Work Text:
“Is it… terrifying?”
My voice comes out rough, scraped raw by the silence that has stretched between us for what feels like centuries. The words barely disturb the stillness.
Around us, there is nothing.
Only the endless black expanse of Jax’s abstracted conscience.
The lone streetlamp beside him flickers with a dim crimson glow, casting weak light across the edge where we sit. Beyond it, reality simply ends. There is no horizon but instead just a border where existence dissolves into absence.
Jax’s legs swing lazily over the side. I pull my knees tighter against my chest.
Unlike him, I can’t bring myself to sit comfortably this close to the edge of everything. Every glance downward twists my stomach into a tighter knot.
The void beneath us looks almost hungry.
I don’t know what happens if someone falls. I don’t know if there’s a fall at all. Maybe you simply… stop.
And the universe just forgets you were ever even there.
“No,” Jax says at last, halting my train of thought. “I don’t think so. It’s just the way it is, you know? Everything ends eventually.”
His eyes remain fixed on the darkness ahead as he speaks. It’s oddly peaceful.
“The drip finally stops.”
I swallow. My fingers tighten around my sleeves, and suddenly, I feel a suffocating sensation as wetness begins to gather in the corner of my eyes. My voice cracks.
“See you on the other side, Jax.”
A small smile touches his face. It’s so unlike him, so gentle, that, had I not been sitting with him here for hours, I think he’d be playing a prank on me.
“Oh, pipsqueak, no.”
He shakes his head.
“There is no other side.”
His smile fades.
“This is it.”
The words settle over me like fog. For a long time neither of us speaks. I stare into the void where reality gives way to nothing and try to imagine not existing.
Every version of death my mind creates still includes me somehow. A spectator, a ghost, or just a memory watching from somewhere beyond. But abstraction isn’t death.
Eventually I find my voice again.
“Weren’t you scared when you realised?”
Jax is quiet. Then he chuckles drily. “Terrified.”
I blink. “What?”
“Fuck, I was so terrified.”
For the first time since arriving here, he looks at me and the red light catches in his eyes. “I cried. Panicked. I hated myself so much because everything I’ve ever tried to avoid just came flooding back.”
His usual smug smirk returns, but there’s a weird form of genuineness in his words. “You really think I came here looking this calm?”
I don’t answer. Because, honestly, I did.
Jax always seemed so much tougher than fear. But as hours pass by I begin to realise that perhaps that was part of his act after all.
“I thought there had to be a way to just disappear,” he continues. “Thought if I worked hard enough, understood enough, ran far enough, I’d find a way around it.”His gaze drifts back toward the void.
“But eventually I realized I wasn’t afraid of abstraction.”
My stomach tightens.
“Then what were you afraid of?”
“Facing myself.”
The words hit harder than I expect. The darkness suddenly feels colder.
“I spent so much time avoiding myself, hiding behind a mask and fearing vulnerability.” His words carry a pain I never thought I’d ever see from him. He pauses before continuing. “And she managed to come through to me. She didn’t give up on me,”a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Persistent little gremlin.”
Then, Jax leans back against the flickering streetlamp and folds his arms behind his head. “Anyway,” he says, deliberately changing the subject, “that’s enough self-reflection for one eternity.”
I snort. “There you are.”
The conversation drifts after that. Not toward anything important or meaningful, I think neither of us really wants to anymore. There isn’t much left to solve anyway.
So we simply sit together at the edge of Jax’s conscience and talk about nonsense instead. Old arguments among the group, embarrassing memories from Caine’s stupid adventures. People we’d met, people we’d lost. Mistakes we’d made.
It’s one of those kinds of conversations people have when they stop worrying about where they are or where they’re going and simply enjoy being.
At one point, I catch myself laughing so hard my stomach hurts. I hadn’t expected to laugh tonight.
Jax notices.
“See? Told you,” he grins, “it’s not all doom and gloom after all.”
Then his smile softens and for a moment, neither of us says anything. As I stare out into it, the darkness beyond the edge remains perfectly stil and strangely, it doesn’t seem quite as frightening anymore.
No, it almost feels… peaceful.
My eyelids suddenly feel heavier than before and I raise a hand to rub at one eye. Jax notices immediately.
“You alright?”
“Yeah.”
My answer comes automatically but halfway through saying it, I yawn. His face lights up instantly, twisting into his teasing Cheshire grin. “Oh, okay, that’s embarrassing.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Tired?”He gestures theatrically around us. “You came to visit an abstracted consciousness floating in the cosmic void and you’re getting sleepy?”
I laugh despite myself but the sound comes out weaker than before. It’s an odd feeling, the exhaustion settling over me feels strange yet weirdly warm. Almost like something inside me is loosening.
I feel myself staring off more often, and as time progresses I begin to lose track of the conversation. I forget my words, my thoughts begin to grow foggy.
At first, I assume it’s nerves and fear. Then I remember why I came here, and the realisation settles quietly deep inside me.
It’s starting.
I don’t say anything, I wouldn’t even know where to start. How does one react to the irreversible end? But maybe, deep down, maybe I simply already knew this would happen eventually.
Maybe I also don’t want this moment to end. Maybe, selfishly, I just want a few more minutes before it becomes real.
Jax is halfway through telling some ridiculous story about Kaufmo and Ribbit when I begin to slip and his voice drifts into soothing background noise, the kind you’d fall asleep listening to.
“…and then somehow everybody blamed me??”I smile faintly. I’m too tired to respond. Then, without really thinking about it, I lean sideways, just enough for my shoulder to brush his.
A second later, my head settles against him.
The conversation stops. Jax freezes and the silence around us stretches.
“Wow. I’ve waited years for this.”
I smile at his teasing and a snort slips out of me despite myself.
“Look at you.”He points dramatically, turning to look down at me, “Voluntarily seeking physical affection.”
For a while, that’s all there is; his teasing and the faint hum of the lamp. My eyes remain closed, basking in the atmosphere.
Gradually, the exhaustion continues deepening and as it goes on, it begins to feel less like tiredness and more like drifting. Like standing ankle-deep in water and realizing the tide has already started pulling you out.
As time fades, so does Jax’ teasing, although it’s not because he runs out of jokes, but rather because he notices.
I know because I can point the exact second it happens, the exact moment he understands. His voice trails off and the next sarcastic comment dies before reaching his lips.
The irony would almost be funny. I came here because I thought I had time.
Jax is quiet for a long moment, long enough that I finally glance up at him. Something unreadable crosses his face as he stares out. Then he inhales slowly before he lets it go and his expression softens.
“You know,” he says quietly, “I really didn’t think you’d manage to turn this into a dramatic exit.”
I smile. I can feel myself slipping further away now.
Thoughts begin drifting and memories become harder to hold onto. Yet strangely, I don’t feel afraid.
Sitting beside him in this strange place beyond existence, it feels okay.
“I think…” My voice is raspy and dry as it trails off, but Jax waits patiently for me to finish. “I think I’m glad it was you.”
His smile becomes gentler, losing that teasing edge.
“Yeah?”
I nod weakly against him.
“Yeah.”
When he speaks again, his voice is quieter.
“I’m glad you came.”
Something in my chest aches and my eyes begin closing again, but this time I don’t bother fighting it. Jax shifts slightly so I’m more comfortable against him.
And when abstraction finally reaches me, it doesn’t feel like falling into darkness. It feels like sitting beside an old friend on a balcony in the middle of the night until sleep quietly takes over.
The last thing I am aware of is Jax’s presence next to me and for the first time since I learned what abstraction was, I find that I don’t mind the end nearly as much as I thought I would.