Work Text:
Life is not easy, not even with the ideas and freedom and newfound lust for life.
The abstracted are still abstracted. They are still unable to leave digital world. It is still only the five of them, once six. They are still in danger of giving up.
The Circus, and the area they are allowed to occupy expands. There's space for them to exist alone, or together, or in groups. Whatever they have the energy or need for, it is available. Caine is receptive to their ideas, and eventually they are to his. Big things happen.
The worlds are left open for anyone to enter as they wish. Updates are made left and right.
It's the small things, though. The Abstracted are given a space to be cared for, and to roam. Somewhere nice and dark, that doesn't agitate them. They get to change their rooms, and later, tweak their avatars. They can't change it fully, it's too hardwired into the code of the place that even Caine is visibly apprehensive about touching it, so they make do.
They make routines, and places for them. They sleep together sometimes, access the internet to watch new movies. Pomni goes up to the cafe weekly, and prepares a hot chocolate for not just herself, but Kaufmo, Ribbit, and Jax. They can't drink it, never will. But that's okay.
They have a proper beach episode, where Ragatha reluctantly teaches Caine how to swim. Technically he already knows how to, but it's the principal of the thing. They play volleyball too, which Gangle is surprisingly good at. Zooble makes them drinks, enjoys occasionally messing around with the sillier effects they can have. There's a day when Gangle's drawings come to life, and they all have a blast trying to wrangle them together.
They fight, sometimes. Bad days come and go; Zooble gets snappy at people sometimes; Kinger spirals from guilt that never really leaves; Gangle stares at the giant pillow fort; Ragatha takes it too far and needs support; Pomni can't get out of bed. In the end, they are there for each other. They talk about their feelings, and maybe it isn't all worked out the first, or second, or even tenth time, but that's okay.
And it's sad, to remember that they're not the real them. It's hard. They're there for each other.
They're there for the new comers too. It's not common for new people to show up, but they do their best to accommodate and understand. After all, they understand the horror of the situation.
They get a bee-like individual named Reima Waters, who ends up going by Buzzer. There's a cartoon ghost named Lydie Anderson who keeps her first name. At somepoint a group joins, having all taken turns with the headset.
Not everyone gets along, of course not. But what is important is that they try.
Rules are added because they want to avoid tolerating bullies. Basic stuff that is, reluctantly, based on Jax's behaviour. As much as he was one of them, they cannot deny the impact his actions had. Pomni wonders if Jax would understand why. She thinks he would.
And then, further into the future, after a long time of learning and peace, Kinger gathers them together.
"It's been a long time, since I first joined. Since my wife Abstracted," he tells them, sat in the little aquarium made for the Abstracted. Kinger has long since made it his space, where people know to come talk to him.
"I'm... I'm so glad to have met all of you, to have had the chance to build this with you and go on adventures. To have made you, Caine. Even when I can't remember it all, the feeling of joy and fondness lingers, right here." He pauses to point at his chest, where a heart would be. And what he's saying dawns on them. "As much as I have spent and cherished my time here, I want to move on. I want to be with my wife, with Queenie."
Though Caine asks, "is that really what you want?" The answer is clear. Who are they to tell anyone that they cannot finally rest? Let alone a friend who has done so much for them and the Circus?
It's a far more peaceful Abstraction than anyone else had gotten before. A funeral is held, and everyone in the Circus stays. They add Kinger to the memorial, next to Queenie.
Time keeps moving on. They grieve, they remember, they continue. Abstraction stops being something feared and horrifying. It becomes something soft, a choice, a message telling the world that they've done all they wanted, that they're happy with how far they've come.
Life is not easy.
But by god, do they make it work.