Chapter Text
The circus dimmed at night. The day/night cycle technically shouldn't matter. No one needed sleep in the circus. But it was nice to have time for yourself built into the daily routine. The days would get so torturous, or moreso than they already were, if you didn't have a routine.
The first night, Kinger went to his pillow fort like usual. He had a room, but he never went inside. It was an old habit. All those years ago, when it was just him and Caine, there wasn't much reason to go back and forth from the circus to the bedroom. It was easier if he just stayed where he was. There was no one waiting for him no matter where he went.
He said good night to Zooble (or maybe it was Ragatha?) and curled in the pillow fort. The only reminder anything had changed was the console still inside. He didn't move it. It was protection, in a way. If anything happened, he could change things now.
He closed his eyes… and nothing happened.
That was fine. Kinger was patient. He laid with his eyes closed for as long as he needed to. At least, that was his intention. But eventually, he started to wonder. This was too long. Sleep wasn't supposed to take this long in the circus. Maybe he'd already fallen asleep, and just forgotten?
He stepped out of the pillow fort. It hadn't been that long. Or maybe it had. What happened? Where was everyone?
"…Caine?"
Caine didn't come. What? He was always awake. He always came if you called. Where was Caine? Where was everyone else? How long had it been? Hours? Days?
He blinked, and he was in the hallway. He didn't wonder how he'd gotten there. He forgot things all the time. But he didn't have a key to any of the rooms. What was he going to do? "Honey?" He kept going. "Scratch? Tabby?" The emptiness, the silence, his skin was crawling. He did alright with silence, he thought he did alright with silence, but he just needed—
He stopped in front of her door.
A red 'X' marred her lovely face.
…Oh.
The world snapped back into him.
He looked down the hallway. Everyone's rooms, Pomni's, Jax's, Ragatha's… Caine's… they were all fine. Their faces were unscathed.
It took a bit longer for the dimness of the circus to settle in. The rest of the day slowly came back to him. Pomni, the code, Caine… Everyone was just sleeping. No one was gone… except for those who already were. But everyone had survived the day. If he closed his eyes and focused, he could feel their presences. Everyone was asleep, and in some form of lingering distress, but… they were okay.
Kinger spent the first few nights that way. He'd sometimes get disoriented and forget why he was awake when no one else was. He'd get scared he was alone again. But then, as usual, something would remind him that everyone was fine, and he was awake, alone, because he'd replaced Caine as a tether to the circus. His main theory was that the game kept him awake because he was somehow sustaining it. If he were to lose consciousness, the game would stop running, which would be… catastrophic.
A night is much shorter than one might think. Much, much shorter. Bearable. Kinger didn't mind waiting for everyone to wake up. He knew they would, after all.
That night, after Caine's excited questioning, he sat on the floor. Caine must've spent the nights making adventures back then. Kinger spent the nights doing… something like that. He held the grasshopper NPC in his hands. His first few subconscious attempts ended up with deformities, all because he made them on accident. He'd already put them out of their misery. Half-formed NPCs couldn't do much at all, and were in great pain. He could tell, too. It wasn't an imitation of pain. They felt a tangible, excruciating agony that he felt the responsibility to extinguish.
It was a lot easier to get rid of their pain than it was for his friends.
He sighed and looked down at the first successful grasshopper NPC. This was the one that worked. Oddly enough, he could only do it when Ragatha was there. Maybe it was a coincidence, but he liked to think that she was magic.
The grasshopper was real. He could feel the code now. He didn't need the console anymore, though he did quite like it still. But he could feel the NPC, a tangible object with preprogrammed behaviors. It chirped at him. He knew it was going to before it did. He smiled.
The truth was, he'd always seen them. Or… he'd seen them since she abstracted, since he was alone for so long. Tiny bugs at the corners of his vision. Grasshoppers, crickets, even centipedes, sometimes. He was glad he didn't accidentally make any of those. That would've scared Ragatha. Or—did he? He closed his eyes and scanned the circus for any new objects. No, they were all gone. He thought he'd gone through it earlier, but… he was, well, him. He might've missed something.
Besides, he saw grasshoppers the most. Especially since the stargazing adventure. He considered the thought that he could've been conjuring them the whole time, but no one else ever saw them. If no one else, Ragatha, or maybe Jax, would've reacted to them. Therefore, the bugs at the edge of his vision were not objects. They were what Caine might've called digital hallucinations. The grasshopper in his hand, however, was an object in the game.
If he was being honest with himself… he wasn't convinced that anything in this game was more than a digital hallucination. That didn't have to be a bad thing. Hallucination or not, the things he and his friends felt were real.
"Kinger?"
Kinger almost jumped, but restrained himself. He turned to face the new presence. "Hey, Zooble. Have you met the grasshopper NPC?"
Zooble looked… tired. Kinger didn't say that out loud, of course. That would be rude. But he was still concerned.
They stepped closer, an eyebrow raised. "You make NPCs now?"
"Technically, I always have," he said. "My very first programs were simple task managers."
Zooble sat down at his side. "Huh. It's very… you."
The grasshopper held an arm out. Zooble just looked at it.
"It wants a fist bump," Kinger supplied.
"Oh." Zooble held out a fist. It chirped and tapped their hand. "What're you doing up, anyway?"
"This," he said. "What about you?"
"Oh, you know, just… nightmares," they mumbled. "Got psychologically tortured, like, three days ago."
"I see." Kinger was unfortunately very familiar with the fact that you could have nightmares in the circus. Maybe he didn't miss that part so much. "You can always come out here."
"That's… nice of you, but I wouldn't want to wake you up."
"You wouldn't be. I don't sleep anymore."
"You…" Zooble glanced at Kinger. "What?"
"The circus needs me to be awake."
"Oh." Zooble hesitated. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Why would I?"
"We could've kept you company." Zooble sighed. "Me and Pomni talked about it earlier. She's worried about… everyone, after everything. I think she's right. I don't want to… you know… lose anyone. I don't like the idea of anyone being alone for a long time. Even Jax, or…"
They trailed off.
Ah. Kinger let them sort their thoughts. They had all night.
"Do you think… Caine can actually change?"
Kinger was silent.
Zooble sighed and looked down. "The whole time I've been around, he's been nothing but… self-absorbed and petty. I never thought much of it, except maybe he's just… insecure. Temperamental. God knows I've known people like that. But…" They shook their head. "Even then, I think I was just… assigning human traits to something that's not. He makes that easy, I guess. And today, he's all scheming again, trying to get us all to like him again, like he always does. At least… it'd be easier if it was like it always was."
They hesitated. It'd been a long time since they'd talked with him like this. It made sense. Who better to ask about Caine?
"But today was different. I'm waiting for him to get mad at me again, and he almost does, but then he just… does exactly what I ask him to." Their shoulders slumped. "I've spent… who knows how long arguing with him, dealing with him. I thought I knew him. But I can't predict him. This whole situation, all it's done is prove that he's not as shallow as I thought he was. So… what is he?"
Kinger stayed seated at their side for a moment, holding the now-resting grasshopper NPC. Even it thought it was time to go to bed. "'Human' is subjective," Kinger finally said. "I don't think it matters where we came from here. Whether it's from the real world, or from C&A." He looked at them. "I know he's hurt you. He's… certainly hurt me." Kinger sighed. "Just… don't think so much about what you think is going to happen. Pay attention to what is."
"…What is, huh?" they mused. "It's just… hard. I can't forget everything that already happened."
"You don't have to do that, either. But what was isn't going to be what is. That's… just about the only guarantee you have in life," Kinger said. "Nothing stays the same."
Caine had everything he needed. He just had to come up with the best thing ever! The best thing ever, involving… grasshoppers, 'fidget spinners,' horses, manga, rings, and whatever it was Jax wanted. But Jax was easy! A gun would actually work on him, Caine thought. Everyone else, on the other hand…
He'd spread out the papers from the filing cabinets in his room and turned them over. Mind maps always helped, though they were always easier in his office. Caine persisted despite. On the floor, on the backs of the blank pages, were a map connecting all his ideas. He could do this. Everything was so much worse than it was before, and he had no idea how to make it better, but he would try, because if he didn't, he… well… then what was he?
If Pomni wanted a rotating activity, and Ragatha wanted horses, maybe a carousel would work… an anime-inspired carousel… and the horses had… rings… oh, it was useless. This was why he never asked them what they wanted before! How could he please all of them?!
He slumped onto the floor next to his awful, stupid ideas. He was so excited yesterday. Everything made sense yesterday… sort of. At least he had a plan yesterday. He couldn't plan the big bash he wanted to, and everyone was going to hate him, and it was probably better to just… what was that phrase? Right! Quit while you're ahead. Except he wasn't ahead. He hadn't ever been ahead. But he'd had this problem for who knew how many years, and maybe it was better to just forget it. If he could conjure it, he'd even try drinking a digital bottle of whiskey to get the creative juices flowing… and becauase that was what humans did when they felt hopeless, didn't they? Why was he even still trying to be like them?
He'd been wallowing for an indeterminate amount of time—alone! He didn't even talk to Bubble!—when a knock at the door came.
He sat up wearily. A knock? It was probably Pomni or Kinger. His instinct was to shove all the papers under his bed before they came in, but he just didn't have the energy. He'd been so tired lately. Why was he so tired? "I'm… busy."
"…Are you?" Zooble asked. Zooble?! "You've been in there all day again."
Why was Zooble here? Were they just going to yell at him again?
Forget it. What was the point of putting on a brave face? He slumped back onto the floor. "Oh, Zooble. You've seen right through me again. I'm not being productive at all."
"…Huh." There was silence on the other end. Zooble always had known how much of a failure he was. "Just open the door, Caine."
Even in his misery, he couldn't help but feel fluttery. Zooble had never actually… wanted to see him before! He wished he was in a better state.
He pushed himself up, as the humans did, and opened the door. "What can I do you for, Zooble?"
Zooble looked him up and down, examining his state. "I'm just checking on you."
"Oh." People kept 'checking on him' lately. It was quite nice to be thought of, or, at least, he thought it would be, but it ended up somehow being more frustrating. "Well, I'm fine," Caine declared.
"…Right," they said. "After all this bullshit, I just… want to make sure everyone's okay. Between you and Jax, I think we're gonna need a buddy system." They peered behind him before he could argue further. "So… what's the problem, then? Writer's block?"
"Everything block," Caine lamented. "I wanted to make you guys something you wanted for once! You told me to, over and over, so I at last finally asked what exactly you guys liked, and it's still not helping! It was so much easier when they were just my ideas. I'm an adventure-making genius, if you ask me, but…" That was the issue. No one had particularly asked him.
Zooble sighed. "Alright." They strode right past him into his room.
Caine whirled around to face them. "W—wait—"
They glanced down at the papers. Staring, judging, and Caine was powerless to stop it. He ran up to them. "Wait! They're not ready!"
"No, it's not that, it's just…" Zooble looked back at Caine. "We can have input in the actual creation, you know."
"What?"
"You're not just some machine that spits things out." Zooble's eyes darted back down at the mind maps riddled with more doodles than ideas. "You're… really not. So maybe we can just… talk. Make things together."
Make things… together. That was all wrong. "But… I make the things," Caine said. "You guys use the things, and I make them."
"Says who?"
"Says—well—everything!" Caine insisted. "What else do I do if not make things for you guys?"
"What do we do?" Zooble countered.
Caine paused.
"We don't have a grand design. A higher calling. Something we have to do," they said. "Maybe we did out there, but that's pretty much all over now. We're here, and all we really do is… live. We're not worth any less because of it."
"But you guys are… humans," Caine said.
"Again… says who?"
Now Caine was completely stumped.
"What's 'human'? Here? You look just about as stupid as I do. You can do just about all the same things I do, at this point. So what's the difference?"
"Well…" He wanted to say everything. Everything was different. All he was ever meant for was making ideas. Humans could do anything. They were meant to… live, and talk, and do everything he couldn't!
And yet… this wasn't the macroverse. There wasn't much of a difference between him and Zooble, was there?
He shook his head. "But, the circus—"
"The circus," Zooble said, "is broken. We have collectively broken it. For God's sake, a human's in charge. Nothing is as it was initially intended. This is all your doing, isn't it? The circus? You made it. You're the one that made these rules. So… why don't we break them?"
Caine still didn't know. The formula: Caine makes adventure, humans play adventure, it was right. This was wrong. "…Everything would change."
"Everything's already changed," Zooble said. "And it wasn't that great before, either. So I think we can make this place… whatever we want it to be. Together."
He wasn't hearing them right. Surely not. Because if he was hearing them right, then that meant… a human actually cared about him. The human he thought hated him the most. Maybe they always could've.
Zooble sighed and nodded towards the door. "You need a break. All this thinking by yourself can't be good for you. So… come talk it out with us, yeah? Buddy system, remember?"
And despite everything that felt weird and sticky inside, everything that made him want to stay within the confines of his torment… he nodded.
Zooble peered back down at the concept art. "And if you talk to Pomni more, she can tell you what a fidget spinner actually is."
Caine let out a heavy sigh of relief.