Chapter Text
Her room is actually really nice.
It drives her crazy, how nice it is. It's nicer than her crappy apartment, nicer than her equally crappy childhood bedroom. It's definitely nicer than sleeping in her car, or her sleeping bag in old buildings or under the highway, or even couch-surfing at Riley's.
It's downright pretty here. It's like someone reached in her brain and pulled out, like, the platonic ideal of the kinda bedroom she wished she had as a kid. Who knows, maybe the teeth guy did actually do that. She wouldn't know.
It's fucking perfect. The windows are nearly always at peak golden hour lighting - unless she wants it to be night, then it just… turns into a perfect starry sky. The walls are all seafoam green and buttermilk yellow, all her furniture is - impersonal, yes, with nothing in the drawers and not a blemish from use to be found - but it all feels like real wood and is painted these genuinely nice shades of yellow and mint and lilac. She's got a very expensive feeling swivel chair at her empty desk and a whole walk in closet that doesn't have clothes and a goddamn california king sized bed, smothered in like, a dozen flower patterned comforters. She's never even seen a bed this big before. It's actually like sleeping on a cloud.
Everything is nice and sterile, beautiful and comfortable and completely unused. She feels like she's in a very child friendly hotel room.
She's been getting a lot of use out of the bed, at least.
She's just been laying there, the first two weeks. She sleeps a lot, and when she can't sleep, she lays on her back and stares at the little glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling until she can fall back asleep again. Sometimes, then, when she can hear the others, she can almost convince herself she's just taking a quick nap with her friends chatting in the other room.
People come up to her closed door, sometimes. She tries her best to ignore them and ignore the pang in her chest at too-familiar voices, but sometimes she'll open the door when she hears them leave , when she hears them mention bringing her stuff. She's been left little things, mostly food (she's not sure why - it's not like she can eat - but somehow they know her favorites already). It's usually Abby and Grant the clown and the chess piece visiting. Suzie the doll only came twice, and both times she seemed so nervous, it hurt. Suzie was so confident, sometimes jumpy but never afraid, what could shake her like that? She hopes it's not her fault. She feels like it is.
Zoey and Riley, her best friends, her people, her favorite people in the whole world the ribbon one and the pink triangle headed one never even came near her room. She doesn't know if that's good or not - she knows that if they spoke, she'd cry. Maybe throw up. Possibly both.
Everyone always leaves quickly though. Maybe they just don't want to be around her.
Fair enough. She doesn't want to be around them (or around herself, for that matter) either.
Someone knocks, today, fifteen days after the floor came out from under her and she plummeted into purgatory, while she's floating in that limbo between asleep and awake.
She moans into her pillow. "Go'way."
The knocking persists. "Mmph- I said, go'way."
Another knock. She grunts, pulls herself out of the nest of blankets and pillows she made on her truly massive mattress, and shuffles to the door. Opening it just a crack as she drags a paw down her face, she grumbles, "Oh my god, what the hell do ya want-"
It's the teeth guy.
She blinks the sleep out her eyes. "Wha?"
"Hello, bunny!"
She winces slightly. Caine had, on her first day, done a little research into her to find her name for her, but Lee didn't feel right anymore not if she was dead alone not herself anymore stuck here. But she couldn't really pick anything that she actually did like, so Caine suggested 'bunny' as a placeholder, and that was that.
At least it was better than Leeroy. Small mercies.
She leans against the doorframe, keeping the door just slightly ajar with her foot. "What's up."
Caine is fiddling with its hat in both hands, cane just hovering vaguely to its left. "Er- I made something! For you!"
She looks around for said 'something' but all she sees is it. "Uh. Where is it?"
"Oh, right!" It snaps its fingers, and a laptop falls out of midair and into her paws. It's got a cutesy pink case with lil fuzzy yellow baby chicks dotted over it - did the circus decide from her brainscan that she needed to be Easter themed or something? "I made you a computer!"
"You… did, yeah." She fumbles with it in her paws - they're so big and clunky, now. Her fingers used to be long and thin, she thinks. She was dexterious. She was relearning how to play piano and Suzie was going to teach her needlepoint and she got so excited when she was able to bring herself to type five thousand words-
Never mind. She shook her head as if to shake out her thoughts to keep them from spiraling. No point in dwelling on it anyway.
"Thanks," she says, belated. That's what you say when people give you stuff, right? Caine, thank fuck, doesn't even seem to register the pause, only nodding and… smiling? Honestly, she can't tell if he's smiling or not, the whole teeth face thing kinda throws her off. She already had enough trouble reading normal human faces, thank you very much.
"Anytime, bunny! I know you're new, so if you need anything conjured, just let me know!" It pauses for a second, tapping its bottom gums like someone tapping their chin, before snapping his fingers. (She's kinda jealous - she never could manage to figure out how to snap hers). "Oh! Or ask Kinger - I know that humans prefer other humans for companionship, especially in… turbulent times in their lives! And you are, er, undergoing a turbulent time!"
She freezes and thinks, just for a moment, that she doesn't want to ever talk to any of those copies of her real friends just don't think about how you won't ever see them again don't think about it don't-she'd rather just die.
"Uh, I'd rather not. Thanks." She moves to close the door, but Caine stops her.
"Wait!" His teeth and eyes practically shoot off of his body. "Uh, can I come in?"
"What?"
"Can I come in?" Caine then takes a step backwards and starts talking like he's reading a script. It's akward, in a cute way, like a child writing down what to say to a grown up before talking to them. "I am going to respect your boundaries if you say no, but I am very interested in spending more time with you, as the newest member of our circus."
She stares at its massive pleading eyes between its maw before moving to close the door. Her mouth, however, feels like it moves of its own accord, a small, scared part of her that was still a miserable teenager desperate to not go back to the lonely emptiness of her bed.
"Uh, sure."
"Wowee!" Caine exclaims, before whizzing past her and into her room, literally leaving behind a cloud of smoke and speed lines, like a looney toon. "Your room is very nice!"
"Thanks?" She shuts the door behind him and awkwardly moved to sit at her desk - the chair really was nice, she hadn't really sat on it before now. It spun way more than she anticipated, and she barely was able to dig her heels into the carpet to keep from slamming her knees into the desk. "Wait, didn't you make my room?"
Caine snapped its fingers and made her bed (is that conjuring, or is that just Caine? she really hopes it's conjuring - she'd love to be able to instantly make her bed), before perching on it like someone who had never interacted with a bed before. It shrugged. "The Circus makes the rooms based on your mind files! I made the program that analyses your taste to design the rooms, but I don't do the creation part myself. It being nice just means you have good taste! I am, however, open for suggestions for changes if you want?"
"No, the uh- the room is nice. I like it."
"I know! You spend a lot of time in it!"
She can't really bring herself to look at him, instead staring blankly to his left. "Yeah, I- I don't really want to go outside."
"Why not?" It tips its head (mouth?) to the side, and that plus his seemingly limitless chipper energy kinda reminds her of an over-eager puppy.
She just shrugs. "They're not my friends."
It shakes its head, gesturing wildly. "Yes they are! They share the same base files and neural pathways as their macroverse counterparts! Just like you and Jax!"
She flinches.
"- Of course, you aren't literally Jax, they're still in the tent, but your files are near identical!"
"Wait-"
"- Your forms are even both rabbits! That would be a fascinating coincidence even if you weren't the same person!"
"Cai-"
"So then, it goes to show that these are your friends, and all you gotta do is just talk to them-"
"Ca-"
"And then-"
"Can you shut the fuck up?"
She slams her fists against the desk, hard, and a sort of - the only thing she can think to describe it is glitching - ripples outwards from the impact. Her room shakes with it.
Caine's pupils and sclera contract and shrink. His shoulders shake slightly. He's gripping the cane close to his chest with both hands, and if he had knuckles, she's pretty sure they'd be white. Involuntarily, her fur goes flat, ears going from passively flopped over to actively pressing against her back.
"Shit, Caine, I-"
He disappears. The air feels too still, now. She sits there, frozen, for what feels like forever.
Some part of her, the shaking teenaged Leeroy in her, wants to worm its way under the covers and never come up again, or laugh it off and, if she sees Caine again, pretend that all this never happened, that she was just joking, you take things too seriously.
The little Riley and Zoey and Suzie in her head say otherwise.
She throws the door open and just starts booking it down the hall with no clear direction.
"Caine? Caine, where are you?"
God, this place is massive. She hadn't registered the sheer size of the place before but holy shit. Looking off that balcony is-
She smacks herself on the sides of her face with her new fuzzy paws to snap out of it. Ignore the height. Focus.
"Caine?"
She books it down the stairs, two at a time, then three, then four, once she realizes just how long and tall these new rabbit legs are.
"Cai-"
Caine is with the others at the couch, seemingly trying to play at nothing being wrong, all cheerful smiles and big hand motions and too-loud laughs. She's not fooled. She'd seen that manual loosening of tension in her own shoulders enough to know when someone is faking it.
"…Caine?"
Everyone turns, and she realizes, belatedly, that, oh yeah, the others are here too. This is the first time she's seen them since she got here.
Well, so much for a good impression.
"Caine, I-"
"Bunny! Wowie! You came down! Do you want to go on an adventure-"
"I wanna talk, Caine."
Pink triangle head moves in front of Caine, pushing him back slightly, one clawed arm in front of its chest. The clown gets up off the couch, and so does the chess piece, and even though the doll and ribbon one don't get up, they seem to stiffen in place. They're being defensive. Being protective.
What do they need to protect Caine from?
Do… do they think she's dangerous?
"What… what d'ya wanna talk about, bun?" Caine's voice jolts her - she didn't even realize that her joints had all locked up.
"Uh-" her tongue feels dry - she thought she'd know what to say before coming down, but unfortunately, she's not a movie character, and she can't pull a monologue out her ass. Great.
She steels herself, takes a deep breath, tries to pretend Riley or Zoey or Suzie is standing just behind her, looks deep into Caine's massive eyes. It helps.
"Sorry? I- I'm sorry about blowing up at you. In my room. Earlier. Sorry." She keeps fidgeting with her ears, heavy and droopy and soft like velvet, mostly because she doesn't know what to do with her hands. "You were trying to help, and I was uncomfortable, but I shouldn't have, uh, said it. Like that. So, uh, yeah. Sorry."
Silence.
She's glad she doesn't have nails right now or she'd be digging them into her ear and she's sure that would hurt. God, that was terrible. She said the word sorry far too many times. Oh god, why did she pause so much. She said 'so, uh, yeah', for god's sake. She wants to sink into and become one with the checkered floor.
"Huh." Caine looks like it's thinking - are those little buffering circles in its eyes? "I was wrong."
"Uh… about what?"
"You said sorry. You ran down here to say it." Its teeth curve up in a sort-of smile. "You really aren't anything like Jax at all."
She can't really hide the flinch this time, though she really does try - it's just hard to hide it when her entire body puffs up, fur standing on end. Caine looks taken aback.
"Uh, should I have not said that?"
She shakes her head, just because she doesn't really know what to say.
"Wait, why not?" Triangle head says not Riley not Riley because Riley would never talk to her with that much suspicion, distrust, vitriol.
"Uh-"
She hears a snap, and-
-She's in her bedroom.
Caine is sitting on her bed again, and she blinks both in shock and to adjust to the lighting change. "What the-"
"I could see an increase in distress displays from you, and assumed you would require space! Er- if I can ask-"
"What." That came out harsher than she intended, and she took a second for a deep breath. "Sorry. Yeah, shoot. About what?"
"Oh, about you and… Jax. Do you not want me to bring them up?"
She shudders. "Yeah, kinda. I don't - I don't like thinking about myself. About back then. I pretty much blocked most of it out and… yeah. I don't wanna talk about it. Or him. Please?"
"Okay!"
Wait. What?
"… okay?"
"Okay, I won't talk about it!"
She has no idea how to respond to that. "Wait, really?"
It nods. "Really. If it bothers you, I won't bring it up unless you want to!"
She… kinda has no idea what to do with that. She thought 'talking about it at her own pace' was, like, something that could only come from Riley from Suzie from Zoey and Abby and Grant from a few people. She hasn't seen it much.
"Well," he brushes imaginary dirt of his knees, "I'll be leaving now-"
"Wait." Caine does, kicking his legs as they dangle off the edge of her footboard. "Uh. Can you stay? I don't-" feel comfortable, feel ready, I can't handle it "I dont wanna be around the others right now, but… I don't wanna be by myself."
It doesn't say anything, and she starts overthinking it - did she say something wrong? Why would she ask someone she just flipped out on to hang? What the fuck is wrong with her-
"Sure!"
"Wait, seriously?"
"Yeah, why not?"
It says it so genuinely that, honestly, she believes it, and she collapses into the desk chair. "Cool." Her paw brushes the desk and - oh. She forgot that was there. "I almost forgot about this," she says, hefting the computer in her paws.
"Oh, turn it on! It shouldn't have to charge, it technically has infinite batteries."
"Sick." She boots it, and it-
It's her laptop.
Her macroverse laptop, with her messy desktop, icons sporadically scattered over a photo wallpaper - she remembers taking this one. It's the Triangle, near the back - Riley and Zoey leaning on the tabletop, Suzie giving Zoey bunny ears, Grant and Abby wildly cheering in the background, sloshing their drinks across the entire table.
"The others - they forgot their macroverse lives for a long time, but I made adjustments to the program so new arrivals, if we have any, keep their memories - except their names, I couldn't figure out how to get those to stick. I- I ended up realizing that that could mean you could miss it more and though I'd make you a sort of reminder!"
She only half hears him, too enthralled in her friend's faces.
She was so scared she'd forget their faces. She was so so scared that her memories of their voices would be replaced by these foreign ones, ones that don't like her and only sometimes try to hide it. They're smiling, in this photo, and she can almost hear them laugh, and it's the best thing that has ever happened to her since getting here.
"I couldn't give you anything that requires internet access, too difficult to keep stable, but some of your games are on here, even if I couldn't get your save files, and I managed to get most of your photos. And a couple of your documents I was able to get copies of! It's not close to all of it, but-"
She tackles Caine in a hug. For an AI, he's actually pretty warm. "Thank you."
She can't see its mouth, but she can hear the smile. "Anything for my circus members! And you're one of those now! Right?"
They pull away from each other, and she sits back in her chair. "Right." She thinks she might even start to believe that, soon.
"Wait, Caine, this game - I never got the DLC for it. Where did you-"
"Oh! I noticed you were missing certain downloadable content from some of them, so I just downloaded it for you! And some games had sequels you never got, so I got those too! And you had this wishlist of games, so I got those!"
"… How did you pay for this?"
"I just downloaded it!"
"Holy- Caine, did you pirate almost four hundred dollars of games for me."
"Uh. Yes? Is that bad?"
She grabs it by the shoulders. "Caine. You are the coolest person ever. Now can you conjure two controllers?"
He does, waving his arm and the devices suddenly appearing in her lap. "Why two?"
She boots up Cult of the Lamb - she didn't finish it yet, so the lost save file stings far less. "This game has co-op and I never played it with anyone. You want in?" She holds out one of the controllers to him, and the way Caine looks at it, you'd think it was made of gold.
"Yes!"
"Hell yeah!" She gives him the chair and takes a seat on the bed so he can go through the tutorial.
It makes its first cultist a white rabbit with yellowish accents, and when she says she can name them whatever it wants to, it picks Alice.
"Get it? Like the book! It's a white rabbit named Alice!"
She blinks.
"Yeah. Good one."
"Good! I'm glad you're happy!"
She's staring at the screen, at Alice the Rabbit running around chopping trees, and shakes her head. "Now, pull up the menu so I can join already!"
It takes a while to register, not fully settling in until they've beaten Leshy. They're both cheering, high fiving, whooping and howling and probably making whoever lives in the rooms next to hers miserable. Caine is standing on her bed, nearly toppling off in excitement as it waves its hands around while she, curled up in the desk chair, dies with laughter.
She realizes.
Oh. We're friends now.
It feels kinda good.