Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was no sunrise here. Just the dim, flickering suggestion of light behind a gray canvas sky that never quite decided what time it was. Morning bled into afternoon without color, and night never really arrived—just shadows growing long and uncertain beneath rusting lamp posts that sputtered out mid-sentence.

The coffee in Booth’s cup had been cold for a century. Not that it mattered. He held it out of ritual, fingers curled around the chipped ceramic like it anchored him to something real. Maybe that was the trick—pretend long enough and the world remembers how to be solid.

His table sat at the edge of a shuttered midway café, the striped awning faded to rose and mold. A sign above the window read Cider & Popcorn, 25 Cents. No one had manned the booth in decades. The popcorn machine whirred sometimes, of its own accord, but never made anything.

An empty chair sat across from him. Always the same one. He liked it there, the echo of a guest never arriving.

Booth tilted the cup to his lips and drank. Cold, bitter. Same as ever.

The world beyond him stretched wide but coiled—like a stage set built in layers. There were tents, half-rolled back; a carousel that groaned without turning; a performance stage with velvet curtains eaten by dust. Behind all that, endless fog. The edges of the place fell off into something Booth had never dared to cross. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be crossed. Maybe it wasn’t anything at all.

They were all here. Every one of them. Each assassin stitched into this purgatorial tapestry—like exhibits in a museum no one visited. Time circled them, but never moved forward. They rehearsed. Remembered. Repeated. And some had grown used to it. Some had even made peace.

Booth had not.

He rose, slowly, as if remembering pain in joints that could no longer ache.

The wind whined faintly through the poles and rigging. He pulled his coat closer around his shoulders—not from cold, but from the memory of it.

At the edge of the boardwalk, past the warped ticket booth and the skeletal Ferris wheel, he saw the man he was looking for.

Leon Czolgosz sat alone on a bench beneath a crooked light post. He was still as a statue, hands folded neatly in his lap, eyes watching something just out of sight.

Booth approached quietly, footsteps dull against the boards. He paused a few feet back, observing the other man’s posture. Upright. Alert. Not casual, not slouched. Leon never slouched.

“You never sleep,” Booth said, as if continuing an old conversation.

Czolgosz didn’t look up. “Neither do you.”

A beat passed. Booth stepped closer.

“Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you care?”

Leon turned his head slightly. His expression was unreadable—blandly calm, but with something simmering beneath the surface.

“Do you?” he countered.

Booth gave a faint smile. “Not anymore.”

The silence that followed was the sort Booth preferred. It didn’t demand anything. It simply let things exist. And yet, even here, even now, Booth could never leave a silence alone for long.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” he said. “More than usual.”

Leon’s gaze drifted back toward the mist. “I don’t see the point of talking.”

“Maybe there is no point,” Booth said. “But that hasn’t stopped you before.”

“I used to think this place had a rhythm,” Leon replied. “Like a machine. Like something built for a purpose, even if it was punishment. But now… it’s just noise.”

Booth slowly sat beside him on the bench.

“That’s what happens when things break,” he said softly. “They start to make noise.”

Leon glanced at him, brief and flat. “You think it’s breaking?”

“I know it is.”

Booth leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“Last week, the curtain didn’t rise on time. Guiteau was halfway through his monologue when the lights cut out. And the Balladeer—he froze. Looked at me like he didn’t know the lines.”

Leon said nothing.

“I’ve been watching,” Booth continued. “The walls glitch. The props move when no one’s near them. The wind hums songs we never sang. Something’s coming undone.”

Czolgosz’s hands flexed once on his lap. “Or you’re bored. And looking for meaning where there isn’t any.”

Booth turned his head slowly. “Tell me you haven’t noticed it.”

Leon met his gaze. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Booth said, voice sharp. “If this place is crumbling, if the story’s running dry, that means it’s not eternal.That means it can be ended.”

Leon looked away again.

Booth leaned closer. “Don’t you want that? Even you?”

Leon’s jaw shifted. “You’re assuming I trust your motives.”

“I’m not asking for trust,” Booth said. “I’m asking for participation.”

Another silence. Then Leon gave a small, hollow laugh—not mocking, just tired.

“You always did talk like you were still on a stage.”

Booth didn’t deny it. “And you always act like you’re better than the rest of us.”

“No man is better than any other.” Leon said flatly.

Booth tilted his head. “Then prove it. Help me burn it all down.”

Czolgosz stood abruptly, coat snapping in the motion. “No.”

He looked down at Booth, and for a moment—just one—there was fire behind his eyes. But it wasn’t righteous. It was weary.

“I wanted justice,” he said. “You wanted your name carved into stone.”

He turned to leave. “We both got nothing.”

Booth remained seated long after Leon disappeared into the fog.

He found Guiteau that evening near the old popcorn stand, standing on a crate and preaching to no one. His vest was buttoned crooked and he wore a garland of paper ticket stubs around his neck like a priestly stole.

“…and lo, the Lord said unto me, Charles, thou art my servant, and I replied, Lord, may I also be thy poet? And He, in His infinite mercy, said—"

“Charlie,” Booth said sharply.

Guiteau stopped mid-rhapsody and beamed. “John! What a delight! Would you care to hear my latest? It’s a hymn to personal ambition and hot buttered corn!”

“No,” Booth said. “I want to talk.”

Guiteau jumped off the crate with exaggerated flair and clapped his hands together. “Is it about revolution?”

“In a way.”

“Excellent! I’m always ready for divine upheaval.”

Booth led him back toward his corner—what passed for a parlor, tucked behind the old shooting gallery. There, among broken chairs and curtain tassels, he laid out his plan. What he’d seen. What he suspected. How the Balladeer had faltered. How the world glitched when no one watched. How it could be pushed further.

“How?” Guiteau asked, eyes wide and shining.

“Disturb the script,” Booth said. “Disrupt the cycle. Force something new. Do what they don’t expect.”

“You mean…improvisation?” Guiteau gasped.

“Exactly.”

Guiteau laughed, ecstatic. “Oh John, I knew you’d come around to my methods eventually.”

Booth let him prattle. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the choice.

“And the others?” Guiteau asked, licking apple juice from his fingers.

“Not yet,” Booth said. “Some are watching. Some are too far gone. But we start it. You and I.”

Guiteau bowed.

“God bless us,” he said, “and damn the curtain.”

The sky above never changed, but that night felt darker somehow. The fog thickened. The tents groaned as if under pressure. Somewhere in the distance, Oswald was throwing stones into a dry fountain.

Booth walked past him without a word.

He found Czolgosz standing alone outside the puppet stage, eyes locked on a banner that read HISTORY IS OURS TO WRITE.

“You’re still thinking,” Booth said.

Leon didn’t look at him. “You always assume people think because they’re quiet.”

Booth stepped beside him.

“I don’t need you to agree with me,” he said. “I just need you to admit you’re tired.”

Leon’s voice was barely audible.

“I’m beyond tired.”

Booth waited.
“I died,” Leon said. “For a cause. I knew I would. I accepted it. But this? This is something else.”

Booth said nothing. The wind rustled the banner above.

“We’re all in the same grave,” Leon murmured. “The only difference is who we took with us.”

He turned and walked into the fog.

Booth stayed behind.

The banner fluttered.

The lights above the midway buzzed, then briefly went out.

It started small.

A misstep. A missed line. An off-key piano note.

Guiteau began his monologue three bars too early. Sarah Jane Moore dropped her gun before she could fire it. The Balladeer repeated a verse and then stared out at no one, blinking, as though he’d forgotten how it ended.

Even Hinckley noticed, though he never said so aloud. He just tuned his guitar slower, fingers hovering longer over the strings, waiting for the song that didn’t quite come.

And in the dark space between their acts—between the cycles that wound them up and sent them spinning like toys—something shifted.

The carousel moved once.

No music. No light. Just a groan of old metal, as if the bones of the place were cracking.

The carnival limbo had always been a strange sort of eternity — a muted afterlife where the air was thick with dust and regret, and the lights never quite shone steady. A half-forgotten melody lingered like a ghost in the breeze, weaving between cracked tents and rusted rides, carrying faint echoes of cheers and screams that never truly reached ears.

John Wilkes Booth sat in his usual spot backstage, the folds of his worn coat hanging heavy around him like memories. His hands—those same hands that once gripped a pistol with such certainty—now trembled slightly as they traced invisible patterns on the dusty floorboards. The gloves he wore were empty, hollow reminders of the man he had been, of the cause he had died for.

He stared into the broken mirror propped crookedly against the wall—a shard of the past splintered across the surface. The reflection was a stranger: longer in the jaw, thinner in the cheeks, eyes dull with exhaustion. The man in the glass was trapped, like the rest of them, caught between what was and what could never be.

Above him, on the metal catwalks that twisted like the skeleton of some forgotten beast, Leon Czolgosz watched. The flickering gas lamps cast long shadows that stretched like fingers trying to grasp something lost. Leon’s posture was tight, controlled — the careful, watchful stance of a man who had spent his life hiding, waiting for a moment to strike.

“You’re still here,” Leon said, voice low and rough like gravel.

Booth looked up but didn’t flinch. “So are you.”

There was a long silence. Outside, the faintest wind whispered through the torn canvas of the tents, carrying the distant, hollow clang of the carousel—always spinning, never moving forward.

“We’ve started something,” Booth finally said. “Something that might be more than this endless rerun.”

Leon descended the stairs with slow, deliberate steps, the creak of each one a note in their shared symphony of stagnation. “I see the cracks,” he said quietly.

Booth’s eyes gleamed with a dangerous hope. “Help me split them open.”

Leon hesitated. “They won’t let us.”

“Who?” Booth asked sharply.

Leon’s mouth twitched into something like a bitter smile. “Whoever controls this place. Whoever set the rules. We’re supposed to repeat, to never change. To live our failures again and again.”

The worn curtains behind them trembled like breath held too long, and a voice pierced the stillness.

Guiteau’s mad chant echoed, brittle and sharp as shattered glass:

“I am going to the Lordy! I am so glad!”

His voice cracked, desperate yet exhilarated, as if the very act of rebellion thrilled him like a shot of adrenaline.

The curtain snapped halfway shut, then jerked open again with a harshness that unsettled even Booth. The familiar cycle was warping.

Leon’s jaw clenched. “They’re watching.”

“Or maybe no one is,” Booth whispered, eyes darkening. “Maybe we’re just ghosts, talking to ghosts.”

Booth’s hand landed on Leon’s shoulder, firm and grounding. “Now let’s be some loud goddamn ghosts.”

They gathered in the shadowed corners where the flickering lanterns barely reached—where history’s whispers faded to a murmur.

Sara Jane Moore leaned against a rusted popcorn machine, fingers tapping a restless rhythm against chipped paint. Her eyes, sharp and weary, flicked over the others like a hawk calculating prey.

Sarah Fromme sat cross-legged atop the Ferris wheel’s weathered platform, her gaze distant yet fierce, as if challenging the invisible forces binding them.

Oswald lingered just out of focus, his quiet presence like a faint pulse beneath the chaos.

Zangara muttered under his breath in Italian, hands twitching with the memory of a gun.

Hinckley strummed a slow, melancholic chord on his battered guitar, each note a fragile thread holding the night together.

Guiteau stood at the center, radiant and unstable, his eyes wild with the thrill of the unknown.

Booth’s voice cut through the gathering like a blade, measured and commanding:

“We’ve played our parts for too long. The same stories, the same failures. But now there’s a fissure—a chance to break free.”

Guiteau’s grin was manic. “A revolution of souls! A rebellion against the script!”

Booth’s eyes darkened with resolve. “Not a show. Not a performance. This is real.”

“Real?” Sara Jane’s voice was sharp, skeptical. “Or just another nightmare?”

“Every cycle ends,” Leon said quietly. “Even if this one feels endless.”

Booth nodded. “And what if we choose how it ends?”

Hinckley’s guitar faltered, strings vibrating unevenly. “Or what if it all just resets—worse than before?”

“Then we’ll have tried,” Booth said, voice softer but unwavering. “And that’s all we’ve ever wanted.”

That night, the midway fell silent.

No creak of the Ferris wheel.

No tinkling of the calliope.

No laughter from ghostly crowds.

The Balladeer stepped into the lone spotlight, his guitar slung low and fingers trembling as they plucked a hesitant chord.

He sang a verse—out of sync, missing harmonies—his voice fraying at the edges like smoke.

No one joined him.

The curtain fluttered, then stilled.

The carousel’s lights flickered once, twice, and then died.

A shudder ran through the carnival as if the very bones of the place groaned beneath the weight of change.

Then the sound came.

A single, sharp bang — louder and more real than anything in this unreal world.

The sound cracked like thunder, echoing through empty tents and broken rides.

The lights flickered again—this time unevenly—casting jagged shadows that stretched and twisted.

The banner hanging above the main tent—etched with the faded words "EVERYBODY’S GOT THE RIGHT"—smoked at the edges, curling and blackening as the fire consumed it mid-air.

Booth stood on the Ferris wheel platform, watching the destruction unfold with a calm born of years spent staring into the abyss.

Leon stood beside him, face unreadable.

Guiteau paced nearby, his grin unshaken despite the chaos.

“This is only the beginning,” Booth said.

Behind the veil of fog at the edge of the carnival, something stirred.

The ground trembled beneath their feet.

And from the shadows, the Balladeer emerged—distorted, his face flickering like a corrupted film reel, his voice broken and endless.

And when Booth tried to approach, the Balladeer opened his mouth wider than any human jaw should, and screamed.

Static hissed in his wake.

The carnival twisted—rents appearing in the fabric of their world, revealing nothing but darkness beyond.

Booth turned to Leon.

“It’s unraveling.”

Leon’s voice was barely a whisper. “What happens next?”

From the darkness stepped Oswald, his voice calm but heavy:

“We go back to the beginning.”

And with a sharp snap, the world flipped.

Booth blinked into sudden light.

His cup was cold. The table was empty.

The sign above the café read Cider & Popcorn, 25 Cents—just as it had for as long as he could remember.

The Balladeer was tuning his guitar, the notes tentative and fragile.

Everything had reset.

Same stains on the floor.

Same haze in the air.

Same endless silence.

Booth touched the edge of the table, then his chest.

His heart beat faintly.

Guiteau walked past, humming a cheerful tune.

“John!” he called brightly. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Czolgosz sat alone on a bench, stoic as ever.

Booth approached, standing beside him.

Leon looked up, eyes cold.

“You again.”

Booth smiled faintly.

“Haven’t we done this before?”

Leon met his gaze.

“We always do.”

And the cycle began again.

Chapter Text

Leon hadn’t moved. His posture was still as stone, but Booth noticed the subtle shift in his jaw — tight, locked. His eyes didn’t follow Guiteau’s performance. They were fixed on something far away. Or maybe something within.

Booth spoke softly. “You remember.”

A pause.

Czolgosz didn’t look at him. “Of course I do.”

Booth exhaled through his nose, slowly. “It’s not gone. Any of it.”

“No,” Czolgosz murmured. “But it wants us to think it is.”

He finally turned to Booth, and there was something in his expression — not surprise, not anger, but resignation. Weariness born of repetition. “We always start here. You with your coffee. Me on this bench.”

Booth glanced over his shoulder. The Balladeer had begun strumming now, easy and low. The melody was unremarkable — nothing more than texture — but it prickled at Booth’s spine.

“How could you do it Johnny? Calling it a cause?…”

As if on cue, Sara Jane Moore stumbled past, balancing a half-eaten sandwich on her clipboard. She waved at no one. “Rehearsal’s soon, right?” she called to the air, then added in a lower voice, “Or later? I can’t tell what time it is in here.”

Fromme emerged not long after, walking beside Hinckley. Their voices were low, but Booth could hear Lynette murmuring something about fate and flowers. Hinckley nodded absently, one hand curled in his coat pocket as if rehearsing the weight of a pistol not yet there.

Zangara sat beneath a flickering light, clutching his stomach, brow furrowed — but saying nothing.

Byck paced in front of the funhouse mirror, muttering into the empty air. “Just gotta get the tape right this time. Just gotta keep the tone steady. They’ll listen. Somebody’s gotta listen.”

Moore glanced over, frowning. “You said that last loop, dude.”

Byck blinked at her. “What loop?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

The air felt tighter than it had before. Staler. Like the walls were closer.

Later — the time couldn’t be tracked, not really — they gathered again.

Not officially. Not at once.

Just slow, subtle deviations from the carnival script.

Booth ducked out through the paper ring toss tent. Guiteau followed him seconds later, practically skipping.

“Am I dreaming?” he said, almost to himself. “I could swear we did this. Or dreamt it. Isn’t that odd?”

Czolgosz was already waiting near the carousel. The wooden horses gleamed dully under the weak bulbs above. They didn’t spin.

Zangara came in after them. He didn’t sit. He leaned against one of the support poles, arms folded, his stomach twisting beneath his jacket. But tonight, he didn’t complain.

Fromme arrived silently. Moore drifted in not long after, her usual bluntness muted.

Hinckley followed, visibly unsettled. He glanced over his shoulder twice before stepping inside the clearing. His hand was still in his coat pocket.

Oswald arrived last.

He didn’t say anything.

Didn’t need to.

Booth looked at the group — their faces all familiar, all hollowed slightly in ways the carnival couldn’t see.

“Everyone remembers,” he said. Not a question.

There were nods. Silent affirmations. Only Guiteau smiled — that vacant, bright expression dimmed just enough to betray the unease beneath it.

“It put us back,” Booth continued. “Right back where we started. But something’s different.”

Moore hugged her clipboard close to her chest. “It’s not the same. Things are… off. Little things.”

“The stains on the floor are bigger,” said Czolgosz. “They weren’t yesterday. The smell’s changed too.”

Zangara sniffed. “Less popcorn. More blood.”

Guiteau chuckled.

Nobody else did.

“Maybe it’s punishment,” Hinckley muttered, shifting from foot to foot. “We refused. We broke the song. It’s rewriting things. Making the loop worse.”

“Not punishment,” Oswald said, voice quiet but clear. “Correction.”

The group turned toward him.

Oswald stepped forward, not rushed, not tense — just certain.

“It doesn’t care if we remember,” he said. “But it cares if we stop playing. That’s when it stutters. Glitches.”

“Right,” Booth said. “The Balladeer didn’t know what to do. He was waiting for lines that didn’t come.”

“He didn’t short-circuit,” Czolgosz added. “He just… watched. Until he forgot how.”

“It tried to reset,” Oswald said. “It did. But not fast enough. The cracks stayed.”

Fromme finally spoke. “You mean we can do it again.”

“We should,” Booth said. “Next performance.”

Byck snorted. “You think we get one more chance? What if the next glitch breaks us? What if it locks us somewhere worse?”

Moore raised her eyes. “How much worse is there?”

That hung in the air for too long.

Guiteau rubbed his hands together slowly. “Perhaps it’s not about worse. Perhaps it’s about… undoing.”

“Undoing what?” Zangara asked.

Guiteau’s eyes gleamed faintly in the carousel light. “The lie. The story.”

Booth straightened. “We refuse again. But we don’t wait this time. We speak to each other. We let the cracks spread.”

Oswald gave a slow, single nod. “And when it blinks — we go further.”

A silence fell over them again, not fearful this time, but focused. Heavy with intention.

A cold wind rustled the frayed tent edges.

From somewhere far off, the Balladeer’s voice called.

“Time for rehearsal…”

They did not move.

The carousel lights buzzed, dimmed, then flickered to life again — casting the peeling paint in uneasy gold.

“Time for rehearsal…”

The voice came again, tinny this time. Too slow. Like a record turned by hand.

They moved without moving — the assassins. One by one, rising, drifting toward the striped tent. Guiteau straightened his jacket and grinned at no one in particular. Byck stuffed the last of his notes into his pockets. Fromme and Hinckley moved together like shadows. Zangara clutched his stomach but said nothing. Moore wandered in the rear, biting into a stale donut she hadn't held a minute before.

The illusion was reassembling. So they played along.

But not all the way.

Booth waited, then turned.

“Leon. Lee. A word.”

It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The two stopped — Czolgosz near the bench, Oswald halfway through the arch of the funhouse entrance.

Neither hesitated.

The three of them ducked into the space behind the carousel, tucked out of sight from the warped carnival mirrors. The shadows here were darker. Quieter.

The music faded.

Booth didn’t speak at first.

He simply looked at them — the youngest, and perhaps the oldest in spirit.

Czolgosz leaned against a post, arms folded, face unreadable.

Oswald stood, hands in his pockets, eyes slightly downcast. But he wasn’t nervous. He was listening.

Booth broke the silence.

“You feel it too.”

It wasn’t a question.

Czolgosz answered without looking up. “The loop’s thinner.”

Booth nodded slowly. “Like we’re walking over ice, and we can hear it creaking.”

Oswald didn’t speak. But his fingers tapped against his thigh, one-two-one-two, like the ticking of a clock.

Booth’s gaze shifted to him. “You’ve been quiet.”

“I’m always quiet,” Oswald replied, voice calm, almost hollow.

“That’s not what I meant.”

A pause.

Czolgosz looked over. “You’ve seen more than the rest of us.”

Oswald’s fingers stopped.

“…Maybe.”

Booth stepped closer. “The Balladeer.”

Oswald blinked.

“You were him. Or he was you. Or you’re both. I don’t know. But I saw it.”

Oswald said nothing.

“Something cracked when we refused,” Booth continued. “And he… changed. You felt it, didn’t you?”

A long breath.

Oswald finally spoke. “He didn’t change. He revealed.”

That silenced them.

Oswald looked up — really looked, for the first time. His eyes weren’t cold. They weren’t angry.

They were tired.

“He’s not a man,” he said. “He’s an idea. A story. One that keeps playing itself. I was never supposed to be real — just the final verse. The exclamation mark. That’s all he needed me to be.”

Czolgosz shifted. “But you are real.”

Oswald gave a soft, humorless smile. “And that’s the problem.”

The carousel behind them groaned. One of the horses jerked forward a few inches, then stilled again.

Booth turned toward it, then back. “So what does it want? This place, the Balladeer, the show — all of it?”

Oswald shook his head. “To preserve the script. To keep singing the song. Over and over.”

“And what happens if we stop?” Booth asked.

Oswald looked at him. “You saw it. The cracks. The silence. The Balladeer didn’t know what to do without the music. Without the cue. He waited. And when we still didn’t play our parts…”

“He forgot them,” Czolgosz finished.

Oswald nodded. “I think… I think he started remembering who I was.”

A stillness spread through them.

Czolgosz furrowed his brow. “That’s dangerous.”

Oswald gave the faintest smile. “It’s already too late.”

They stood there, three ghosts beneath the gears of something older than all of them.

Booth rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking. “We can’t do this alone. The others—”

“Are scared,” said Czolgosz.

“They should be,” Booth muttered.

“No,” Oswald said. “They’re scared, but they’re ready. You saw them tonight. Every time it resets, more of them remember. Even Guiteau.”

Booth scoffed lightly. “He remembers and forgets at once.”

“But he’s starting to choose to remember,” Oswald said.

Booth stilled.

Oswald continued, “That’s the shift. This place doesn’t erase us. It buries. And if we dig—”

“We break through,” Czolgosz said.

A pause. A breath.

Then Booth smiled — faintly, warily.

“It’ll try to stop us.”

“It already is,” Oswald said. “Did you notice? No one’s spoken of why they did it since the reset. No one mentioned their President. Not once. Not even as a joke.”

Booth’s smile faded.

“Because that’s where it starts,” Oswald finished. “If we forget our reasons… we become props.”

Silence.

A carnival bell rang somewhere in the distance.

Booth exhaled. “Then tomorrow, we begin again. But not as actors.”

Czolgosz pushed off from the post. “Then what?”

Booth looked at both of them.

“As men.”

Oswald tilted his head. “Even if that breaks everything?”

Booth gave a slow nod. “Especially if it does.”

The lights flickered.

The Balladeer’s voice drifted again, gentler this time.

“All right, folks, take your places…”

It sounded almost afraid.

They turned back toward the stage.

And for the first time, they did not feel like performers.

They felt like something else.

Something true.