stumble back, the edge of the path dropping into empty space where solid ground had been a second earlier. Jax moved fast enough to catch your wrist just as the maze corrected itself, and the number flickered green again.

Up close, coffee still clung faintly to your sleeve, exhaustion sitting heavier on you than it had yesterday. Your attention dropped toward where he still held your wrist.

“I was fine.”

“Sure,” he replied. “You almost ate concrete, but sure.” Before he could say anything else, the flowers around the two of you burst open again.

Confetti launched directly into his face.

EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT DETECTED!

You pulled your arm free, stepping as far away as the glowing number allowed. “Right,” you muttered, staring past him. “Not doing that.”

The maze groaned around the two of you as the hedges folded apart, revealing a wider path that curved toward an enormous painted sign.

The sign rotated once before stopping, painted letters rearranging themselves with an overly cheerful pop:

LEVEL ONE: MIRROR MAZE

Jax stared at it as the entrance opened with a metallic scrape, revealing a narrow corridor lined wall to wall with mirrors. It looked normal for about two seconds. Then one reflection smiled too late.

You stared, too. “Great,” you said. “That one has your timing.”

“Rude.”

A mechanical voice chimed overhead before you could answer.

PLEASE SHARE ONE POSITIVE OBSERVATION ABOUT EACH OTHER TO BEGIN.

The nearest mirror had enough time to fog impatiently as the two of you stood silent.

Jax gave in first. “Fine. You have decent taste in stolen breakfast.”

“...you’re easier to tolerate when you stop talking.”

The mirrors lit up green.

POSITIVE OBSERVATIONS ACCEPTED.

Jax’s eyes widened. “That counted?”

“Don’t question good luck.”

The maze opened ahead.

For a while, the mirror maze was mostly annoying. The walls copied the two of you from far too many angles, stretching movements a second too long or catching expressions neither of you had truly made. Every time you drifted more than two feet away, the mirrors slid inward until Jax had to step closer again. You looked increasingly unimpressed with the entire experience.

“Move slower,” you snapped after the third wrong turn.

Jax laughed at you. “You say that like I’m sprintin’.”

“You walk like you’re trying to get lost on purpose.”

“That hurts. I’m naturally difficult.”

“You’re naturally a problem.”

“See, now that one felt personal.”

You angled around another mirror before pausing when three more identical hallways appeared.

“...I hate this maze,” you muttered, rubbing at your temple.

“Aw,” Jax replied. “Thought we were havin’ fun.”

“You walked into your own reflection twice.”

“It had a smug face.”

“Yeah, because it was you.”

The mirrors flashed pink. The two of you froze.

“…okay. What was that?”

“I don’t know,” you replied, “and I’m not interested in finding out.”

A door opened at the end of the corridor with a cheerful chime neither of you trusted. For once, the maze seemed satisfied enough to stop interfering and let the two of you leave.

LEVEL TWO waited on the other side.

The path ahead had traded polished mirrors for rows of tall corn stalks that stretched far above both of you, rustling beneath a sky gone artificially yellow near the horizon. The air smelled fake and sweet, and somewhere deep in the maze, something crunched beneath its own weight.

Jax went completely still.

You looked from the corn to him. Then back again.

“…seriously?” you probed.

Jax glared over at you. “What?”

“You’re making a face.”

“I don’t make faces,” he argued.

“You absolutely make faces,” you replied.

He checked the corn again, and this time, something deeper in the rows to rustle loud enough to sound intentional.

Jax nearly jumped. “…I just think it looks stupid,” he muttered.

“You’re scared of corn,” you said, voice tipping upward just enough to sound halfway between accusation and realization.

“…don’t say it like that,” he groaned.

Jax tried to look bored, which worked for maybe one second before the corn nearest to him bent inward with a dry scrape. He stepped back on instinct, shoulder knocking against yours. The glowing number between you pulsed green.

You looked at him.

Jax kept staring ahead, lifting one hand to point toward the maze. “Lead the way.”

Your brows drew together. “That bad, huh?”

“You wanted me useful. I’m delegating.”

“That’s not useful.”

“It is to me.”

The corn rustled again. Jax flinched.

For a second, you stood there staring between him and the corn.

Then, with visible irritation, you lifted the coffee mug and hurled it somewhere into the stalks.

A distant crash followed.

“…feel better?”

“Marginally.”

The stalks ahead moved apart to reveal a scarecrow half-swallowed by corn. Its head turned to glare at the two of you.

Jax shoved himself behind you.

“...just close your eyes,” you reluctantly instructed.

“Absolutely not.”

“Then stare at the corn and have a crisis. I don’t care.”

He lasted maybe three more seconds. Then he shut his eyes. “Tell anyone,” he warned, “and I’m making this everybody’s problem.”

“You already do that. Walk,” you replied, reaching for his wrist. You could feel his glare, even behind closed eyes.

“If this ends badly,” he warned, “I’m blamin’ you.”

“Shocking.”

The glowing number dipped lower: 0.7 FT. OPTIMAL

Your fingers closed lightly around his wrist as you started forward. The contact should have been nothing. It was barely anything. Still, Jax followed the pull of your hand through the corn maze, eyes squeezed shut, listening to your footsteps and the occasional rustle of stalks brushing too close.

You were annoyingly good at it.

That was the frustrating part.

You counted turns under your breath, corrected him when he drifted too far left, and yanked him back once before he walked straight into a fence that had absolutely not been there earlier.

Jax kept his eyes shut. Mostly. He tried to crack an eye open once, saw a wall of corn leaning toward him, and immediately closed it again.

You noticed. “Pathetic.”

“Cruel thing to say to a man in distress.”

“Did you just call yourself a man?”

“...Focus on the maze.”

Your laugh barely counted, but it was there. It slipped out before you could swallow it down, quick and disbelieving, and Jax hated the little jolt of satisfaction it gave him.

The corn thinned ahead.

A wooden arch waited at the exit, covered in painted sunflowers with faces that turned to watch as the two of you approached. Jax opened his eyes only when you let go of his sleeve.

The absence of your hand registered faster than he liked.

You put as much distance between the two of you as possible, expression closing again before he could comment. The arch glowed green overhead:

LEVEL TWO COMPLETE.

Jax panned from the sign to you. “See? Great team.”

“All you did was close your eyes and complain.”

“Still counts.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Yeah, but you’re startin’ to sound less mad about it.”

That was the wrong thing to say. He knew it as soon as the words left his mouth.

Your expression did not change much, but your shoulder tightened. The small ease from the corn maze vanished in an instant, as if the maze had reached out and taken it. Your attention moved past him, toward the final path, where hedges were folding open with a slow, heavy sound.

Jax almost made another joke. He thought better of it.

The last sign rose from the ground ahead.

LEVEL THREE: EXIT INTERVIEW

The words sat there innocently for half a second before smaller text appeared beneath them:

ANSWER TOGETHER.

Your face went blank.

Jax read the sign again, disliking the way the air had changed. The final stretch appeared shorter than the others, just a straight path between two walls of hedges toward a bright red exit door at the end. Halfway down the path stood a pedestal with a large button on top.

It felt too easy.

Caine’s voice rang out through the maze, cheerful and distant.

“Final level, partners! Simply answer one meaningful question, press the button together, and proceed proudly toward victory!”

Jax glanced at the exit. “That’s it?”

The hedge beside the pedestal bloomed open, revealing words carved into the wood beneath the button:

WHAT MAKES YOUR PARTNER SAFE?

The silence that followed landed differently. You went quiet beside Jax.

He paused at the question, then turned to look at you. “That’s stupid.”

“Then answer it.”

“Why me?”

“You love hearing yourself talk,” you rolled your eyes.

“Wow. Mean.”

He should have made a joke. He had several ready. Something about your anger issues. Something about the fact that he had not shoved you into a wall yet. Something simple enough to make the maze accept it and let both of you move on.

Instead, he thought of the breakfast tray outside your door. The bacon gone. The photo album in Kaufmo’s room.

Your hand clutching his in the corn maze.

“...you don’t ditch people.” The words slipped out before he could stop them, unpolished.

Jax hated them immediately. You glared at him so fast he almost regretted saying anything at all.

The hedges stirred quietly around the two of you.

“That’s not an answer,” you said after a second.

“Sounded like one.”

“You don’t know that.”

Jax shrugged one shoulder, already irritated with where this was going. “I know what I’ve seen.”

“You’ve seen nothing.”

The maze gave another low tremor beneath your feet. Ahead, the exit still waited at the end of the path, bright and stupidly close like the whole thing was still winnable if one of you would just stop talking.

Jax knew that.

He kept going anyway.

“Kaufmo does somethin’ stupid, you fix it. Ribbit nearly walks into disaster, suddenly you’re there. Kinger gets two seconds away from eating something cursed, and suddenly you’re watching him like it’s your job.”

“Stop.”

“You dragged everybody through that nightmare forest yesterday.”

Your expression hardened. “I said stop.”

Jax hesitated. Then, because apparently today had become dedicated to making bad decisions, he continued.

“You always make sure everybody else gets back first.”

The hedges pressed inward hard enough to make the exit feel farther away, stone shifting beneath the two of you with an uneven groan that pulled at the edges of the path.

Jax thought about the sound you had made back in the corn maze. Small enough that it had almost slipped past him, gone before either of you had really acknowledged it.

This laugh landed differently.

Short. Sharp.

“You think that means something?”

Jax hesitated.

You met his eyes then, the careful distance that had settled back over your expression after the corn maze beginning to slip.

“You think noticing one thing means you figured me out?”

“I didn’t say that.”

The counter flashed red as you stepped back.

The maze reacted with an uneven shudder, the path lurching unevenly while the hedges folded inward and apart all at once, stone groaning beneath both of you in a way the earlier levels never had.

Jax moved first, hand lifting. “Hey.”

You pulled back before he could reach you.

Suddenly, the maze had completely transformed around the two of you. Not hedges. A hallway, with doors. Faces crossed out in thick red lines.

Then, Jax blinked, and the maze corrected itself so quickly he almost convinced himself he had imagined it.

The exit still waited at the end of the path, bright red and stupidly cheerful beneath a sign that continued glowing:

FINAL STEP!

Caine’s voice rang overhead, eerily cheerful. “Partners must complete the final level together!”

Jax took another step forward, slower this time.

“You always look around before you leave a room.” The words arrived strangely certain. Jax wasn’t even sure where they had come from. He only knew they felt true.

The maze went completely still.

You said nothing, shoulders drawing tighter.

“That’s not—I wasn’t—”

You shook your head once. “...no.” The word barely carried.

The path dropped out from beneath the two of you.

Stone jerked violently beneath both of you, throwing the exit sideways while the hedges folded inward with a grinding sound sharp enough to scrape against the inside of his skull. Somewhere overhead, the bright yellow sky fractured into static.

“Participant incompatibility detected!” a robotic voice chirped. “Fantastic effort!”

Jax caught himself against the nearest hedge before it gave away beneath his hand.

The counter flashed red so brightly it hurt to look at.

Across from him, your balance caught and slipped every time the floor jerked beneath you, breathing uneven enough now that he found himself listening for it.

“Wait—”

For one sharp second, the world broke apart: corn where hedges should have been, mirrors flashing overhead, hallways and doors and crossed out faces stretching as far as the eye could see.

Static swallowed the edges before the world corrected itself. A sharp snap echoed somewhere above, the sound cutting through everything.

Suddenly, the circus returned all at once, confetti bursting overhead.

“And in THIRD PLACE!” Caine announced, entirely too cheerful.

Kinger stood near the center of the hall holding what appeared to be a first-place ribbon made entirely of plastic insects while Ribbit stared at it like she regretted everything.

“We did very well,” Kinger informed no one in particular. “Apparently knowledge of agricultural insect populations is valuable.”

Across the room, Kaufmo sat slumped against the floor while Ragatha offered him what was probably a participation sticker.

“Second place!” Caine turned toward them. “Marvelous emotional resilience!”

Jax barely registered any of it. You had already started moving.

Your breathing sounded wrong.

One of your hands was pressed hard against your arm while the other caught against the wall as you passed, footing uneven enough to stumble as you walked.

Ragatha took a careful step forward.

“Hey—”

“...please.” You did not look at her.

Jax caught something that sounded dangerously close to a swallowed breath before you disappeared down the hallway.

Or maybe a sniffle. He could not tell.

The room went quiet after you disappeared.

Even Caine stopped talking.

Kaufmo still watched the hallway, even after you disappeared. Beside him, Ribbit had gone strangely still, fingers loosening around the ridiculous plastic insects Kinger had apparently won until they slipped from her hands.

“…oh,” Kinger whispered quietly.

Nobody moved.

Not toward the hallway. Not after you.

Kaufmo only forced an awkward smile while Ribbit stood beside him, posture gone tight in a way Jax had learned meant bad news.

Something turned low in Jax’s stomach.

Because none of this felt surprising.

Not to them.

Jax lasted maybe twenty minutes.

He made one lap around the circus. Pretended to care about whatever disaster Caine had turned the dining hall into. Listened to Bubble threaten legal retaliation against a vending machine for reasons nobody explained. At one point, he stood in front of a wall for a full minute thinking very seriously about absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately, thinking about nothing naturally evolved into thinking about you.

Your stumble in the hallway, the way your breathing had sounded.

That quiet little “please.”

Annoying.

By the time he found Ragatha, she had somehow acquired a step stool and was fixing one of the paper decorations Caine had left hanging crooked near the theater entrance.

Or pretending to. She had been staring at the same streamer for at least a couple minutes.

Jax crept up behind her. “You know that thing’s still ugly, right?”

Ragatha startled hard enough to nearly drop the tape dispenser. “Oh!” She steadied herself quickly. “You scared me.”

“Should I start jinglin’ bells before I walk into rooms?” He grinned.

Something softer crossed her face before she looked back toward the decoration.

“…you okay?”

Jax’s smile dropped. “What’s with everybody askin’ me that?”

Ragatha adjusted the streamer once. “You’ve been weirdly quiet.”

“That your professional opinion?”

“Yeah, actually.”

Jax rolled his eyes, shoving both hands into his pockets.

“…okay. Hypothetically.”

Ragatha turned.

Jax already regretted this.

“If somebody completely loses it in a maze because you accidentally say one thing—”

Something shifted across Ragatha’s face. “Oh.”

There it was again. He wasn’t going to let it slide this time. “No. Stop doin’ that.”

“Doing what?”

“That thing.”

“What thing?”

“The weird face!”

Despite herself, Ragatha laughed softly. “You mean concern?”

“No, I mean everybody suddenly actin’ like they know somethin’ I don’t.”

The laughter faded.

Ragatha set the tape dispenser in her lap.

“...So, you talked to Kaufmo and Ribbit.”

Not a question.

“Yeah, well, apparently everybody in this place decided mystery’s a personality trait.”

Her mouth pulled slightly to one side. “They weren’t trying to be difficult.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

The paper streamer slipped loose again overhead. Neither of them bothered fixing it.

“…look,” Jax clenched his jaw, already annoyed he had to say it. “Something’s wrong.”

Ragatha’s voice came out weaker than usual. “Yeah, it…started before you got here.” She adjusted the tape dispenser once, then gave up on the streamer entirely and stepped down from the stool. “There had already been a lot of abstractions by then.”

“Yeah, okay. I know people abstract.”

“People they knew,” Ragatha continued, ignoring his banter. “People the rest of us didn’t.” 

She paused, choosing her words more carefully.

“I guess after enough time…people stop bringing them up as much. You hear stories sometimes. Somebody who stole fruit at breakfast. Somebody who hated card games.” She smiled faintly before it disappeared again. “But after a while… people move on. You stop talking about them as much. Then not really at all.”

Ragatha exhaled. “And eventually it feels like they just…” her voice caught in her throat, “like they were never here.”

The hallway had gone quiet.

Jax thought about the photo album. The weird details you always seemed to know.

The feeling that you had walked into the circus already carrying history nobody else could see.

“She remembered what the rest of us didn’t,” Ragatha continued. “Not stories. People.”

Jax crossed his arms.

“…okay.” The word came slower this time. “What does that have to do with the maze?”

Ragatha seemed to weigh the words before answering. “Not the maze…an adventure, the one you skipped.”

“…what?”

“It was only your first week, and you were having a hard time adjusting…you stayed in your room. Kinger skipped too.”

Her hands folded together.

“Things had been rough. Everybody was upset, morale was bad, and I think Caine got worried, or well…as close to worried as Caine gets. He’s not always very good at understanding when something’s wrong, or what to do with it once he does.”

Jax disliked where this was going.

“He thought maybe something familiar would help,” Ragatha continued. “Something comforting.”

Whatever came next seemed harder to say.

“So he built an adventure around old faces.”

“...what?”

“He reuses NPC code all the time,” her voice lowered. “Models, personalities, little habits. We didn’t think anything of it at first. It just felt like another weird Caine adventure.”

She turned the tape dispenser once between her hands. “But she kept stopping. She’d just… freeze. She’d stare at somebody and go quiet. Correct little things.” Ragatha rubbed lightly at one arm. “Stuff nobody else understood.”

“You mean—”

“The abstracted people,” Ragatha clarified. “Or pieces of them, maybe.”

Jax stayed still against the wall.

“Kaufmo, Ribbit, and I had no idea who we were looking at,” she continued. “Most of them abstracted before we ever got here. Most of them…” Her expression tightened. “I don’t even think I knew their names…but she did.”

Ragatha went quiet for a moment before continuing.

“We thought something was wrong.”

“With her?” Jax asked.

Guilt flickered across her face.

“…yeah. I mean, we were worried. She kept freaking out and none of us understood why. I’d never seen her like that before.”

Jax stayed quiet.

Because suddenly the maze felt different.

The hallway, the crossed-out faces. The way you had looked at him.

“Afterward,” Ragatha sighed, “things changed. She just…got harder to be around, I guess.”

Jax frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She stopped sitting with us as much.” Ragatha shrugged. “If she did, she usually left early. Conversations got shorter.” She hesitated only long enough to rethink the phrasing. “Everything felt sharper after that.”

Jax looked over.

“…sharper?”

“She got irritated easier. And, she became quieter, which somehow felt worse.” A weak laugh slipped out, gone almost immediately. “You kind of stopped knowing what version of her you were gonna get.”

The humor disappeared.

“She still showed up,” Ragatha said. “It just stopped feeling like she was really there with us.”

She paused before continuing. “Kinger figured it out later.”

That got Jax’s attention. “What?”

“I didn’t know what else to do, so I went to him,” Ragatha admitted. “She wouldn’t talk to me, Kaufmo and Ribbit were worried, and I just…I didn’t understand what had happened. So I tried explaining it. I told him about the adventure, the NPCs, everything.”

Her voice lowered.

“And Kinger just…went really still.”

“Like normal Kinger still or weird Kinger still?”

“Weird,” Ragatha replied. “He started asking questions. ‘What did they look like?’ ‘What were they saying?’”

She stopped there for a second.

“And then…he told me everything. He said Caine must’ve copied them somehow. Their models, mostly, and maybe a few habits, but that was it. Just enough to convince you at first glance if you knew them.”

Ragatha grimaced.

“She’d recognize somebody immediately and go over to them, and at first you’d think maybe…” Ragatha stopped herself, expression tightening. “But they’d just smile and start talking about whatever Caine had programmed them to talk about.”

Ragatha lifted a hand to rub at her shoulder.

“She kept trying anyway. Correcting things, asking questions. Trying to explain why something was wrong, and none of us understood what she meant because to us it just looked like she was getting upset at NPCs.”

Her mouth twisted faintly. “I remember one of them asking if she wanted help finding treasure or something right after she’d been crying. She looked at him like something in her had just…” Ragatha exhaled once, frustration creeping into her voice. “I don’t know. Shut off. I think that’s when I finally understood why she changed.”

Her voice softened. “Imagine being the only person in the room who remembers someone enough to know they’re wrong.”

She looked at him properly then. “And nobody believes you.”

Neither of them said anything.

The crooked streamer overhead slipped loose again.

Ragatha noticed this time. She climbed back onto the stool, pressing one side of the decoration flat against the wall with far more focus than necessary.

“I don’t think she ever really forgave Caine for it,” she admitted after a moment. “Or herself, honestly.”

“…herself?”

“I think she hated that it got to her,” Ragatha admitted. “Like she felt stupid for caring when nobody else even remembered them anymore.”

The tape caught crooked.

She peeled it back off.

“And after a while…” Ragatha exhaled softly. “I think everybody just stopped asking.”

The words stayed with him longer than they should have. Something about that sat wrong. Wrong enough that Jax pushed himself upright.

“...Jax?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shoved his hands back into his pockets. “Don’t make a thing outta it.”

Something soft crossed her face. “You should probably go check on her.”

He rolled his eyes so hard it almost counted as effort.

“Wow. That’s a weird thing to say out loud.”

But he was already walking. Halfway down the hallway, he heard Ragatha call after him.

“Hey?”

Jax stopped.

“If she tells you to leave…maybe don’t.”

He glanced back and stared at her for a moment. Then looked away first.

“…yeah. Whatever.”

He kept walking anyway.

Jax was already past Kinger’s door when he realized he had absolutely no plan.

Which felt irritating, because plans implied effort and effort implied this suddenly mattered more than he wanted it to.

You had snapped at him before. Yelled, ignored him, threatened violence in at least three increasingly creative ways. None of that technically counted as unusual.

Still.

Fragments of you kept replaying wrong in his head. The breathing, the shaking hands. That small, strained please.

By the time he reached your door, irritation had settled somewhere unpleasantly close to concern, which felt manipulative, honestly.

The hallway remained stubbornly quiet.

Jax stood there longer than he meant to before finally digging through the ring of keys in his pocket with an exaggerated sort of annoyance, like inconveniencing himself somehow made this less embarrassing.

The lock clicked open easily.

The room beyond caught him off guard. Not because it looked sad. Sad would have made sense.

Instead, the whole thing felt soft in a way the circus rarely allowed itself to be.

The circus rarely bothered with softness without turning it into some kind of joke, but this was clearly an exception. Blankets layered unevenly across a couch near the far wall, thick enough to disappear into, spilling halfway onto a fur rug. Pillows crowded corners without any real order to them, oversized and worn at the edges in ways that suggested use rather than decoration. Warm light softened everything into shades of cream and pale gold while gauzy fabric hung loose near the ceiling, shifting faintly every time the artificial breeze from somewhere unseen caught it.

The window overlooked the digital lake.

Rain tapped quietly against the glass despite the sky remaining clear, sunset frozen across still water with the sort of careful perfection that immediately gave Caine’s work away. The kind of view somebody built after deciding comfort probably looked like rain and sunsets and quiet water, never really stopping to question whether any of those things belonged together.

Flowers crowded a shelf near the window, some fresh, some not. A few drooped where they sat forgotten in cloudy water nobody had changed.

Sticky notes lingered in stranger places, tucked near shelves and half-hidden against the edge of a side table:

REMEMBER BREAKFAST.

CHECK THE LOCK.

ASK KINGER ABOUT—

One near the window had been crossed through hard enough to wrinkle the paper beneath it.

Several picture frames rested facedown beside a stack of books. Another sat turned carefully toward the wall, hidden beneath folded fabric.

The room should have felt comforting. Instead, it carried the strange feeling of something built to survive inside.

Soft enough to hide in.

Jax shut the door behind him without meaning to. The sound pulled movement from somewhere beneath the blankets.

“Oh my god.” Your voice came rough around the edges.

He looked over.

You sat folded into the far corner of the couch beneath an unreasonable number of blankets, expression flattening almost immediately once recognition settled in.

Neither of you said anything.

Your gaze moved once toward the door. Then toward the keys still hanging loose from his hand.

“…you broke into my room?”

Jax lifted the ring slightly. “Breakin’ implies effort.”

Your expression somehow flattened further.

The silence afterward stretched.

You looked tired in a way he had not really noticed earlier, irritation sitting heavier now with no one else around to absorb it. The sharpness still existed, but dulled strangely at the edges beneath exhaustion.

A mug sat abandoned near the couch, cold coffee gathered at the bottom.

“You gonna stand there,” you muttered eventually, voice scraped thinner than usual, “or are you planning to leave?”

Neither option sounded particularly inviting. Jax glanced toward the artificial window instead.

“…your room feels weird.”

You looked unimpressed. “Thank you.”

“No, I mean—”

He gestured vaguely. “It feels…” He gestured toward the blankets, the flowers, the aggressively peaceful fake sunset outside. “Like Caine trapped somebody inside a scented candle.”

Your attention shifted toward the window. “So?”

“So,” Jax replied, leaning one shoulder against the closed door, “for somebody actin’ all terrifying lately, this is kinda pathetic.”

Your expression stayed frustratingly flat.

Your fingers gathered absently against the blanket. “You done?” you asked.

The room settled around the question.

Somewhere outside, rain continued tapping softly against fake glass, distant thunder rolling on a loop that sounded suspiciously prerecorded.

One of the sticky notes near the lamp had curled halfway loose.

DON’T FORGET—

The rest had been torn off.

“You always live like this?”

Your attention lifted slowly. “Like what?”

“All…” His gaze moved across the room again. “This.”

“...it helps.”

The couch sat close enough to the window that pale light caught unevenly against the blankets gathered around you. Even from here, it looked easy to disappear into.

With the vague irritation of somebody inconveniencing himself on purpose, Jax pushed away from the door.

“What are you doing?” you tensed.

“Relax.” He dropped onto the opposite end of the couch. “You looked one bad day away from hauntin’ the place.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Neither does this room.”

Your attention dropped again. Outside, thunder rolled softly through the fake sky.

“…you looked bad earlier.”

You laughed once, tired enough to sound brittle. “Wow.”

Jax frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” Your fingers tightened briefly against the blanket before loosening again. “Didn’t know you cared.”

“Didn’t say that.”

“You kinda did.”

He clicked his tongue once, already irritated with how badly this had gone. “You looked like hell, alright? Happy?”

The joke landed crueler than intended.

Your mouth pulled slightly at one corner before disappearing again.

Silence stretched between opposite ends of the couch, thin enough that even the soft hum of the room started feeling louder.

Then, for the first time all night, you turned to meet his gaze.

“You don’t have to do this.”

Jax looked over. “Do what?”

“This.” Your hand moved vaguely between the two of you. “Pretend.”

Something about that landed wrong. Maybe because you sounded tired instead of sharp.

Maybe because for the first time since he’d met you, you sounded like you actually believed it.

He leaned back harder into the couch.

“Oh, here we go.”

Still, his attention snagged again despite himself. Your hands had twisted the blanket into itself somewhere between the conversation and now, fabric gathered tight enough between your fingers to wrinkle.

“You gonna stop doin’ that?”

“Doing what?”

He reached over, catching lightly at the edge of the blanket where it had bunched between your hands.

“That…looks uncomfortable.”

You went quiet after that. Your hand stayed where he had loosened the blanket, fingers no longer twisting quite so tightly into the fabric. The space between both ends of the couch felt smaller now.

“You really suck at this,” you muttered eventually.

Jax let out a deep exhale. “Yeah, well.”

His hand remained where it had ended up against the blanket pooled loosely in your lap, closer now than either of you acknowledged.

“…clearly.”

Your shoulder brushed his a moment later.

Maybe accidental.

Maybe not.

Neither of you moved.

“You can stop, y’know.”

“Stop what?”

“This.” Your hand moved vaguely between the two of you. “Whatever weird…guilt thing this is.”

He raised a brow. “That’s annoyingly specific.”

“I’m serious.” You pulled the blanket slightly closer again, fingers catching in the fabric. “I’ll be fine.”

“I didn’t say you wouldn’t be.” His voice came out rougher than intended. Jax looked away.

“…I just…didn’t really wanna leave you alone.”

Silence stretched. Your shoulder stayed where it had bumped lightly against his. Close enough now that he could feel warmth through too many layers of blanket.

“You really suck at this,” you repeated, quieter now.

“Yeah, okay, you mentioned that already.” He looked back at you again, only to catch you staring.

Something small and tired slipped out of you, closer to a full laugh this time. It disappeared quickly.

“…quit lookin’ at me like that.” Jax mumbled.

“Like what?”

His hand fidgeted awkwardly, fingers brushing lightly against your sleeve near your wrist. “You keep lookin’ like you’re about to…” He stopped, whatever joke had been sitting there disappearing before trying again.

“…I dunno.”

His next words abandoned him somewhere between the look on your face and the sudden, embarrassing awareness that the couch had gotten a lot smaller.

The movement surprised you as much as it surprised him.

One second he was trying very hard not to say something stupid. The next he was kissing you.

Messy enough to almost count as impulse, but warm and strangely careful. You kissed him back, not for very long but just enough to make it real. Jax pulled away first, barely moving an inch. The smugness that usually lived somewhere behind his expression seemed to have misplaced itself entirely.

“Oh.” His voice came out soft, his hand still resting uselessly against the blanket gathered in your lap.

You stood so quickly the couch shifted beneath both of you.

“...No.” Your hands found your head briefly before falling again, pacing already carrying you halfway across the room. “No…no, no, no. Absolutely not.” The words came faster now, sharpness returning. “This isn’t—” You stopped yourself hard enough to swallow the rest. “No.”

Jax pushed himself upright more slowly.

“…okay.”

You laughed once, voice thin and wrong. The sound disappeared almost immediately as you turned toward the window, then away from it again before really stopping anywhere at all.

“This doesn’t matter,” you muttered, mostly to yourself. “This isn’t a thing.”

“Little offensive.”

“Jax.”

That got him to stop. You had stopped pacing without him noticing, now standing near the window with one hand gripping your neck like a vise.

You started pacing again.

A blanket still dragged unevenly around one shoulder where you had forgotten to let it fall.

“I can’t do this,” you muttered. “Not now. Not—”

Your hand pressed against your forehead.

“Okay.” Jax glanced toward the door, then back at you. He had not quite settled on what he was supposed to do here. “You’re doin’ the scary thing again.”

The silence afterward stretched awkwardly.

“…bad wording.”

You didn’t look at him. Your hand caught briefly against the edge of the side table before balling into a fist.

“Get out.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“No, you’re just—”

“GET OUT.”

Jax stayed where he was.

Long enough that the sound of rain against fake glass suddenly felt louder than it had just a minute ago.

“…fine.”

He moved toward the door slowly, pausing once like maybe something smarter might still arrive at the last second.

It didn’t.

“You better not do any weird dramatic circus nonsense,” he raised his voice, hand catching against the doorknob. “I’m serious.”

You didn’t answer. That bothered him more than it probably should have.

The door opened with a quiet click.

Jax hesitated again.

You were still looking out the window.

“…don’t make me come back in here.”

The door pulled shut behind him, stopping just short of closed. Barely an inch.

Rain kept going outside, thunder rolling softly overhead. For a while, you just stood there, the blanket still sitting unevenly against the couch where Jax had left it, half-slipped toward the floor.

The air felt wrong somehow, hot in a way that pressed too heavily against your skin, too close, like the room had quietly shrunk around you while you weren’t paying attention.

Your hand grabbed at the edge of the side table hard enough to rattle one of the overturned picture frames.

You set it upright without thinking and paused. You didn’t recognize the face.

The wrongness of it settled instantly. You should have.

The thought slipped sideways before you could hold onto it. Fake thunder crackled from outside.

This was all wrong. You pressed both hands hard against your temples. Breathing had become too fast, too shallow. The room seemed to tilt around the edges. Outside, the view flickered, only briefly. The sunset warped strangely across the water before correcting itself.

Your fist slammed hard against the window, the sound cracking violently through the room. Glass scattered across the floor, inward. Rain disappeared mid-sound. The lake tore sideways where your hand had gone through.

Not a window. A screen.

Static burst violently across fractured color while the audio stuttered overhead, thunder distorting into a warped, metallic sound. The sunset collapsed into bright distortion.

Something sharp and awful twisted low in your chest.

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong—

You stumbled backward hard enough to knock against the couch.

Somewhere in the hallway outside, the door remained open just enough to let pale light spill through the crack.

Dinner should have been louder.

Kaufmo usually complained about something. Ribbit argued with somebody. Ragatha filled silences before they really settled. Even Kinger quietly explaining something nobody had asked about would have counted for something.

Instead, the room sat strangely empty.

Cold plates lingered untouched beneath lights that suddenly felt too bright. Somewhere overhead, one of Caine’s instrumental tracks played through the speakers, all bright brass and carousel nonsense in a room suddenly too quiet for it.

Jax’s attention drifted toward the empty seat at the end of the table before he clicked his tongue and turned back toward the door.

Something about the dorm hallway felt off before he had even fully stepped into it.

When he turned the corner, everyone was already there, gathered strangely still beneath flickering color.

Ragatha stood off to one side, arms folded tightly enough to wrinkle fabric beneath her hands. Ribbit lingered beside her, unusually quiet. Even Kaufmo had gone still. 

Kinger stood closest to your door.

The door remained cracked open barely an inch, colored light pulsing unevenly through the gap while distorted sound drifted into the hall, something sharp and scratchy buried beneath rain and breaking thunder.

Static.

By the time anybody spoke, Jax had already crossed half the hallway.

“…Jax.”

Kinger did not look away from the door. For once, his voice sounded frighteningly clear. “I wouldn’t.”

Jax rolled his eyes. “Oh, cool. Great. Everybody’s bein’ weird now.” He took another step.

Kaufmo stood abruptly. “…don’t.”

No joke. No grin. Nothing.

Only then did Jax realize nobody had tried opening the door.

Jax slowed.

The bacon was gone.

this one's definitely going to be a ride, maybe my longest fic yet (and probably a 2-part series like zoochosis/intermission).. it's also based off of a prompt another anon gave me...hopefully this doesn't spoil the fic for them in a bad way!!!

“Not bad at all.”

He gave you a look.

“…fine. A little bad,” you shrugged.

Before you could argue, he crossed the remaining distance and reached for your arm.

You should have expected that. Abel had never asked permission to fuss over you when he thought he was right.

His hand settled lightly near your shoulder, attention narrowing with practiced focus.

“You’ve been overcorrecting since warmups,” he said. “Right side.”

“You say that like I’m doing it for fun.”

“No,” he replied mildly, stepping back at last. “If this were recreational, I’d assume worse judgment.”

Your eyes narrowed. “You know, most people usually pretend to feel bad after insulting someone.”

“And ruin my reputation for honesty?” Abel asked. “Besides, you’re significantly easier to deal with when you aren’t sulking.”

You rolled your eyes hard enough to make the effort known. “You’re unbearable, you know that?”

He looked faintly pleased with himself. "And yet,” he said, holding out a paper cup, “you continue tolerating me.”

You blinked. Tea. Steam drifted lazily from the lid.

“…did you bring that for me?”

“Yes.” The answer came with enough certainty to make the question feel unnecessary. “You stopped tolerating coffee after difficult rehearsals years ago,” Abel continued, as though this explained everything. “You get irritable and then insist you aren’t irritable, which somehow becomes everyone else’s problem.”

You stared at the cup.

“You remembered that?”

Abel furrowed his brows. “You say that as if I’ve suffered catastrophic memory loss.”

“Well, it’s just that it’s been a while since then.” You took the cup from his hands. The tea was still hot.

You hadn’t expected him to remember something so small. Maybe that was what unsettled you.

Abel’s expression softened by a fraction, something quieter slipping beneath the usual self-importance.

“You still forget meals when you’re stressed, too,” he said. “Some things don’t change.”

You looked away. His expression flattened.

“That answers that.”

“Oh, c’mon, I was busy!”

“You always say that.”

“But I am!”

“Yes,” Abel agreed dryly, “and tragically terrible at taking care of yourself.”

Heat climbed into your face fast enough to annoy you.

Before you could come up with a response—

“GOOD NEWS!”

Caine crossed the rehearsal floor with theatrical urgency, tailcoat hanging half off one shoulder while an aggressively overstuffed drink carrier balanced precariously in his hands.

“My candy heart and paper flower!” he announced, visibly delighted to find you alive. “I sensed workplace misery and have arrived bearing morale!”

He crouched beside you with surprising confidence, setting down an absurdly large paper cup decorated with far too many handwritten labels: peach tea, honey, lemon, electrolytes.

“…what is this?” you asked.

“Recovery!” Caine said proudly. “Hydration! Emotional restoration! One cannot expect dazzling aerial feats from a performer running exclusively on poor decisions and shoulder pain.”

A pause settled as Abel glanced from the drink to Caine.

“…electrolytes,” he repeated flatly.

“Hydration,” Caine corrected. “You looked tired.”

Abel folded his arms.

“They already have tea.”

“Wonderful,” Caine replied brightly. “Now they have options.”

You looked down slowly. Two drinks sat in front of you.

Abel’s practical chamomile.

Caine’s aggressively optimistic mystery beverage.

“…why do I suddenly have two emotional support teas?”

Across the room, a snort echoed from rehearsal mats.

“Oh, this is gonna get pathetic real quick,” Jax muttered.

You frowned.

“…what is?”

Jax looked between the two drinks, then at the men standing on either side of you. “Nothing,” he claimed, far too quickly. “This just feels like future entertainment.”

You narrowed your eyes.

“…right.”

Beside you, Caine nudged the larger drink closer.

“Try mine first.”

Abel’s gaze dropped toward it.

“Absolutely not.”

You blinked.

“…why are you both acting weird?”

“We aren’t,” they said at the exact same time.

You looked between them once before taking a careful sip of Abel’s chamomile, because it was already in your hand.

Caine looked personally betrayed.

Whatever this was, it seemed significantly above your pay grade.

The second clue probably should’ve been finding Caine in your dressing room.

You stopped dead in your tracks when you saw him and hovered by the doorway.

“…what are you doing?”

Caine looked up from beside your vanity with the unmistakable expression of somebody who had already decided this interaction would end in approval.

“Oh! Perfect timing!”

Your dressing room looked…adjusted.

Nothing dramatic enough to make you wonder whether you’d entered the wrong space, but enough to pause over.

The lamp near your mirror no longer flickered every few seconds, the harsh brightness replaced with something easier on tired eyes. Your rehearsal notes had been shifted neatly to one side to make room for tea, a plate of sliced fruit, and crackers that looked suspiciously healthy. A folded blanket rested over the back of your chair, and beside it sat a heating pad you were fairly certain had not existed this morning.

You stared at the lamp, at the heating pad. At the assortment of snacks. Then at Caine.

“…did my dressing room always have medical equipment?”

“Ah!” Caine pointed proudly. “You noticed!”

“That does not answer the question.”

“No, my little lucky charm, it absolutely did not!” He grinned.

You exhaled through your nose.

“Caine.”

He stepped around the vanity, smoothing his coat with visible satisfaction.

“You looked uncomfortable yesterday.”

The answer came simply enough that it caught you slightly off guard.

“You keep reaching for your shoulder after rehearsal,” he continued, gesturing vaguely. “And making that face.”

“What face?”

“The one where you insist you’re perfectly fine while very obviously not being perfectly fine.”

You narrowed your eyes. “…I hate that multiple people have started saying things like that.”

Caine brightened. “Wonderful! That means I’m observant.”

“You replaced my lamp.”

“It hated you.”

“My lamp…hated me?”

“Yes! Flickering, harsh lighting…it was entirely unsupportive during vulnerable emotional moments.”

You glanced toward the blanket.

“…and the blanket?”

“You complain about being cold after rehearsal.”

“I do not.”

Caine paused.

Then, with startling confidence, “You absolutely do.”

Unfortunately, he was right. The realization must have crossed your face because his grin widened.

“HA! Validation!”

Despite yourself, something halfway between a laugh and a sigh escaped you as you set your rehearsal bag onto the table.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And yet,” Caine said, gesturing grandly toward the snacks, “prepared.”

A soft knock sounded against the open doorway.

Abel stood there, gaze moving once across the room.

The lamp. The blanket. The heating pad. The suspiciously healthy snacks.

Caine.

You watched the assessment happen in real time.

“…what,” Abel asked after a pause, “is all this?”

Caine straightened.

“Care.”

The word landed with enough confidence to make you glance between them.

“You looked exhausted,” Caine continued, now speaking to you, as if explaining something obvious. “So I made minor improvements.”

Abel stepped farther inside, attention drifting briefly toward the lamp before settling on the heating pad.

“You bought this?”

“Borrowed,” Caine corrected. “From physical therapy.”

“...since when did the circus have a physical therapy department?”

“Since now.”

You snorted at that.

Abel, meanwhile, reached down and pressed lightly against the back of your chair.

The thing gave an alarming creak.

“…you’re still sitting in this?” he asked.

“It’s a chair,” you stated.

“It’s unstable.”

The backrest shifted sideways with terrible timing. Caine frowned.

“…that seems antagonistic.”

You dropped into it anyway.

Both men frowned at the exact same time.

“Don’t,” Abel warned.

“That thing looks vindictive,” Caine added.

You stared.

“…it’s a chair.”

“A dangerous chair,” Abel remarked.

“A hostile chair,” Caine nodded his head in agreement.

Something about hearing them agree felt strange enough to make you laugh.

The sound seemed to redirect both of their attention at once.

Abel’s expression shifted first, the faint tension at the edges of his posture easing as he glanced toward you.

“There,” he said, matter-of-fact. “You look less exhausted.”

Caine’s grin dropped immediately. “Oh, that is unbelievable.”

You turned to look at him, “…what is?”

“I replaced a defective lamp, procured food, introduced heating technology, and improved general living conditions,” Caine declared, gesturing broadly toward the room. “But he says one mildly competent sentence and suddenly he’s Employee of the Month?”

Abel crossed his arms.

“You brought crackers, want a cookie?”

“Nutritious crackers.”

You rubbed briefly at your temple.

“…you two know this is my dressing room, right?”

Neither acknowledged the question.

Abel’s attention had already shifted toward the chair again, expression darkening when the backrest tilted sideways beneath your weight.

“You are not sitting in that.”

The chair creaked loudly beneath you.

Caine frowned at it. “I don’t trust that.”

“It still works,” you groaned, mildly annoyed now.

“No,” Abel replied calmly, “it survives.”

Caine pointed once toward him.

“See? Now that was good.”

Abel looked unimpressed by the praise.

“I’ll have a new one brought in by tomorrow.”

Caine straightened.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“That seems unnecessarily slow.”

Abel turned toward him fully now, attention sharpening.

“…slow?”

“You heard me,” Caine replied, folding his arms. “You can’t expect an injured aerialist to continue diplomatic negotiations with hostile furniture for another twenty-four hours.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it again.

Abel’s gaze flicked once toward the heating pad, the lamp, the tea, lingering briefly on the carefully rearranged vanity before returning to Caine.

“I suppose I should be grateful,” he said evenly. “You managed not to make things worse.”

“Oh, now that’s offensive!” Caine argued, “I noticed a problem and fixed it.”

Something unreadable crossed Abel’s face.

Abel’s expression settled into a glare. “I noticed it first.”

There it was, small and quiet. Petty enough to miss if you weren’t paying attention.

Caine’s eyes widened.

“…excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“No, I heard you,” Caine started, “I’m simply choosing to believe you misspoke.”

Your eyes narrowed.

“…what exactly are we talking about?”

Neither of them answered. Which, somehow, felt stranger than if they had.

Out in the hallway, footsteps slowed.

Through the cracked doorway, Ragatha stood frozen mid-conversation while Pomni leaned just far enough to see inside, lowering her voice.

“…are they fighting?”

Ragatha hesitated. Her gaze moved slowly between Abel and Caine. Then toward you.

“…I don’t actually think they know they’re fighting.”

Pomni frowned.

“…should somebody stop this?”

From inside the dressing room, voices overlapped.

“Tomorrow is perfectly reasonable.”

“It’s negligent.”

You looked toward the ceiling, exasperated.

“…what is happening?”

By the fourth week, the strange behavior had become difficult to explain away.

It surfaced in ways that felt too specific to call coincidence and too ridiculous to take seriously.

The chair situation escalated first.

You arrived at your dressing room one afternoon to find your old chair gone, replaced with something significantly sturdier and far less likely to collapse beneath you after rehearsal. A note sat neatly on the seat.

Try not to destroy your spine. —A

You had barely finished reading it when Caine appeared in the doorway, stopped short, and narrowed his eyes at the chair like it had personally insulted him.

He said nothing.

The following morning, a footrest had appeared beneath your vanity.

A card leaned against it.

Superior performers deserve superior lounging arrangements. You are legally obligated to relax at least a little. —C

You still had no idea whether he was joking about the legal part.

Food became another battlefield.

Abel’s lunches arrived quietly, practical enough to feel irritating.

You forgot lunch yesterday. Again. Eat this. —A

Caine’s appeared with considerably more enthusiasm.

FOR RECOVERY, FORTITUDE, AND GENERAL SPARKLE RESTORATION. (Please consume before rehearsal-related misery resumes.) —C

One afternoon, you found both sitting beside each other on your vanity.

You stared at them for several seconds.

Then ate both.

The circus, unfortunately, had started noticing.

Pomni had developed a habit of looking between you, Abel, and Caine like she was trying to solve a math problem she deeply resented. Ragatha kept asking if everything was okay in a voice that suggested she already knew something you didn’t. Zooble seemed mostly annoyed by the increasing tension hanging around rehearsal.

Jax had become intolerable.

“You know,” he teased one afternoon, watching Abel and Caine argue across the rehearsal floor over whether you should still be climbing silks that day, “I think somebody should start charging admission.”

You frowned.

“…to rehearsal?”

He looked at you for a moment. Then slowly blinked.

“Oh, wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Jax shushed you quickly, looking suddenly delighted. “Actually, forget it.”

By the end of the week, you were too tired to keep wondering why everyone had started acting strange.

Abel and Caine had both disappeared into some higher-up C&A meeting that evening, which, for once, left rehearsal blissfully free of unsolicited concern and oddly competitive acts of service.

You dragged yourself toward the community kitchen expecting food and, if the universe felt unusually generous, a few uninterrupted minutes of peace.

The second you stepped inside, every conversation stopped.

You paused in the doorway.

“…why does everyone look guilty?”

No one answered immediately.

Pomni suddenly seemed very invested in stirring tea she had already finished stirring. Ragatha offered a smile that looked suspiciously rehearsed. Across the table, Zooble rested their chin against one hand with the expression of somebody watching an accident unfold in slow motion.

Across from them, Gangle sat unusually stiff, twisting the edge of a napkin between nervous fingers like she had somehow become complicit in a crime. Beside her, Kinger glanced up from his food with mild curiosity, as though he had only just realized everyone else had stopped talking.

Jax, predictably, grinned.

“You know,” he broke the silence, leaning back in his chair, “that question gets way funnier depending on how much you know.”

You frowned.

“…what does that mean?”

“Nothing!” Ragatha answered much too quickly.

“It definitely means something,” Zooble muttered.

Pomni glanced between everyone at the table, then toward you.

“…okay, wait,” she said carefully, “can I ask something without it being weird?”

“Based on everyone’s faces?” you replied, dropping into the nearest chair. “Probably not.”

Jax snorted.

Pomni hesitated anyway.

“…what exactly is going on with Abel and Caine?”

You blinked.

“…what do you mean?”

Nobody answered. Around the table, something unspoken seemed to pass between them.

Jax sat up straighter.

“Oh my god.”

Ragatha slowly lowered her mug.

“You don’t know?” she asked.

You frowned harder.

“Know what?”

Zooble stared at you for a second.

“…wow.”

“Can somebody stop reacting like I forgot my own birthday and just explain?”

Across the table, Gangle looked increasingly alarmed.

“We thought you knew,” she mumbled quietly.

“Knew what?”

Jax leaned forward like Christmas had arrived early. “Dollface,” he drawled, sounding genuinely entertained, “they’re fighting over you.”

You laughed.

No one else did.

The sound died embarrassingly fast.

“…wait,” you said slowly.

Pomni looked at Ragatha. Ragatha looked at the ceiling. Zooble looked exhausted already.

“...you’re serious?”

“Yes,” six voices answered at once.

You stared at them, chuckling again, weaker this time.

“No.”

“Yes,” Zooble replied flatly. “Painfully yes.”

Gangle finally spoke up, voice small. “Abel also got really upset when somebody moved your rehearsal schedule.”

Kinger nodded thoughtfully. “Caine yelled at a lamp once,” he paused for a moment, thinking to himself.

“…for you,” he clarified.

Jax pointed an accusatory finger at you.

“Do you know how much money I’ve made off this?”

Your head turned.

“…what?”

Pomni visibly winced. Jax did not.

“There’s a betting pool.”

The kitchen exploded.

“JAX!” Ragatha hissed.

“What?” he said defensively. “Nobody made me the villain when Kaufmo started odds.”

“Kaufmo started—?”

“You’re missing the point,” Zooble interrupted. “The point is everyone noticed this like two weeks ago.”

You sat back slowly.

“…they’re competing?”

The sentence came out sounding faintly ridiculous even to you. The silence that followed felt like an answer enough.

Somewhere near the stove, Ragatha grimaced sympathetically.

“…yeah.”

Before you could say anything else, the kitchen door opened. Every head turned.

Conversation died so quickly it almost felt rehearsed.

Abel stepped inside first, and Caine followed close behind, halfway through complaining about something involving “creative oppression” and “budgetary cruelty.”

Both stopped. Their attention landed on you, then the table. Then the very obvious silence.

Slowly, Abel’s eyes narrowed.

“…why,” he asked carefully, “does this feel concerning?”

Beside him, Caine looked between the room and frowned.

“Why does everyone suddenly look guilty?”

Across the table, Jax leaned back in his chair, grin widening.

“Oh, don’t let us interrupt.”

He tilted his head toward Abel and Caine.

“Please. Continue whatever this is.”

For the first time in weeks, you found yourself looking at them differently.

In hindsight, stepping out of the kitchen alone had probably been too much to hope for.

You had barely made it outside before footsteps followed behind you, familiar enough that recognition came before you even looked up.

Abel fell into step at your left, jacket folded neatly over one arm and expression carrying the faint exhaustion of whatever executive disaster he and Caine had apparently survived.

Caine appeared at your other side a moment later, still visibly annoyed, though whether with the meeting itself or Abel remained difficult to tell.

For a while, nobody said much.

The path between the caravans stretched quietly ahead, evening air cool enough to settle some of the noise still rattling around in your head. Now that somebody had pointed it out, certain things suddenly felt difficult to ignore.

“…they rejected the lighting proposal,” Caine said suddenly, like he had been waiting for an audience.

Abel sighed, “they rejected unnecessary spending.”

“It was ambiance.”

“It was glitter.”

“It was tasteful!”

“You wanted colored bulbs in a storage hallway.”

You glanced between the two of them.

“...so this meeting was just the two of you arguing for an hour?”

“Forty-five minutes,” Abel corrected.

“Fifty,” Caine said at the same time.

Interesting.

The kitchen scene suddenly felt much harder to ignore.

Fine. If they wanted to behave strangely, you could work with strange.

“Settle something for me,” you murmured.

Both looked over immediately.

You had to look away to stop yourself from laughing.

“What?” Abel frowned slightly.

Caine narrowed his eyes with sudden suspicion.

“You both seem very confident lately,” you continued carefully. “Which one of you is actually better at fixing things?”

Abel answered first.

“I am.”

“At practical things,” Caine replied. “Important distinction.”

“You glued a speaker back together.”

“And it worked.”

“For six hours.”

“That sounds like success.”

You nodded slowly, thoughtful enough to make both of them pay attention.

“Hm.”

Abel looked over first. “Hm what?”

“Oh, nothing,” you kept your attention fixed stubbornly ahead.

Caine straightened slightly.

“No, absolutely not. You started something.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes,” they said together. The synchronization almost got you.

You took your time answering, making a show of thinking about it first. “I was just deciding whether I trusted either of you to help with my trailer shelves.”

Immediate silence followed.

Abel recovered first.

“They’re unstable?”

“No,” you replied.

Caine frowned.

“Then why mention them?”

You shrugged.

“Curiosity.”

By the time your trailer came into view, they had somehow moved into a debate about proper shelving, hardware quality, and whether decorative choices counted as structural incompetence.

You slowed near the door.

Both stopped.

Abel opened his mouth, probably ready to make another snarky remark to his counterpart.

You cut him off before he got the chance.

“No.”

He blinked. Caine smirked, briefly victorious.

“You too.”

The victory disappeared.

You reached for the trailer door, fingers curling around the handle before you glanced back.

“By the way,” you said lightly, “you’re both terrible at being subtle.”

Neither moved. For once, neither interrupted.

You opened the door.

“Try harder tomorrow.”

You stepped inside.

The argument started before the door had fully shut.

He still complained when you stole his jacket, still sighed dramatically when you settled into his space backstage without asking, still muttered something under his breath every time you wandered off with one of his knives like you were not, apparently, somebody he trusted around sharp objects.

Which was ridiculous, considering you were currently sharpening them.

“You’re distractin’ me,” Jax complained from beside you.

“You’ve said that four times.”

You sat close enough beside him that your knee bumped lazily against his boot, one of his throwing knives balanced across your lap while you dragged its edge carefully along the whetstone. His jacket was folded around your shoulders, too long in the sleeves and smelling faintly of smoke and whatever cheap soap he used in the dressing rooms. Jax had noticed you wearing it nearly an hour ago. Naturally, he had chosen to say nothing, which meant he was either deeply annoyed or secretly pleased.

With him, the two usually looked the same.

You glanced up just long enough to catch the unimpressed look he was trying very hard to commit to, one shoulder pressed lazily against the wall behind you. Rehearsal had ended nearly an hour ago, though backstage still buzzed with the slow mess of circus life settling for the evening. The sleeve of Jax’s jacket slipped halfway over your hand every time you sharpened the knife, annoyingly oversized.

“Stop doin’ that.”

“...Doing what?”

Jax glanced over, unimpressed. “Breathin’ near me.”

You snorted, turning the blade in your lap. “You invited me over here.”

“I invited you to sit. Didn’t say you had to start fondlin’ my props.”

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For keeping your act from looking pathetic.”

His mouth twitched before he could stop it, and your own smile widened immediately.

“Was that almost a smile?” you asked.

Jax rolled his eyes on instinct. “You’re imaginin’ things.”

“Mm. Sure.”

You returned to the knife, grinning stubbornly. This had become routine somehow.

Before the accident, afternoons like this never existed.

Back then, your life had revolved around rehearsal schedules and chalk-covered palms, around rigging and aching shoulders and the sharp rush of adrenaline that lived somewhere between climbing too high and trusting yourself enough to let go. Abel’s circus had run on spectacle, long nights and impossible heights, and you had spent most of your time somewhere above the ground.

One show gone-wrong was all it took: one failed cue paired with a piece of equipment that should have been checked twice.

One awful, blinding second that had turned applause into shouting.

After that came weeks of healing, and if there was one thing you were unfamiliar with, it was sitting still.

Caine’s circus had never exactly felt unfamiliar, though.

Kaufmo and Ribbit had already been stubborn fixtures in your life long before you officially joined, both of them incapable of letting you disappear quietly after the accident. Kaufmo had started dragging you backstage “just to visit,” which quickly turned into dinners, rehearsals, and increasingly questionable life advice. Ribbit assigned you odd jobs with bizarre seriousness, like sharpening props or organizing equipment carried national importance.

Somewhere in the middle of that, Jax had happened.

Kaufmo still insisted he deserved credit.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” the clown had announced over lunch one afternoon.

Jax barely looked up, “...for what?”

Kaufmo gestured vaguely between the two of you.

“This.”

You frowned. “That explains absolutely nothing.”

“You two have been weird since, like, forever.”

“We’re normal,” Jax replied immediately.

Kaufmo laughed hard enough to nearly choke.

“You literally started hanging around backstage even before they joined the circus.”

“You invited me,” you pointed out.

“Not to sit in Jax’s trailer for four hours,” Kaufmo said.

Jax looked offended. “That happened, like, one time.”

You turned to glare at him. He paused.

“…Okay, maybe a couple of times…but not a lot.”

Kaufmo pointed accusingly.

“You hated everybody except each other.”

“That is not true,” Jax muttered.

“You share clothes,” Kaufmo said.

“That means nothing.”

Ribbit finally looked up from lunch.

“Wait…are you two dating?”

Silence. Jax stopped moving.

You blinked.

Kaufmo burst into laughter.

“OH MY GOD, YOU DIDN’T KNOW?”

The relationship continued quietly after that.

Or, more accurately, nothing really changed except everyone stopped pretending not to notice. You still found yourself in Jax’s space more often than not, and he still acted vaguely inconvenienced about it in the way people did when they secretly liked something far too much.

Ribbit, unfortunately, got worse.

“Domestic dispute,” she’d announce any time the two of you disagreed over something remotely stupid.

“You’re cuttin’ into my dramatic entrance.”

“Domestic dispute.”

“You are not puttin’ glitter near my knives.”

“Domestic dispute.”

“Stop callin’ it that,” Jax had snapped at her once, as he fought with you over performance timeslots from across the room.

Ribbit barely looked up from sorting paperwork.

“You sleep in each other’s trailers.”

The two of you froze. Jax opened his mouth and paused, eyebrows raised.

“…That is not relevant,” he deflected.

It had become increasingly difficult to argue with Ribbit after that.

Presently, you shifted with the ease of habit, momentarily abandoning the knife as you turned sideways and climbed halfway into Jax’s lap. One of his legs nudged automatically between yours to make space before he seemed to realize he was helping at all.

He sighed, dramatic as ever, though his hand settled at your waist with absent familiarity while you picked the blade back up.

“You’re heavy.”

“You say that every time.”

“Because it keeps bein’ true.”

You ignored him, settling more comfortably against his chest until he stopped pretending to mind.

Which was exactly when an eccentric voice cut through backstage.

“Oh, marvelous!”

Jax went still.

“No.”

You barely had time to glance up before Caine appeared between the curtains, gaze flicking once at the two of you. He froze.

“Ah. Have I interrupted a…private rehearsal?”

A grin spread across his face.

“Oh dear,” he gasped, glancing between the two of you with theatrical concern. “Should I return at a less scandalous hour?”

“Keep walkin’,” Jax muttered.

You laughed despite yourself, shifting just enough to glance up at Caine properly. Jax’s hand lingered briefly at your side before settling again, the motion absent-minded enough to feel practiced.

“What do you want?” you asked.

Caine clasped both hands together.

“My buzzing bumblebee, I come bearing inspiration.”

Jax sighed immediately.

“That somehow sounds worse.”

“You wound me.” Caine pressed one hand dramatically to his chest. “I simply had the most marvelous realization.”

Your ringmaster's attention returned to you, bright and intent in the way it always became when he had already decided something would work before anybody else had been consulted.

“You,” he declared, “belong in the air.”

Jax went very still beneath you.

Caine continued before either of you could interrupt.

“Not permanently, heavens no, we are attempting spectacle, not tragedy.” He waved one hand vaguely. “A trapeze act! I want graceful movement and impossible height, the audience in tears. Or at least emotionally compromised.”

“No,” Jax said flatly.

“You do not even know the details.”

“Don’t need ’em.”

Your gaze dropped for a moment, catching uselessly on nothing.

Trapeze. God.

Immediately, stupidly, your mind betrayed you.

Your shoulders ached with memory before you could stop them, something phantom and familiar settling beneath your skin. You could almost feel chalk against your palms again, the slight give of rope beneath your grip and that familiar split second before release when nerves disappeared the moment your feet left the platform.

You missed it.

Worse, the realization arrived embarrassingly fast.

Somewhere overhead, rigging disappeared into shadow, and before you could stop yourself your attention drifted upward.

Jax shifted beneath you, just barely. Enough that the movement tugged at your attention again.

His hand had gone still where it rested at your waist, expression unreadable in the specific way it always became when something was bothering him more than he planned on admitting.

“No,” he repeated, quieter this time.

You turned just enough to look at him.

He was already watching you.

“You don’t gotta do that,” he said.

Caine sighed, deeply wounded.

“Now, now, now, my boy—”

“Don’t call me that.”

Caine ignored him, “—must we extinguish every spark of theatrical possibility before it has the chance to bloom?” He gestured vaguely upward toward the rafters, expression brightening again. “Imagine it! The  audience will be so emotionally overwhelmed, they’ll forget entirely how embarrassing public crying can be.”

“You are bein’ aggressively unhelpful,” Jax muttered.

“An unfortunate misunderstanding,” Caine replied cheerfully. “I prefer the term inspirational, friendo.”

Your fingers turned the knife absently beneath the light while your thoughts wandered somewhere frustratingly far away.

Months of staying close to the stage instead of on it had taught you how to keep busy. Helping Ragatha untangle costumes, sitting through rehearsals, finding excuses to stay near the noise of performance because standing still had never suited you and neither had being careful.

You had done useful things, safe things.

But none of it could compare to flying.

Jax exhaled quietly through his nose.

“You got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one right before you decide somethin’ stupid.”

By performance night, Jax had somehow found at least twelve separate reasons to be backstage.

None of them, according to him, had anything to do with you.

One of the support knots looked questionable, and after fixing it he had noticed equipment sitting where it should not have been. Caine had also spent most of the afternoon insisting the show required “proper emotional atmosphere,” which somehow involved moving lights around and speaking in increasingly dramatic metaphors.

Mostly, though, the waiting had started getting under his skin.

You had disappeared nearly an hour ago for costume and makeup, leaving him with entirely too much time to stand near the wings pretending he had somewhere better to be.

Backstage felt different before a performance. Quieter in strange places, louder in others. People moved quickly without speaking much, brushing past half-open costume trunks while muffled orchestra music drifted from beyond the stage.

Jax lingered near the curtains with his arms crossed, expression carefully unimpressed.

“You know,” Zooble said from somewhere beside him, adjusting a harness strap without bothering to glance over, “this whole pretending not to care thing would probably work better if you stopped staring at the ceiling.”

Jax frowned immediately.

“I’m not starin’.”

“You checked the rigging twice.”

“Bad rigging kills people.”

Zooble gave a small hum.

“You throw knives.”

“That’s controlled.”

Before Zooble could answer, the house lights dimmed.

The crowd quieted by slow degrees while Caine launched into what was undoubtedly an exhausting introduction.

Jax remained for all of ten seconds before muttering something under his breath, turning, and disappeared.

Zooble glanced up just in time to catch him leaving.

“Wow,” they called after him, entirely too amused. “You’re not even pretending anymore.”

Jax lifted a hand, extending a finger without turning around.

“Shut up.”

The stairs to the upper balcony felt longer than usual.

By the time he reached the railing, the crowd below had already settled into anticipation, warm light stretching across the ring while orchestra music drifted softly upward. People slouched into tiered seats with drinks in hand, whispering in lowered voices before the show properly began.

Jax wedged himself against the painted railing with the vague determination of somebody absolutely not invested in this and immediately ignored the annoyed look somebody nearby gave him.

From here, he could actually see the height. Which, unfortunately, made everything worse.

His attention drifted upward anyway, following the spotlight as it climbed higher and higher above the ring.

And then he found you.

For a second, he forgot to move.

You were already suspended high above the center ring.

One knee hooked easily over the bar, posture relaxed in a way that should have annoyed him considering the height. Velvet glowed softly under the light as the trapeze drifted through its slow arc, the dark plum of your costume fading into pale, golden detailing.

That part caught him off guard, though not for the reason he expected.

You looked familiar.

Not unchanged, exactly. Months on the ground had settled into you in quiet ways Jax had noticed long before anyone else seemed to, little hesitations that appeared and disappeared before you realized they were there. But something about being in the air seemed to loosen all of it again. The carefulness disappeared from your shoulders. The tension he had watched you carry without complaint eased somewhere between one slow movement and the next.

The trapeze drifted through a slow arc, and somewhere between one movement and the next, Jax realized how much he had missed seeing you like this. Your grip shifted higher along the rope, posture shifting naturally with the movement instead of resisting it.

The audience had gone quieter without him noticing when it happened. Somewhere nearby, applause faded into soft anticipation while the orchestra carried on beneath everything, distant enough to blur into background noise.

Jax barely heard any of it.

Because, painfully, it struck him that he had forgotten what this looked like.

Not the act. You.

The version of you that stopped thinking too hard. The one that disappeared into movement so completely it almost looked instinctive.

The swing carried you lower before momentum shifted again, the movement smooth enough to look effortless from below. One hand loosened briefly from the rope as you adjusted, body following the motion with practiced ease before the trapeze swept back through the air.

And then, without hesitation, you tipped upside down. Like it was the easiest thing in the world.

A quiet sound moved through the tent, half gasp and half disbelief, but fully sharp with surprise as the audience leaned forward in their seats.

Somewhere farther back, applause scattered briefly before fading again, swallowed by anticipation as the trapeze carried you through another slow arc.

Jax did not move, or rather, he couldn’t.

One knee stayed hooked securely over the bar, your body folding easily into the motion as though the air itself had decided to hold you there. The next swing carried you farther.

Warm light shifted across your face as momentum pulled you through the air, tulle and ribbons catching briefly before settling again. Somewhere below, the audience stayed silent as you picked up speed, the orchestra covering the creak of rope overhead.

Then the trapeze swept back. Toward him.

Jax straightened before he realized he was doing it.

The distance disappeared slowly enough to feel unreal. Both hands let go of the rope and stretched outward with the movement, fingers loose and reaching as the swing carried you toward the edge of the ring. Your body stayed suspended in that impossible position, upside down and effortless, the back of your knees hooked securely over the bar while gravity pulled loose strands of hair weightless around your face.

The audience reacted before he could.

A soft gasp rippled outward as people leaned forward all at once, heads turning toward the balcony where Jax stood beside the railing. Somebody laughed quietly, soft with surprise, the sound swallowed quickly by anticipation.

Because suddenly there were only inches between you.

Jax stopped breathing.

You hovered there for one impossible second, carried by momentum and held in place just long enough to feel deliberate. Stage light softened across your features while your hand stretched toward him, fingertips lingering close enough to touch without ever quite getting there.

Your eyes found his.

The change was small enough that most people probably would not have noticed it.

Jax did.

Something softened around your expression the second recognition settled in, the focus of performance easing as you drifted impossibly close. One hand remained stretched toward him, fingers relaxed and close enough to the railing that, if either of you moved even slightly, the distance would disappear entirely.

The tent seemed to go strangely still around him.

The orchestra blurred somewhere below while stage lights captured the gold stitching of your costume, glimmering against the sharp lines of shadow across your face. You looked at him with an ease that made the whole moment feel rehearsed despite knowing it wasn’t.

Like you had expected him to be there. Like you had known exactly where to look.

Jax realized, dimly, that he had leaned closer against the railing.

Close enough now that he could see the smallest shift near the corner of your mouth before it turned into something almost unbearably familiar.

A smile.

The audience around him responded, surprise giving way to delight as the impossible closeness settled in. Someone nearby let out a quiet laugh beneath their breath.

“Lucky guy.”

Heat climbed up the back of Jax’s neck so quickly it felt embarrassing.

Because somehow, in front of an entire crowd, suspended several feet above the ground and hanging by just your legs like this was a perfectly normal thing to do, you still managed to look at him like the two of you were alone.

And for one strange second, it almost felt true.

The walk back to your trailer happened without either of you really acknowledging that it was happening.

Jax simply appeared beside you after the crowd thinned, hands shoved into his pockets and expression carefully vague.

You were still buzzing.

Adrenaline sank electric beneath your skin, warm from the thrill of applause and the impossible feeling of leaving the ground again. Bits of glitter clung stubbornly to your costume, hair slightly undone from hanging upside down for half the performance.

“So,” you said eventually, glancing sideways at him, “how long were you standing up there lookin’ like somebody had just ruined your life?”

“I looked normal.”

“You looked deeply concerned.”

“...Needed a better angle, that’s all.”

He looked away a second too late, color creeping faintly up the back of his neck.

The trailer came into view faster than expected, light spilling faintly from the small window. You paused at the door, fingers already reaching for the fastening near your shoulder with an exhausted sigh.

“I desperately need a shower,” you muttered, “and to get out of this costume before I pass out.”

Something unreadable crossed Jax’s face, briefly. You caught it anyway.

“Oh my god,” you started, grin spreading immediately. “Are you still recovering?”

“I’m fine.”

“You look moments away from cardiac arrest.”

“You swung upside down off a trapeze in front of a live audience,” he replied flatly. “Forgive me for havin’ concerns.”

You glanced over.

“Mm. Seemed a little personal.”

“…shut up.” Jax narrowed his eyes. You only smiled wider.

Inside, the trailer still carried traces of rushed preparation: makeup scattered across the vanity, costume pieces abandoned in mild chaos, flickering bulbs glowing around the mirror.

You had barely made it halfway through removing one glove before Jax spoke again.

“…you looked happy.”

His gaze flicked away almost immediately afterward, jaw tightening like he already regretted saying it out loud.

“You looked like yourself again,” he muttered, voice lowering at the end. “That’s all.”

You went quieter than expected after that.

Maybe it was the leftover adrenaline still humming beneath your skin, or maybe it was the fact that Jax almost never said things like that without burying them beneath five layers of sarcasm immediately afterward. Either way, the words stayed with you longer than they probably should have.

You glanced down at the glove still half-peeled from your hand, fingers catching absently against the fastening before looking back over at him.

“You climbed onto a balcony,” you said, softer now.

Jax exhaled through his nose like he already regretted allowing himself sincerity.

“You’re really stuck on that.”

“You hate heights.”

“I hate your heights.”

The correction came too quickly.

He busied himself, looking anywhere except directly at you.

“…forget I said that.”

Unfortunately for him, warmth had already spread embarrassingly far across your face.

You stepped closer without thinking.

Jax stayed where he was.

“You know,” you started, “for somebody who spent a week calling this a terrible idea, you looked pretty invested.”

“That was surveillance.”

“Mm.”

“Professional observation.”

“You climbed several flights of stairs.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“You were swingin’ upside down like you had a personal problem with gravity.”

The laugh slipped out before you could stop it.

Jax looked at you again, lingering this time. His eyes caught briefly on glitter still scattered across your costume, and then a loose ribbon tied around your neck.

You turned toward the vanity with a tired sigh, fingers fumbling half-heartedly with one of the tiny fastenings near your shoulder.

“I seriously need to get out of this thing,” you muttered. “Whoever designed costume hooks this small deserves consequences.”

The vanity lights glowed softly against scattered makeup and abandoned costume pieces, the trailer feeling smaller than before.

You barely noticed Jax move.

One hand landed against the edge of the vanity near your shoulder, close enough that when you glanced up into the mirror, he was suddenly there beside you instead of across the room. 

“You’re terrible at these,” he mumbled, eyes dropping toward the fastening near your shoulder.

“Wow. Mean.”

“Observant.”

His hand lifted, hesitating for only a second before fingers brushed lightly against the edge of the costume, steadying fabric near your shoulder with a familiarity that settled something strange and warm somewhere beneath all the leftover adrenaline.

“Hold still.”

The words came quieter than usual.

Annoyingly enough, you listened.

His reflection hovered close in the mirror while he worked, near enough now that you could feel the warmth of the stage lights caught beneath his jacket. The silence stretched comfortably between you, interrupted only by the faint clink of jewelry against the vanity and the occasional muttered complaint under his breath whenever a fastening refused to cooperate.

“This thing is aggressively complicated,” he muttered.

“Thought you said I looked good.”

Jax’s hand flattened briefly against the vanity beside you, “I liked you better when you were several feet in the air and incapable of talkin’.”

His eyes flicked upward immediately.

A mistake.

Because suddenly the space between you felt even smaller than before.

Jax noticed it too. Unfortunately, that seemed to settle something smug back into place.

His attention drifted once more toward the stubborn fastening near your shoulder before returning to your face.

“Y’know,” he said quietly, voice carrying that maddening hint of amusement again, “for somebody desperate to get outta this costume, you’re movin’ real slow.”

You raised an eyebrow.

“Figure you’ll either stop complainin’,” he added, gaze remaining a second too long, “or finally ask for help.”

He clearly expected an eye roll, maybe a sarcastic comment.

Instead, you tipped your head slightly.

“Maybe I was waiting for you to take the hint.”

Jax went completely still. Something flickered across his face before settling, softer this time, harder to place.

“…careful, dollface,” he muttered, like he was only halfway joking. “You keep lookin’ at me like that and I’m gonna start thinkin’ you’re serious.”

The smugness threatened its way back in for all of half a second.

Then he looked at you for a second too long. You were sure another sarcastic quip was about to escape his lips.

It never came.

Whatever he had been about to say disappeared somewhere between the look on your face and the instant, unmistakable loss of patience.

The movement caught you off guard, stealing whatever clever thing you had been about to say.

You had kissed Jax before. Just…not like this.

Suddenly, his hands found your waist, pulling you up against his chest long enough to steal your balance before setting you down on the vanity, positioning himself between your legs.

Lipsticks, bottles of nail polish, and various vanity items were sent clattering to the floor.

“Jax—”

“Don’t start,” he muttered, sounding faintly pleased with himself despite everything.

The little bit of composure he had been clinging to seemed to give out.

One hand slipped from your waist to your leg as he pulled you closer, shifting you until you were straddling him with an ease that felt unfairly familiar. The kiss deepened somewhere along the way, if that was even possible, your hands finding their way around his neck more for balance than intention as you kissed him back. A groan slipped from him against your lips in response.

You stayed like that for what felt like hours before he pulled back, breath heavy against your face as his nose brushed against your own.

“You spend an entire evening wreckin’ my sanity,” he sighed, somewhere between amusement and surrender, “and now, you’re cooperatin’?”

The laugh slipped out before you could stop it.

“Cooperating?”

“...Don’t make me explain it.”

But the protest landed weakly. Mostly because neither of you had pulled away. The moment settled quieter after that, though no less impossible to ignore.

This time, you initiated the kiss, lifting a hand to tilt his chin before pressing your lips against his. He sighed quietly into it, hands moving instinctively to your face, thumb brushing briefly against your cheek as he cupped it, as if he had not fully thought through what to do with the sudden change in momentum besides keep you there.

For a while, it stayed soft.

Forehead brushing forehead between stolen breaths, quiet laughter slipping out whenever somebody bumped awkwardly into the vanity or knocked something loose. Eventually, the laughter faded, Jax drifting impossibly closer again. Every shift knocked the two of you back together before either of you had time to think about moving apart.

By the time Jax finally let you break the kiss, you had to gasp for air, forehead pressing against his. Your costume sat somewhere between rumpled and defeated, ribbon  barely clinging around your neck. 

Jax looked no better: hair a tussled mess, overalls hanging loosely, expression completely incapable of pretending otherwise.

Makeup brushes and scattered costume pieces faded into background blur while the mirror reflected the two of you far too close to still pretend this had happened accidentally. Jax stayed, close enough to feel your breath against his skin. You moved to lean into the crook of his neck.

When he finally broke the silence, confidence settling back into place, his remark landed with enough smug satisfaction to make heat rush embarrassingly fast to your face:

“…thought you said you wanted to get outta that costume, no?”

a/n: i hope you enjoyed!! this request was super fun to do, and i LOVE LOVE LOVE the greatest showman inspiration. all of the different human au's really do remind me of that movie and i love it dearly

p.s: experimented with a new theme for this post, lemme know if you guys like it (the lace/stars)! also, would my posts look better without images at the start, or do you guys like them? let me knoww

as always, i love all the prompts you guys submit, so feel free to leave one in my inbox! i'll get through them all, slowly but surely..

By noon, your skin felt sticky beneath your clothes, your head throbbed behind your eyes, and every movement dragged exhaustion heavier through your limbs. Still, you knew that setup days were chaotic, even under normal circumstances. Nobody had time to stop moving.

So you didn’t.

The circus grounds buzzed around you beneath a dull gray sky. Half-built tents stretched upward against the wind while performers hauled props and equipment across gravel, slick from last night’s rain. Somewhere near the main ring, feedback screeched from a microphone before Caine’s voice boomed loudly across the lot.

“NO, NO, NO! The lighting rig goes STAGE left, not audience left! We’ve discussed this already, my spectacular super troupers!”

“I’m gonna hit him with my car,” Zooble muttered while dragging cables across the mud nearby.

“You don’t even have a car,” Pomni pointed out, struggling to carry an armful of costume pieces nearly bigger than she was.

“That’s not the point.”

A few yards away, Ragatha balanced on top of one of the equipment crates while trying to hang fabric against a costume rack. Gangle hovered nearby, holding an entire mouthful of sewing pins while Kaufmo unsuccessfully attempted to untangle a string of lights from around his own arm.

Normal circus chaos.

You shifted the crate balanced against your hip and kept walking.

Unfortunately, Jax treated visible weakness like a personal invitation to be annoying.

“You look terrible.”

You glanced up just in time to see him leaning against one of the equipment trailers nearby, arms folded across his chest.

“Thank you,” you replied flatly.

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

He pushed himself away from the trailer and wandered closer, boots crunching softly against gravel. His expression sat somewhere between amusement and suspicion now, eyes narrowing as they tracked your face.

“You’re all sweaty.”

“It’s called working. You should try it sometime,” you shot back.

“Mm. Counterpoint: no.”

You rolled your eyes and adjusted your grip on the crate before continuing toward the loading ramp. The second you lifted it higher against your chest, your arms nearly gave out beneath the weight.

Jax caught the wobble immediately, one hand steadying the crate before it slipped. “Oof,” he started. “That was embarrassing.”

“You’re incredibly compassionate,” you mumbled beneath your breath.

He shrugged his shoulders in response. “I know.”

The metal ramp rattled beneath your boots as you climbed into the trailer. Inside smelled faintly of canvas and old paint. Equipment cases lined the narrow walls while costume racks swayed gently whenever somebody moved outside.

Your head hurt, badly now.

You set the crate down harder than intended and your body fired back, nausea surging hard enough to make you gag.

Okay. That wasn’t great.

You braced a hand against the nearest road case while dizziness swam through your vision.

Footsteps sounded outside a moment later.

“You gonna stand there lookin’ haunted all day or what?”

Jax. Again.

You squeezed your eyes shut briefly before stepping back toward the trailer entrance. “I’m fine.”

“Uh huh.” He watched you carefully from below the ramp now. “You look like you’re about thirty seconds away from dying in a medically interesting way.”

“I hate the way you talk.”

“Yeah, well.” His gaze narrowed. “You look worse than you did earlier.”

You opened your mouth to argue. Nothing came out.

That felt concerning.

You tried to speak again, and the world tilted sharply sideways instead.

The edge of the trailer doorway lurched in your peripheral vision as dizziness slammed through you hard enough to make your knees buckle.

“Oh, you have gotta be kidding me—”

The ramp rushed toward you.

Arms caught you before you hit it.

One hand braced hard against your back while the other locked around your wrist tightly enough to keep you upright. Somewhere above you, Jax swore as the crate beside the doorway crashed loudly onto the trailer floor.

“Hey. Hey— don’t do that.”

Your cheek pressed weakly against the front of his jacket while black spots crowded the edges of your vision. Jax removed his grip from your wrist, shifting his palm to rest against your forehead.

“You’re burning up,” he muttered, eyes widening.

You tried to answer him. You weren’t entirely sure actual words came out.

Voices blurred somewhere nearby beneath the rushing static in your ears.

“What happened?”

Pomni this time.

“I dunno, they just—” Jax stopped abruptly when your knees nearly gave out again. “Whoa, okay. Nope.”

“Oh my god,” Ragatha’s voice cut through sharply somewhere nearby. “Are they okay?”

“They’re fine,” Jax answered.

Ragatha stared at him. “You literally don’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, they’re still conscious, so we’re off to a great start.”

“We should probably get Caine,” Gangle said nervously.

“No,” you mumbled weakly before anybody else could answer.

Unfortunately, that only made the dizziness worse.

Your arm wrapped weakly around his shoulders, heat climbing sharply in your throat. His grip tightened against your back to brace you.

“Alright, no. Absolutely not.” His voice sharpened suddenly. “Hey, look at me for a second.”

You tried.

His face blurred frustratingly in and out of focus.

“You with me?”

“Mm.”

“Wow. Inspiring response.”

Despite the sarcasm, his hand stayed planted against the curve of your back.

Nearby, Ragatha was already climbing down from the equipment crate, concern written all over her face. “We should get them somewhere air-conditioned.”

“They probably need medicine,” Pomni added quietly.

“They need to stop trying to die during setup,” Zooble muttered.

Pomni winced. “...That too.”

You barely registered the conversation anymore.

Everything felt heavy.

Your head dropped weakly against Jax’s shoulder as exhaustion dragged hard at the edges of your consciousness. Through your haze, you felt him hesitate before suddenly shifting his grip underneath you.

Then the ground disappeared entirely, and the noise surrounding you dipped.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Zooble muttered nearby. “You’re actually helping…wow.”

“I’m not helping.”

“You’re carrying them.”

“And?”

“That’s, like, deeply concerning.”

“Cool observation. Shut up.”

The motion jostled unpleasantly through your fever-fogged thoughts as Jax lifted you fully against his chest. One arm hooked beneath your knees while the other stayed firm around your back, steady enough that you barely felt the uneven gravel beneath his boots.

“Jax,” Ragatha called after him, “where are you taking them?”

“My trailer.”

Ragatha frowned. “Why yours?”

“Because theirs isn’t unpacked yet.”

Zooble’s eyebrows lifted. “You know which trailer is theirs?”

“Oh my god, can everybody stop talking to me?” Jax let out a frustrated huff and picked up his pace, leaving the noise of the group behind you both. “You better not throw up on me,” his voice was tense, quieter now. “I mean it.”

You thought you felt his grip tighten against you.

Then, everything disappeared into darkness.

Consciousness returned slowly amidst a pounding headache and the uncomfortable realization that literally everything hurt.

Heavy heat pressed beneath your skin, suffocating and miserable, like somebody had wrapped your entire body in damp blankets and left you too close to a fire. Your throat ached. Every joint in your body felt wrong somehow, sore in that deep, miserable way only fevers manage to accomplish.

You shifted slightly and immediately regretted it. Something in your stomach rocked violently enough to make you groan under your breath.

“Cool, you’re alive.”

Jax’s voice drifted from somewhere nearby.

You cracked your eyes open reluctantly.

Dim yellow lamplight spilled across the cramped interior of a trailer you didn’t recognize. The ceiling curved low overhead, old string lights casting faint shadows across cluttered countertops. Uneven stacks of magazines, playing cards, empty soda cans, and half-unpacked costume pieces were scattered across nearly every available surface.

Jax’s trailer.

That realization took a second to settle through the fever’s haze.

You were sprawled across what was very obviously his bed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes beneath a blanket that smelled faintly like cigarette smoke and laundry detergent. One of your shoes had apparently vanished somewhere along the way.

Jax sat near the tiny kitchenette at the opposite end of the trailer, leaning back in his chair with one boot propped against a cabinet door. A cup of instant noodles steamed faintly in his hands.

“You passed out,” he informed you, in between a mouthful of noodles.

“Mm,” you managed to mumble weakly.

“Super concerning response, by the way.”

You squinted at him. “Why’m I here?”

“Your trailer’s still half unpacked.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Mine was closer.”

Only then did you notice a damp washcloth abandoned beside the pillow, along with two unopened bottles of gatorade sitting crookedly on the nightstand.

Jax tracked your gaze.

“Don’t make that face,” he muttered.

“What face?”

“That weird one.”

“…you got me sports drinks?”

“Ragatha told me to.”

There was probably something suspicious about how quickly he’d answered that.

Your head hurt too badly to investigate any further.

Rain tapped softly against the trailer roof overhead. Beneath it, you could hear the muffled sounds of the circus still settling outside: distant voices, equipment clattering somewhere across the lot, generators humming steadily through the evening.

Everything inside the trailer felt strangely cramped compared to the noise outside. Smaller. Warmer.

“You’re lookin’ at my stuff weird,” Jax called out, brows furrowing. Your gaze had drifted to the collection of knives scattered across the tiny kitchen table.

“…you have concerning hobbies.”

“They’re decorative.”

“One of those is literally a machete.”

“It’s decorative and practical.”

You let your head fall back against a lumpy pillow with a tired groan.

That tiny movement alone seemed to sharpen something in his expression.

“You gonna throw up?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“...yes.”

“…That sounded fake.”

Before you could answer, another wave of dizziness crashed through, hard enough to make your vision warp painfully. You lifted a hand to cover your eyes.

A second later, the mattress shifted beside you.

“Whoa, okay.” Jax’s voice sounded closer now. Less teasing. “Easy.”

Cool fingers pressed awkwardly against the side of your neck for half a second before quickly pulling away again, like he’d only realized afterward what he was doing.

“You’re seriously burning up.”

“I noticed,” you muttered.

“Yeah, well, I noticed more.”

You cracked one eye open just enough to glare weakly at him.

He looked… strange.

Not soft, exactly. Jax didn’t really do soft.

But the constant amusement usually sitting somewhere behind his expression had dimmed into something darker now, restless energy flickering through every small movement. One of his knees bounced rapidly against the side of the bed frame while he watched you.

“You take anything yet?” he asked.

“For what?”

“The fever, genius.”

“Oh.” You swallowed painfully. “...uhm, when was I supposed to do that?”

Jax stared at you with a look of genuine horror.

“…How are you alive?”

You might’ve laughed a little if your head didn’t feel like it was splitting open. Instead, you attempted a shrug. Bad idea.

Nausea punished the movement instantly and your stomach lurched hard enough to steal the air from your lungs.

“Okay, nope.” Jax leaned closer. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m literally laying down.”

“Yeah, and somehow you still look like you’re losing a fight with gravity.”

Your throat felt painfully dry suddenly. Even breathing left you feeling overheated and exhausted in a way that made your limbs feel too heavy beneath the blankets.

Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath carefully through the dizziness, while rain tapped against the trailer roof overhead. The trailer felt almost strangely still now, the quiet outside broken only by distant generators humming somewhere across the lot.

Jax sighed into the silence, “You’ve been out since yesterday afternoon, by the way.”

That snapped your attention back toward him.

“What?”

“Mmhm.” Jax leaned back slightly in his chair. “It’s, like, two in the morning.”

For a second, genuine disorientation cut through the fever haze. Yesterday afternoon?

No wonder your body felt completely wrecked.

“…sorry.”

Jax’s expression shriveled.

“Ugh. Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That weird guilty thing.” He dragged a hand through his hair roughly before looking away. “You scared the hell outta Ragatha.”

He glanced toward the rain-dark window.

“…and everybody else too, I guess.”

You looked at him quietly for a moment. “You stayed,” your voice came out raspy, barely a whisper.

Something unreadable flickered across Jax’s face before he covered it quickly with his usual smirk.

“Yeah, well. You looked all pale and gross.”

“That’s your excuse?”

“It’s a fantastic excuse.”

You would’ve smiled if your face didn’t feel half melted off from the fever.

A second later, Jax grabbed one of the unopened sports drinks from the nightstand and shoved it toward you.

“Drink something.”

You stared weakly at it. “I think lifting that might actually kill me.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“You carried me here.”

“…That doesn’t prove anything.”

The trailer door suddenly swung open hard enough to make both of you flinch.

Ragatha stepped inside carrying a plastic grocery bag against her chest, rainwater still clinging to the sleeves of her cardigan.

“Oh good, you’re awake!”

Jax leaned back so fast it almost gave you whiplash, all of that strange nervous energy snapping back behind his usual irritation.

“They were awake already,” he said defensively.

“Okay?” Ragatha blinked at him. “I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”

“You sounded accusatory.” Jax glanced toward the clock before looking back at Ragatha. “Aren’t you usually asleep by like… ten?”

Ragatha gave him a look. “You texted me six times.”

“...okay, that feels exaggerated.”

“It wasn’t.”

Jax looked genuinely offended. Ragatha ignored him completely and crossed toward the bed instead, pressing the back of her hand gently against your forehead. Her expression shifted into worry.

“Oh, honey…”

“See?” Jax pointed vaguely from somewhere beside you. “That’s what I said.”

“You definitely didn’t say ‘oh, honey,’ Jax,” Ragatha replied absently while digging through the grocery bag. “You told me they looked medically disturbing.”

“Which was accurate.”

Ragatha pulled out a bottle of medicine and handed it toward you along with a water bottle.

“Did you eat anything recently?”

You stared blankly at her.

“…does half a gas station pretzel count?”

Both Ragatha and Jax looked horrified by that answer for completely different reasons.

Jax rubbed a hand down his face. “You are, like, alarmingly bad at being a person.”

“Well,” Ragatha sighed, “that explains a whole lot, actually.”

You groaned weakly into the pillow. “You guys are being mean to me in my time of need.”

“Your time of need started like twelve hours ago,” Jax shot back.

“Jax,” Ragatha warned.

“What? I’m right.”

Despite the bickering, exhaustion was already dragging heavily at the edges of your consciousness again. The medicine left your body feeling heavy beneath the blankets while the steady sound of rain softened everything else into background noise.

Ragatha noticed your eyes slipping shut first. Her voice lowered. “Hey, do you want me to stay with them for a while?”

You expected Jax to agree.

“They’re fine.”

Ragatha blinked. “That wasn’t the question.”

Jax avoided looking directly at either of you. “I got it under control.”

A strange little silence settled over the trailer.

Then Ragatha’s expression softened into something suspiciously knowing.

“...Oh,” she said quietly.

Jax pointed toward the trailer door. “Don’t start.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were gonna.”

A smile tugged faintly at the corner of Ragatha’s mouth as she gathered the empty grocery bag again. “Alright. I’ll check in tomorrow morning.”

“Cool,” Jax muttered. “Don’t.”

Rain drifted softly against the trailer roof after she left.

You barely registered the mattress shifting slightly beside you before exhaustion finally dragged you under again. The last thing you felt before sleep overtook you completely was cool fingers pressing gently against your forehead.

“…still ridiculous,” Jax muttered under his breath.

Everything faded softly back into darkness.

Sleep came and went in miserable fragments afterward.

Every time consciousness surfaced again, it felt worse.

The fever had settled deeper somehow, dragging heavy heat through your body until even breathing felt exhausting. Your skin burned beneath the blankets while violent chills rattled through you, jarring enough to make your teeth ache. At some point during the night, you’d kicked half the blankets off the bed. Sometime later, Jax must’ve pulled them back over you again.

Jax had turned most of the trailer lights off, leaving only the faint yellow glow above the kitchen counter to cut through the darkness. Rain still pattered lightly against the roof.

You became vaguely aware of movement nearby before you fully opened your eyes. Cabinets opening and closing. Footsteps pacing unevenly across the narrow trailer floor.

Jax.

Your vision stayed blurry for a few seconds after you blinked awake. The ceiling lights smeared strangely at the edges while your stomach churned unpleasantly. You groaned into your pillow.

The movement across the trailer stopped cold.

“Oh, cool,” Jax muttered. “You’re up again.”

Again.

That word lodged uncomfortably somewhere through your haze.

You shifted weakly beneath the blankets. Even subtle movement made the room tilt. You grunted.

“Whoa, okay— nope.” Footsteps crossed the trailer quickly before the mattress dipped beside you again. “Easy, easy, take it easy.”

Your eyes squeezed shut automatically.

Everything hurt.

The mattress shifted under his weight as Jax leaned closer, one hand pressing against your shoulder before you rolled too far sideways off the edge of the bed.

“You are genuinely awful at being sick,” he informed you, his voice strained.

“Mm.”

“That wasn’t a real response.”

You tried opening your eyes again.

Jax looked worse than before.

His hair stuck out messily in every direction now, dark circles settled heavily beneath his eyes, and the sleeves of his shirt had been shoved unevenly up to his elbows like he’d been too distracted to fix them properly. Several empty sports drink bottles sat abandoned near the sink beside what looked like a half-melted bag of ice.

Jax pressed the back of his hand quickly against your forehead.

The expression on his face darkened. Like something inside of him had dropped out beneath his feet.

“Oh, you have gotta be kidding me.”

You frowned weakly. “What?”

“You’re hotter.”

“…I’m flattered,” you struggled to get the words out.

“That is not what I meant and you know it.”

The room tilted again.

You swallowed hard against another wave of nausea as Jax stood abruptly from the edge of the bed, pacing two restless steps toward the door before stopping short and turning back.

“Okay, nope. I hate this.” He dragged both hands through his hair roughly. “Ragatha said if your fever got any worse we were supposed to go to the emergency room.”

You frowned weakly through the fever haze. “...You talked to Ragatha?”

Jax stopped pacing.

For a second, the trailer went completely quiet except for the rain hammering against the roof.

“…What?”

Your head was throbbing. “When?”

Something in Jax’s face went oddly still.

“Ragatha was here,” he said slowly. “A couple hours ago.”

Silence.

“…You seriously don’t remember that?”

“...sorry,” you murmured.

“Oh my god, stop apologizing.” He pointed vaguely toward you, unpausing his pacing. “That thing where you keep saying sorry like you’re inconveniencing me? Hate it. Knock it off.”

You might’ve answered if your thoughts didn’t feel so far away.

The trailer blurred again, and Jax’s pacing came to a halt.

“…Hey.”

You blinked slowly toward him.

“Look at me for a second.”

You tried.

His face wouldn’t fully focus.

That seemed to scare him.

“No,” his voice sharpened suddenly. “Don’t do that.”

Jax leaned down again, fingers pressing quickly against the side of your neck like he was checking for something you couldn’t understand through the fog of the fever.

“Hey,” he repeated, dire now. “C’mon.”

You tried answering him.

Your tongue felt heavy somehow.

“...Jax,” you mumbled weakly instead.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

Something cold pressed briefly against your forehead before disappearing again. A wet washcloth, maybe. Your thoughts kept slipping sideways before you could grasp onto them properly.

The trailer suddenly felt scorching. You closed your eyes again for what felt like half a second.

When you opened them next, Jax was shoving his arms hurriedly through a hoodie near the trailer door. Keys jingled loudly somewhere nearby. The rain was hammering harder outside now.

“What—” your voice cracked painfully, “what’re you doing?”

“We’re going to the hospital.”

The words cut clean through your daze, enough to make your jaw clench.

“...no, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, see, the problem is you stopped being believable like six hours ago.”

You tried pushing yourself upright.

That turned out to be a horrible mistake.

The room lurched violently sideways before your body could fully follow the movement, dizziness crashing through you hard enough that you barely registered yourself slipping sideways off the mattress.

Jax caught you before you hit the floor.

“Holy shit.”

One arm locked hard around your waist while the other caught your shoulders against his chest. Your head spun weakly against the front of his hoodie while rain battered the trailer roof overhead loud enough to make everything else disappear.

For one awful second, Jax didn’t move at all.

“...you’re scaring me.”

You’d never heard genuine fear in his voice before. Not until now.

The words came quieter after that, almost whispered underneath his breath as he adjusted his grip beneath you.

“I got you.”

The sudden lift sent dizziness crashing through you again as he scooped you fully against his chest, one arm beneath your knees while the other held you tightly enough that you barely felt the movement beneath him.

Your head dropped weakly against his shoulder.

Rain and cold air hit your skin for barely a second before Jax pulled you closer beneath the shelter of his jacket.

“Stay awake,” he muttered, voice tighter than you’d ever heard it before.

Then the trailer door slammed shut, and you were off into the storm.

You recognized the ceiling before you fully opened your eyes.

The dim yellow glow above the kitchenette blurred softly through your vision while the familiar smell of cigarette smoke and laundry detergent settled around you again. For one disoriented second, panic twisted sharply through your chest before memory returned in fractured pieces:

Rain. Jax’s voice. Cold air against your scalding skin. Hospital lights smeared white and blurry through a feverish haze.

Your throat burned suddenly as you swallowed.

Speaking hurt too much to even attempt.

A weak sound escaped you anyway, more breath than actual noise.

Movement stirred somewhere nearby almost at once.

“Well,” Jax’s voice cut through the quiet, rougher than usual, “that’s slightly less terrifying.”

He sat slouched sideways in one of the chairs near the coffee table, an arm folded beneath his head while the other hung limp against his lap. Judging by the awkward angle of his neck and the blanket half-draped on his shoulder, he definitely hadn’t meant to fall asleep there.

A half-empty cold brew sat abandoned beside him alongside pharmacy bags, crumpled receipts, and a bottle of prescription medicine.

Your gaze lingered there a second too long.

“Don’t start.” Jax warned.

You frowned weakly.

“Whatever stupid emotional thing you’re about to do,” he muttered while dragging a tired hand down his face, “don’t.”

Despite the sarcasm, relief still lingered visibly around the edges of his expression now that you were awake.

Your throat burned again as you swallowed carefully, the lingering soreness sharp enough to make you wince.

“Yeah,” Jax muttered, already up and reaching for the water bottle beside the bed before you could ask for it. “Doctor said your throat’s pretty messed up.”

You opened your mouth, trying to force words to form anyway.

Nothing came out.

Only another painful rasp clawing uselessly at your throat.

Jax shook his head.

“Yeah. Don’t do that either.”

Frustration burned hot behind your ribs as you sank back against the pillows.

After everything from last night, the silence felt cruel now.

For once, Jax didn’t immediately fill it with sarcasm.

Instead, he reached toward the nightstand beside you before holding out a small notebook and pen.

You stared at it.

“…What?” he asked defensively. “The nurse gave it to me.”

You turned the notebook over slowly in your hands.

The first few pages were already filled.

Messy handwriting crowded unevenly across the paper:

water. more ice chips? yes/no blink system sucks btw stop ripping the pulse monitor off ow

You raised a brow at him.

Jax immediately looked offended. “Before you say anything, hospital-you was super annoying.”

A weak laugh escaped you soundlessly through your nose.

“That’s the other thing,” he pointed accusingly. “You keep doing that silent laughing thing and it’s weird.”

You scribbled slowly across the notebook again.

sorry

Jax groaned. “See? There it is again.”

His chair scraped softly across the trailer floor as he dragged it closer to the bed before dropping back into it heavily.

Outside, rain still drifted softly against the roof, quieter now than the storm from the night before. Daylight filtered dimly through the trailer windows, washing everything pale gray.

Silence stretched between the two of you.

Then Jax leaned forward slightly, squinting toward you.

“…You remember any of the hospital?”

You paused to think for a moment, then wrote your response:

not really

Something unreadable crossed his expression again.

“...Cool. Good,” he muttered eventually.

Your gaze drifted downward absently while adjusting the blankets.

Purple bruising enveloped the inside of your arm beneath the hospital wristband still looped loosely around your wrist.

You frowned.

Jax followed your gaze.

“…Don’t.”

You looked back toward him, then slowly lifted the notebook again.

what happened?

Jax groaned quietly into one hand.

“Seriously?”

You stared at him expectantly.

For a long moment, he looked like he might refuse outright.

He sighed, “...Are you sure you really wanna know?”

Something about the question unsettled you.

Still, you nodded.

Jax leaned back heavily in the chair, rubbing tiredly at one eye.

“You kept ripping the IV outta your arm.”

Your eyes widened slightly.

“Four times,” he added flatly.

Mortification hit instantly.

“Oh, save the shock, it gets worse.” Despite the sarcasm, exhaustion dulled the usual sharpness in his voice now. “You kept trying to get up and leave the room.”

Broken fragments flickered vaguely through your memory: fluorescent lights, cold hands adjusting something against your face, Jax arguing with somebody somewhere nearby.

“You kept asking me to take you home,” he continued more quietly. “Said you hated it there.”

Your fingers stilled slightly against the notebook page.

Jax looked away afterward, attention settling hard on the coffee cup in his hands.

“And then,” he muttered, “you started begging me to sneak you back to the trailer so you could sleep.”

He paused.

“You were pretty convinced we could somehow outrun the nurses.”

Despite everything, a weak, soundless laugh escaped you.

Jax pointed toward you. “See? That one was at least a little funny.”

Then his expression shifted again, subtly. The exhaustion returned around the edges.

The trailer stayed quiet except for the soft tapping rain outside.

Then, after a long moment, Jax broke the silence:

“…You didn’t really know where you were for a while.”

The words landed heavier than anything else he’d said so far.

You watched him carefully while he continued picking absentmindedly at the edge of the cup label.

“They had you on oxygen for most of the night.” His voice lowered slightly. “At one point they were talking about intubating you if your breathing got worse.”

Your stomach dropped.

Jax finally glanced back toward you then, exhaustion sitting plainly across his face now that the sarcasm had mostly worn itself out.

“You don’t remember any of that?”

Slowly, you shook your head.

Something unreadable crossed his expression again.

“…Good,” he muttered eventually.

That single word hurt worse than hearing the details themselves.

You looked down at the notebook resting in your lap for a long moment before finally writing carefully across the page:

i made you stay there all night

Jax read the sentence once before immediately looking irritated again.

“Oh my god, we are NOT doing the guilt thing again.”

Despite the complaint, his chair still scraped softly across the trailer floor as he dragged it even closer beside the bed.

You watched him quietly for a moment.

Then reached for the notebook again.

Jax’s eyes dropped to the notebook and he sighed. “I already don’t trust that look.”

Your writing came slower now, exhaustion still weighing heavily through your limbs.

stay?

Jax stared at the page.

“…Stay where?”

You looked pointedly toward the empty side of the bed.

He pursed his lips.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

You raised an eyebrow weakly.

“You are literally contagious.”

You scribbled again.

coward

Jax let out an offended noise. “Excuse you? I spent like twelve straight hours making sure you didn’t die.”

Your eyes drifted toward him expectantly. He just stared back.

Then, he groaned dramatically into one hand before shoving himself up from the chair.

“This is emotional manipulation, by the way.”

The mattress dipped beneath his weight a second later as he climbed reluctantly onto the edge of the bed, still muttering complaints under his breath while awkwardly trying not to jostle you too much.

“There. Happy?” He settled stiffly on top of the blankets beside you. “This is already the worst decision I’ve made all week.”

You stared at him for a second before slowly lifting the corner of the blanket toward him.

Jax blinked.

“…Oh, come on.”

Your expression didn’t change.

He looked genuinely conflicted for half a second before sighing heavily and sliding underneath the blankets beside you anyway.

Warmth curled around you both beneath the cramped layers of blankets and tangled sheets. Jax still felt faintly cold from the rain outside, though exhaustion radiated heavily from him now that he’d finally stopped moving long enough to notice it.

For a few quiet seconds, neither of you spoke.

Then, carefully, you shifted slightly closer. Your head settled weakly against his shoulder.

Jax went strangely still.

Not rejection. Not quite freezing either.

More like his entire body suddenly forgot how to function properly.

“…You are unbelievably clingy after near-death experiences,” he muttered finally, voice noticeably quieter now.

A silent laugh shook weakly through your chest.

Jax glanced downward at the movement before something in his expression softened despite himself.

His arm adjusted hesitantly beside you.

Then, after a brief moment of visible internal conflict, it slid carefully around your shoulders.

You relaxed against him before you could stop yourself.

Outside, rain drifted softly against the trailer roof while pale daylight filtered dimly through the curtains. The steady warmth beside you combined dangerously with the exhaustion still dragging at your body, making your eyes start slipping shut again despite yourself.

“You better not be dying again,” Jax muttered.

You lifted one hand weakly from beneath the blankets and gave him a slow thumbs up.

“That is not medically reassuring.”

Despite the complaint, his hand traced shapes into your shoulder anyway.

By the time you were finally well enough to leave the trailer for longer than ten-minute intervals, the rain had stopped entirely.

Soft spring air drifted across the circus grounds while workers finished hauling the last equipment crates between caravans. In the distance, somebody was testing stage lights, flashes of gold and white flickering across canvas tents.

Your voice had mostly returned over the past two days.

Talking still hurt if you did it too long, your throat rough and scratchy around the edges now…but at least actual words came out instead of painful silence.

Jax, unfortunately, had started making fun of your voice the second it returned.

“You sound like you swallowed sandpaper,” he informed you cheerfully from where he lounged against the side of his trailer.

You shot him a glare over the sleeve of the hoodie you’d stolen from him three days ago.

“Your concern is touching.”

“I know. I’m practically a saint.”

Despite the usual sarcasm, something lighter had settled between you both now that the hospital panic was over. The exhaustion still lingered visibly around Jax’s face if you looked too closely, but he’d finally stopped hovering every time you coughed.

Most of the time, at least.

You stepped carefully down from the trailer stairs, adjusting the oversized hoodie sleeves around your hands while the cold breeze swept through the lot again.

“Don’t wander too far,” Jax called lazily from where he still lounged against the trailer wall. “If you pass out again, I’m charging you.”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m going for a walk, not reenacting my medical emergency.”

“That sounds exactly like somethin’ somebody about to reenact a medical emergency would say.”

You left him muttering to himself anyway.

Spring had finally settled over the circus grounds sometime while you’d been busy almost dying.

The grass felt cool beneath your bare feet as you wandered between caravans, still damp in places from old rain but warmer now beneath the afternoon’s gentle sunlight. Wind stirred softly through blooming trees near the edge of the lot, carrying the faint smell of dirt and fresh-cut grass instead of storm air.

Somewhere farther off, Kinger appeared to be speaking very seriously to a folding chair.

You found Ragatha sitting beside an open costume trunk near the wardrobe trailer, carefully sorting thread spools into neat rows.

The second she noticed you, her expression brightened.

“Oh!” She sat up straighter. “Well, look at you. Up and walkin’ around and everything.”

Ragatha’s eyes narrowed toward your face.

“…Okay, maybe still a little pale.”

“Rude.”

“Lovingly rude,” she corrected, already reaching toward the paper cup resting beside her. “Here, have some tea. Before your throat starts yelling at you again.”

You blinked.

“…You just had tea ready?”

Ragatha hesitated like the answer should’ve been obvious.

“Well… yeah?” She tucked a loose curl behind one ear. “You scared everybody pretty bad.” She lowered her voice slightly. “...Jax especially.”

She quickly brightened again, nudging the cup toward you.

“Anyway! Drink that before it gets cold.”

You settled beside the costume trunk while she returned to sorting thread, occasionally pausing to untangle stubborn knots with quiet concentration.

For a little while, the two of you sat comfortably in the soft spring warmth. Wind stirred through nearby trees, carrying the smell of damp grass while voices drifted faintly from the main tent.

Ragatha clicked her tongue softly at a tangled spool in her lap. “Honestly, I swear thread knots itself up outta spite.”

You huffed a laugh into your tea.

Silence settled again after that, easy and familiar.

Your gaze wandered absently toward the row of caravans farther down the lot.

“…Oh.”

Ragatha glanced up.

“What?”

“I haven’t even checked if my trailer’s unpacked yet.”

Her hands stopped.

“…What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean,” you shifted awkwardly, “I kinda got hospitalized before I finished?”

Ragatha paused, clearly confused. She bit her lip.

“…Oh.”

A funny little expression crossed her face.

“Sweetheart, your trailer’s been unpacked since the first night.”

You stared at her.

“…What?”

“Gangle and I finished most of it after setup,” she explained, attention drifting briefly back toward the loose seam in her lap. “Jax brought your things over after the hospital.”

She paused, before carefully adding a question of her own, “…You didn’t know?”

Slowly, you shook your head.

Ragatha went quiet for a second.

Her mouth twitched upward softly.

“Oh, hon.” Her tone was amused, but not teasing. Fond.

“He could’ve moved you back days ago,” she said gently.

The silence afterward landed differently.

Ragatha watched realization settle over your expression before quickly pretending to become very interested in reorganizing thread.

“…Don’t be too mean to him,” she said after a moment, quieter now. “He’s had a real hard time actin’ like this whole thing didn’t scare him.”

A startled laugh escaped you.

“Oh, I’m absolutely teasing him.”

“That’s fair.”

You found Jax exactly where you’d left him, still leaning lazily against the side of the trailer with all the practiced indifference of somebody who absolutely had not spent the last week quietly spiraling.

His gaze lifted when he noticed you walking back. Whatever he found on your face seemed to put him on edge immediately, shoulders shifting faintly against the trailer wall before his expression settled somewhere between suspicion and annoyance.

“…Why are you lookin’ at me like that?”

You crossed your arms loosely.

“So…”

The single word earned you a visible pause.

“…So?” he asked carefully.

“How long were you planning on keeping me?”

Jax went still.“…What?”

“My trailer,” you said mildly. “Apparently it’s been unpacked all week.”

Silence stretched long enough for realization to settle over him.

Then he sighed, raising a hand to rub his temple.

“…Ragatha talks too much.”

The deadpan delivery almost made you laugh. You stepped a little closer to Jax instead.

“‘Mine was closer,’ huh?”

He groaned softly.

“You cannot use my own lines against me. That feels illegal.”

“And the soup?”

“It was medicinal.”

“The hoodie?”

“You looked cold.”

“You carrying me to the emergency room?”

“That hardly counts.”

You tilted your head.

“…While wearing bunny pajama pants?”

His entire expression shifted into something resembling betrayal.

“Oh, okay. Cool. Awesome.” He pointed vaguely toward nowhere in particular. “Apparently everybody talks too much.”

A laugh slipped out before you could stop it.

Something softened around the edges of Jax’s expression at the sound before he caught himself, jaw shifting faintly as though he was annoyed by his own reaction.

“…You gotta stop doin’ that.”

“Doing what?”

“That laugh thing.”

The answer came quieter than usual, like he hadn’t entirely meant to say it out loud.

The breeze moved softly between the caravans, carrying damp earth and cut grass through the lot while distant voices drifted somewhere near the tents. Jax looked away first, one boot nudging absently at gravel while he shoved a hand into the pocket of his hoodie.

“…You can stay, by the way,” he mumbled.

Your brows lifted.

“In your trailer?”

He shrugged one shoulder too quickly.

“I mean. If you want.”

The words sounded uncomfortable coming out of him, rough around the edges in a way sarcasm usually covered too well to notice.

“You don’t gotta make a whole thing outta it,” he muttered, eyes fixed firmly on the gravel. “Just figured it’d probably be easier.”

Something warm twisted quietly through your chest.

He still looked exhausted. He’d stopped sleeping properly sometime around the emergency room, and the dark circles under his eyes still hadn’t gone away.

Jax shifted beneath the silence.

“You are makin’ this unbelievably difficult for me.”

You blinked up at him.

“What?”

“This whole ordeal. Us.” He frowned at you. “Horrible experience. Zero stars.”

The laugh that escaped you this time came warmer.

His gaze lifted automatically toward the sound. Something uncertain lingered there beneath all the usual sarcasm. He wasn’t exactly nervous, but something was different. Unguarded.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it, the sleeve of his hoodie brushing lightly against your own.

Jax straightened a little.

“…What’re you doin’?”

You weren’t fully sure. Not until your fingers curled gently into the front of his hoodie.

Not until you leaned up.

The kiss landed soft, careful. Almost uncertain.

For a second, Jax didn’t seem to move at all, and you started to pull back.

His hand caught lightly at your sleeve before you could get very far.

“…Oh.”

The word left him quieter than usual. His gaze dropped toward your mouth and stayed there a second too long.

“You…”

He stopped.

“…Okay.”

The word sounded distracted. When he realized he wasn’t getting far talking, he kissed you again, this time without hesitation.

His hand found your waist before seeming to think better of it, hovering there awkwardly for all of half a heartbeat before settling anyway when you shifted closer on instinct.

That seemed to completely ruin whatever composure he’d been trying to hold onto.

“Oh, this is real unfair,” he groaned weakly against your mouth.

The complaint lost most of its bite when he dove back in, chasing your lips.

The cool spring breeze drifted through the narrow space between trailers while one hand tightened lightly at the fabric of your sleeve, the other resting firmer at your waist now.

You gasped against his lips when he nearly backed himself into the trailer wall trying to pull you closer, to kiss you deeper.

That stopped him entirely.

He stared at you for a second, expression gone strangely helpless.

“…Yeah,” he muttered, voice rougher now. “No, I’m never recoverin’ from that.”

Then he kissed you again.

Hard enough this time to knock the breath from whatever teasing remark had nearly left your mouth.

Your fingers grasped against the front of his hoodie, balling into fists while his own hand shifted lower against your back, pulling you closer without seeming to realize he was doing it. When you made the smallest startled sound against his mouth, something in him seemed to snap.

“…Yeah, okay,” he murmured, sounding vaguely overwhelmed by the entire situation.

One hand settled more firmly at your back as he started guiding you backward toward the trailer without really pulling away.

“C’mon,” he muttered against your lips, words quieter now, rough around the edges. “Before Ragatha sees this and starts cryin’ or somethin’.”

a/n: thank you so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed!! sorry if that last scene sounded a little wonky/rushed (as of 5/18), i wanted to crank this fic out tonight....will re-read later this week and nitpick it then as always, i would love to know your thoughts and any requests/prompts you would like to see, so don't be shy and leave a letter in my inbox!

The circus grounds sat just outside a small city this month, tucked near the edge of a forest already beginning to turn orange with the season. Cold air swept through the streets in gentle bursts, carrying the scent of rain and chimney smoke wherever they blew.

Ragatha walked beside you with two fabric sample books hugged tightly against her chest.

“I’m just saying,” she rambled, “if we do velvet accents instead of satin, the stage lights’ll catch better during the aerial acts. Satin reflects too harshly under spotlights sometimes and then everybody ends up looking kinda shiny and weird and—” She paused. “Sorry. I’m doing that thing again.”

“No, continue, I like listening to you talk.”

The sentence slipped out casually.

Ragatha blinked.

“Oh.” Her shoulders lifted slightly beneath her oversized cardigan. “...Really?”

“Really,” you smiled tenderly.

A faint blush spread across her face almost instantly, and she focused very hard on adjusting the fabric books in her arms.

“Oh. Well… that’s good, then.”

Her voice had gone quieter now. “Because I do that a lot.”

You snorted.

The fabric store ended up taking nearly an hour and a half, mostly because Ragatha could not make a decision to save her life. She stood between towering shelves of fabric bolts with narrowed eyes, holding up two practically identical shades of burgundy beneath the fluorescent lights.

“They’re so different,” she agonized.

“...are they not the same color?”

“No! Not even a little.”

You leaned closer with exaggerated seriousness. “Ah. Wait. I see it now. This one’s… burgundy.”

“And?” she pressed, eager for a second opinion.

“And that one’s…slightly burgundier.”

Ragatha let out an offended gasp before dissolving into a grin, the sound loud enough that an elderly employee glanced over the shelves toward you both.

““Oh my gosh, you are no help at all!”

“You love me, though!”

“I do,” she assured you immediately.

The words landed so naturally between you that neither of you felt a need to acknowledge them afterward.

Instead, you continued following her through the aisles while she compared lace trims and ribbons with intense concentration, occasionally draping fabrics over your shoulders to test colors against your skin.

“No, no, hold still,” she murmured, tugging a strip of red velvet flatter against your jacket. “Okay, yeah. See? This is gorgeous.”

“You say that about every fabric,” you mused.

“Well, look at them,” she defended, gesturing vaguely with the velvet still draped over your shoulder. “How am I supposed to pick just one?”

“You’re such an old lady.”

“I’m only thirty!” she shot back.

“You own cardigans like somebody’s grandmother.”

That made her roll her eyes. “Okay, but they’re comfortable! And practical!”

By the time you finally left the store, your arms were full of shopping bags while Ragatha carried exactly one spool of thread and a warm coffee she’d insisted on buying for the both of you afterward, because, according to her, you were “doing all the heavy lifting.”

By the time the two of you reached the beauty supply shop, you’d already accepted that this trip was going to take all day.

Ragatha became alarmingly powerful in places like this. You leaned against one of the aisles while she debated between glitter palettes with the seriousness of someone making life-or-death decisions.

“The copper shimmer ties into the costumes better,” she mumbled, mostly to herself, “but the gold catches light prettier… I dunno.”

“You’ve been staring at those for ten minutes.”

“Hey, makeup artistry is a real thing.”

You leaned more heavily against the shelf, watching her continue debating with herself beneath the fluorescent lights. She always looked happiest when she had something to create.

A moment later, Ragatha grabbed your wrist and gently tugged you closer.

“Hold still.”

“For what?”

Instead of answering, she swiped her thumb lightly beneath your eye, brushing away a speck of loose glitter that had somehow transferred onto your skin.

“There, hon.”

Both of you lingered there for a moment longer than necessary, her fingertip grazing softly against your bottom lashes before she finally stepped back. Neither of you acknowledged it.

The rain started while you were at the laundromat.

At first it was only a drizzle against the windows while the industrial dryers rumbled loudly around you, warming the small room with waves of heat.

Ragatha sat cross-legged on top of one of the folding tables, carefully sorting clean costume pieces into neat piles while you handed them over from the basket beside you.

Outside, the sky darkened steadily.

“You know,” she said after a while, smoothing out the sleeve of a mahogany costume coat, “I think this might actually end up being my favorite theme we’ve done.”

“The haunted carnival one didn’t beat this?”

“Oh, no way. That one was impossible.” She laughed quietly. “Black fabric shows every speck of dust in existence.”

You chuckled quietly.

Ragatha smiled at the sound before continuing, her eyes drifting back to the coat in her arms, “I don’t know, this one just feels… warm.”

Warm.

That was the word you always associated with her too: warm cardigans, warm hands. Warm smiles offered to exhausted performers after bad shows. Warm cups of tea shoved into people’s hands before rehearsals.

Warmth stitched carefully into costumes and repaired seams, woven into the way she always remembered exactly how everyone liked things.

Outside, rainwater streaked steadily down the laundromat windows.

“You okay?” she called your attention back to the present.

“Hm?”

“You got quiet.”

You shrugged lightly. “Just tired, I guess.”

Ragatha’s expression softened. “C’mere, hon, take a break for a second.” Ragatha nudged your knee lightly with the toe of her shoe. “You’ve been helping me all day.”

“I offered to.”

“I know.” She nudged your knee again, softer this time. “Still. I appreciate it.”

Something warm settled quietly in your chest.

Eventually, the rain eased up enough to allow you to escape the laundromat. The city streets glimmered with rainwater beneath the streetlights, puddles collecting between uneven stretches of cobblestone as the two of you wandered side-by-side toward the circus grounds.

Halfway there, Ragatha abruptly stopped walking.

“Oh! Wait wait wait.”

“Oh no, did we forget something?” you grimaced.

“The donut place!” The excitement in her voice was instant and completely genuine.

You followed her gaze toward a tiny bakery, its lanterns glowing brightly against the rainy evening. The scent of sugar wafted from a creaked window.

Five minutes later, you were both sitting outside, beneath the shop’s awning, with hot apple cider warming your hands and a paper bag full of cinnamon sugar donuts balanced between you.

Rain pattered steadily against the sidewalk just beyond the shelter overhead.

“Okay,” Ragatha said after her first bite, “this is what our show’s supposed to taste like.”

You quirked a brow at her, “...to taste like?”

Ragatha glanced down at the donut in her hands before taking another bite. “Okay, maybe that sounded weird,” she admitted through a mouthful of cinnamon sugar. “But you get what I mean, right?” Specks of sugar dusted the corner of her mouth.

You reached over and brushed it away gently with your thumb.

Ragatha froze.

Your hand lingered for only a second before pulling back. Ragatha looked at you like she wanted to say something, then seemed to think better of it.

A fountain sat in the center of the plaza nearby, old stone with rainwater rippling softly across its surface. Pennies glittered underneath the water, blurrily reflecting the casts of city lights.

Ragatha insisted on stopping.

“Okay, don’t make fun of me for this…”

“Always.”

She rolled her eyes affectionately before digging through her handbag.

“I still make wishes on fountains.”

You smiled. “That’s not embarrassing.”

“It’s a little embarrassing.”

“Not at all, Rag.”

The corners of her mouth twitched upward before she produced two pennies from her pocket and handed one to you.

The stone ledge of the fountain was cold beneath you both as you sat side-by-side.

Around you, rain drifted softly through golden streetlights.

Ragatha stared down at the penny in her palm for a moment before quietly saying, “Don’t tell anybody I do this.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Good.”

Together, you tossed the pennies into the water. Tiny ripples spread across the fountain’s surface.

You glanced toward her. “What’d you wish for?”

Ragatha gasped softly. “You can’t ask that!”

“Why not?”

“Because then it won’t come true.”

“Okay, okay.” You raised your hands defensively.

She nudged your shoulder lightly against hers.

“What about you?”

“I can’t tell you either.”

“See? Now you’re starting to get it.”

Rain began picking up again soon afterward, heavier this time.

“Oh no,” Ragatha groaned, looking toward the sky. “We are absolutely gonna get soaked!”

“You say that like we aren’t already damp.”

“No no, we’re only a little damp right now. There’s still time.”

You laughed as she grabbed the paper bag of donuts, shoving it protectively against her chest before standing.

“C’mon, before the fabrics get—”

A sharp gust of wind swept rainwater sideways across the plaza.

Ragatha yelped as cold droplets splashed against her face, nearly slipping on the wet pavement while trying to shield the bag beneath her cardigan. You caught her wrist instinctively, steadying her as she stumbled closer.

Rain downpoured around you both, silver beneath the streetlights.

Ragatha’s hair had started sticking to her cheeks in damp curls. Her nose had gone pink from the cold, sugar still dusting one sleeve of her cardigan faintly.

“What?” she murmured softly. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“Can you blame me?”

A nervous laugh escaped her.

“Sorry, I probably look ridiculous right now—”

You kissed her before she could finish the sentence.

Warm cider and cinnamon lingered faintly against her lips. Ragatha made a small surprised sound before immediately melting into the kiss, one hand clutching weakly at the front of your rain-damp jacket while the other still desperately protected the donuts.

When you finally separated, she blinked at you for a moment with wide eyes before her face softened into something quieter.

“You kissed me in the rain,” she said softly, like she couldn’t quite believe it.

“You’re surprised?”

“A little.”

You smiled. “Why?”

Ragatha looked at you for a long moment beneath the glow of the streetlights before answering.

Then, quieter now, she admitted,

“Because sometimes I still can’t believe I get to have things like this.”

Your chest ached a little at the honesty in her voice. Carefully, you brushed damp hair away from her face, your thumb catching briefly against her cheekbone.

“Well,” you murmured, “better start believing it now.”

This time, Ragatha smiled into the kiss before stepping closer, beneath the rain.

That had been eight months ago. Which, apparently, was all it took.

One near-death experience and a couple improvised insults later, the audience had apparently decided that the knife thrower and the circus darling had weirdly good chemistry together. Suddenly, the act everybody expected to fail became the most popular performance in the entire show.

Honestly, you blamed Caine.

The man saw audience reactions the way starving people saw food. The second the crowd started eating up the banter, the ringmaster had practically lost his mind. Ticket sales exploded almost immediately after. People started showing up specifically for performances with Jax, which was especially irritating considering you’d already been doing perfectly fine before all this.

You had your own act. Your own audience. You’d spent years building a reputation at the circus completely separate from him. Back before this “disaster duo” nonsense, your name regularly floated near the top of audience popularity rankings alongside Pomni and Kinger.

Then Jax happened.

Or more specifically, Jax’s previous partners kept quitting.

Apparently, getting knives thrown at your face by a man who treated workplace safety like a personal insult created a pretty brutal turnover rate. The last assistant had lasted exactly nine days before threatening to unionize against him personally.

Caine had cornered you after rehearsal one night with the desperate expression of a man moments away from financial collapse. You would come to remember this moment as a personal betrayal.

“PLEASE,” your ringmaster had begged dramatically. “Just until we find someone permanent!”

Unfortunately, nobody else wanted the job.

Unfortunately for you, you and Jax worked disgustingly well together.

Now, months later, he sat comfortably at number one in the circus popularity rankings while you’d dropped to third, right beneath Pomni.

Jax had been absolutely unbearable about it.

“Damn,” he’d sighed after seeing the newest poll results taped outside the dressing rooms. “Third place? That’s rough, sweetheart.”

You crossed your arms. “You realize people only like you because I make you tolerable, right?”

To your immense satisfaction, he actually froze for a second.

His grin faltered slightly before recovering. “Whoa, alright. Somebody’s gettin’ jealous.” He pointed at you accusingly. “Not my fault the public loves me. I’m very marketable.”

“You throw knives at me professionally.”

“Yeah, professionally. There’s a difference.”

The worst part was that Jax wasn’t even trying to flirt half the time. He just existed like that naturally, all lazy smirks and smug little comments tossed over his shoulder like he couldn’t help himself. It got under people’s skin almost instantly. Yours included.

Especially yours.

“Careful, doll,” he’d murmur while adjusting your positioning before a trick. “Keep lookin’ at me like that and people’re gonna start talkin’.”

And because you were unfortunately capable of speaking back to him:

“Trust me, nobody’s fantasizing about the guy who nearly got banned from rehearsal for ‘creative knife usage.’”

That one had actually made him choke on his drink.

What was truly infuriating about Jax was that he could dish out teases endlessly without shame, but the second you turned it back on him, he completely short-circuited. Not obviously…that would require emotional maturity. Instead, he got defensive and vaguely rude in a way that only made it funnier.

Once, after nearly an hour of him relentlessly flirting with you backstage, you’d reached up to fix the collar of his costume jacket and casually remarked,

“You clean up nice.”

Jax had stared at you for a solid three seconds like you’d just shot him.

Then, he pulled away so fast it was almost embarrassing.

“…Wow. Okay. Don’t do that again.”

You blinked. “Do what?”

“Ugh. Don’t do that weird sincere thing.” He grabbed another knife off the table entirely too fast. “It’s freakin’ me out.”

Another time, after he spent an entire rehearsal calling you dollface every five seconds, you finally sighed and said,

“You know, for somebody this cocky, you get flustered pretty easily.”

He nearly dropped a knife directly onto his foot.

You’d never recovered emotionally from it.

The audience, meanwhile, became obsessed.

It had started with clips online: little backstage moments caught on camera, audience recordings of your banter during performances. Then came the edits, compilations, and entire comment sections debating whether the flirting was scripted or if the two of you were genuinely together.

Caine encouraged all of it shamelessly.

“THE TENSION!” he’d shouted excitedly after one particularly chaotic performance. “The chemistry! The yearning! The ticket sales!”

You’d nearly walked directly into traffic.

Now, months later, the two of you were basically inseparable in the audience’s eyes. If Jax showed up somewhere backstage, people immediately expected you nearby. Fan compilations online had titles like five straight minutes of jax looking at his partner like he’s insane and sexual tension or workplace hostility? scientists still unsure.

Jax, naturally, thought this was the funniest thing in the world.

“You know,” he’d said one afternoon while scrolling through clips of your performances on his phone, “I think this one’s my favorite.”

You glanced over from your spot stretched across one of the rehearsal mats. The video playing was from the previous week’s finale, zoomed in dramatically on the exact moment you’d rolled your eyes at him after he pinned a knife between your fingers.

The comments beneath it were significantly worse:

THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY DATING the tension is making me physically ill this is either foreplay or attempted murder

You groaned immediately. “Give me that.”

Jax held the phone out of reach before you could grab it, grinning lazily. “Aw, c’mon, sweetheart. Don’t be shy. The public’s invested in our beautiful relationship.”

“We are not in a relationship.”

“Mm.” He tilted the phone toward himself again. “You say that, but this person thinks we’ve secretly been together for six months.”

“That person is delusional.”

“Yeah, but they made a pretty convincing slideshow.”

You threw a roll of athletic tape at his head.

Unfortunately, he caught it without even looking.

Tonight’s show was completely sold out. Again.

You could hear the crowd before you even reached the curtain, the noise vibrating through the canvas walls while performers rushed around backstage in various stages of panic. Kaufmo sprinted past you, carrying juggling pins. Ragatha was trying to calm Pomni down over a costume mishap. Zooble was sprinting past you, loudly threatening violence over missing props.

Normal circus chaos.

Jax, meanwhile, sat sprawled across one of the equipment crates, effortlessly spinning a knife between his fingers while stage makeup glittered faintly beneath the dressing room lights.

“You’re staring,” he said without looking up.

“I literally am not.”