Chapter Text
This was your breaking point. Stumbling through the portal back ‘home’, covered in a thick layer of sand which clung to your digital body, vision clouded by a heavy sandcastle built around your head, a god-damn spear sticking out of your chest...you just couldn’t entertain this anymore.
Perhaps there would have been room to move past this, to just cool down and then return to business as usual. That is, if Caine didn’t laugh at you.
Bright and booming, his laugh was filled with all the gusto of his grating ringmaster voice, of which seemed to never tone down. You stopped walking, slowly turning your head to glare at him, before realising that was probably making it worse as your face was the most ridiculous thing about you right now. He was kicking his legs with pure glee.
“You fell for it! Boy! When I added that little turtle trap, I didn’t think anything would come of it! But then you got the riddle wrong?! And then angered The Great Marsupial? Ohhhhh, what a spectacular domino effect!”
Caine composed himself, wiping a stray tear from his eye and then clicking his fingers, making the spear explode uncomfortably inside your gut. The confetti pouring from your wound made you feel nauseous. Your hypothetical blood began to boil now, your face growing hot as you stared down at your stomach as it patched itself over. He left the stupid sandcastle and layer of sand crusted around your body – whether it was malicious or negligent, you couldn’t tell; you would never be able to tell with him.
“May this be a lesson to all of you, my little sandy seafarers, that when, in life, you happen to come across a giant apex predator with opposable thumbs and a great big spear, that sometimes the best thing to do is...walk away!” Caine lectured, floating around energetically as he spouted his nonsense.
“Oh Caine, you are just so full of wisdom!” said Jax suddenly from behind you, quickly making all of this so much worse. He wrapped his arm around you mockingly, “Some of us will need to learn to keep that in mind!”
“Indeedy-deedy!”
You tugged your shoulder away from Jax, slowly but forcefully stomping off.
You couldn’t tell whether it was embarrassment or plain anger which was making you feel so heated. You were never able to stand being picked on to be an example of what not to do, but now it especially stung when it was over something so stupid. You had come to accept that life for you now boiled down to playing pointless games for perhaps eternity – it wasn’t an easy thing to accept, sure, but you had gotten there. But what was making this unbearable was how you were being forced to take this seriously. With each new adventure that you were subjected to, the less you began to care – and, with the less you began to care, the worse you’d do at the tasks handed to you.
And, the worst part about that, by far, was how Caine was seeming to find it hysterical the more you failed.
But, that was it now. That would be the last time, you’re done, you’re walking away from it all, brushing your hands with it. You made your mind up. He’d have to learn the hard way that if he was insistent on being such a prick all the time, the less people would want to do with him.
You just did not care.
You were going to go straight to your room and stay in there for god knows how long. But, when you approached the lounge on your way, the sight of Zooble laying there with their feet kicked up almost pushed you to tears. You needed company more than isolation.
They looked at you quizzically as you sat on the chair opposite them, with you yourself looking down at your knees as you inflicted a tight grip on them. There was a short, respectful silence before they spoke up.
“Treasure hunt go well?” they asked.
It took you a second more than you’d like to choke out your response.
“Kaufmo found it by accident. Apparently. I wasn’t there to see it.”
“Yayy Kaufmo,” Zooble cheered with cuttingly dry sarcasm, slowly pumping their ‘fist’ in the air, “You can always count on him.”
“Zooble,” you said.
“Yeah?”
“I hate Caine.”
You caught them off-guard with your bluntness, making them snort out a chuckle.
“Welcome to the team. Actually...I dunno if I hate him, but he’s far too annoying to stomach all the time. He’d never realise that though.”
You looked up at Zooble now. You locked eyes with them, eager for the depth of your seriousness and intensity to be carried on to them, “I...really hate Caine.”
They looked concerned now, sitting up from their casual slouch, “Yikes...do you...wanna talk about it?”
You breathed in deeply.
“I-”
“Pah! They’re just mad that they fell into the stupidest trap imaginable and Caine called them out for it. Sucks to suck!”
Your mood somehow dropped lower as you felt Jax plop himself next to you. Zooble rolled their eyes, “£$%@ off Jax, I didn’t ask you.”
Your one-on-one time with the only other circus member you were confident would understand you had evaporated like that. Suddenly the whole cast was here, which somehow spiked your embarrassment further.
“Oh, gosh, Nectar-! Here, let me get that for you!”
Ragatha lifted the sandcastle off of your head, somehow keeping it intact. She absent-mindedly gave it to Jax before she sat on the arm of the chair opposite you. You watched as Gangle, Kinger and Kaufmo sat on a couch further away, having a conversation of their own.
“He knows how much I hate sand. He knows how much I hate the beach. Three out of four of our last adventures have been sand related. Three! There’s no way he isn’t doing it on purpose,” you exhaled deeply, looking at the way the grains of sand all individually stuck to your skin, “This will take forever to take off – again – and he knows it.”
Ragatha frowned, dusting the sand off of her own skirt, “Yeah, I’ve noticed he does that with me sometimes too. He knows how much I hate- uhm…”
Her sentence trailed off as she noticed that Jax was staring at her expectantly.
“...The thing that I really hate, and they just seem to be popping up everywhere! I even had to clean one during the car wash adventure, a really big one! Sometimes I still feel the texture of it on my hands…!”
“It sounds sooooo much worse when you talk vague about it,” Jax said snidely, still holding the sandcastle in his hands.
“Like I’d let you know what I’m scared of!” she huffed, ruffling some more loose sand out of her hair, “And knives too. Well, it’s not that I particularly hate knives, but they just seem to be everywhere...randomly. I understand it with the hip-replacement surgery adventure, but why was there just a pile of knives in the boat with us when we had to explore that swamp?! And they always end up inside me somehow…”
Jax sighed, “Okay, so, firstly, Point A: you’re full of innuendos today. And Point B: have you two considered that maybe you’re magnets for these types of things because one of you is a rag-doll and the other is just straight-up made of honey? I mean, it doesn’t exactly take rocket science to figure out that pin-cushions attract sharp things and sticky things attract literal dirt. Just something to chew on.”
You were still looking down at your body. You gazed right through your translucent amber form, trying to rub more of the sand off your legs. It was a vein attempt, as it just stuck to your hands. You sighed quietly, though your voice was heavy with annoyance.
You hated your digital body from the get-go. You’d even call it one of the worst possible bodies to be trapped in. The way you stuck to everything, the way everything stuck to you, the way animals and beasts and bugs in adventures seemed to want to eat you in particular. There was also a sense of vulnerability to it, being pretty much see-through all the way up to your head, where your literal beehive sat atop, slightly obstructing your vision and impeding your balance. It gave you a sense of having hair - and a little more complexity to your design than just the humanoid-honey thing - but it ultimately did little to make you any less uncomfortable with what you were now. It didn’t take you long to realise that the circus didn’t need more clowns and trapeze artists to fulfil it’s namesake – freaks like you were more than enough to keep that up.
“He’s doing it on purpose because he thinks it’s funny,” you stated plainly, “He wants to amp up the drama and what’s a better way of doing that then putting us up against things we struggle against? The things we hate even.”
Zooble nodded, their jangly zooble-parts wobbling as they did so, “He thinks that our “character development” is something he has control over.”
Jax stood up now, rolling his eyes whilst maintaining that wide smile, “You guys are way too soft! Listen – if you don’t have a few things thrown at you to toughen up…”
He walked behind the couch where Gangle, Kinger and Kaufmo were sat.
“...Then you’ll just stay little flabby crybabies forever.”
His smile broadened more as he let go of the sandcastle. It dropped directly on Gangle’s head. She yelped as the weight of the sand pushed her off the seat, her comedy mask ricocheting off her face and shattering swiftly against the floor.
“Case in point,” he said, gesturing to Gangle with a broad stroke of his arms.
“Jax!” scolded Ragatha, hands flying against her hips.
“Don’t you let us have any peace, you £$%@^$”?!” spat Zooble.
“Caine just fixed that…” whimpered Gangle, scooting over to the fragments of her mask. Kinger went to dust the clumps of sand off her as Kaufmo quickly lent over to help pick the pieces of her mask up – a display of affection that was purely symbolical, as Caine would just poof a new one into existence without even needing the shards. You caught him stealing a quick, dark glance at Jax himself, muttering something under his breath.
You were far too annoyed to even speak. You had a horrible, horrible day, which was a successor in the line of now many others. How could you be chained to such a place which was just full of torment? It came at everybody at all angles, inflicted by people who you should be depending on for camaraderie in this virtual purgatory. You were tired of being forced to experience suffering constantly and having to witness others go through it too.
This was the final straw.
“I’m not going on adventures anymore.”
Your declaration drew quite a few looks. In fact, only Kaufmo seemed disinterested. They watched you blankly as you went over to help Gangle up.
Ragatha was the one to speak up first, “Really? Well...honestly, I shouldn’t be that surprised...you haven’t been having fun on them for quite a while now. I’ve noticed.”
“I know,” you said, “And I appreciate you for trying to keep my spirits up and everything, but this isn’t your problem to fix, Ragatha.”
She smiled lightly.
“Uhmm...Right. I totally support you and everything – I mean, like, obviously,” started Zooble, “But I gotta warn you: if you’re doing this because you want to see less of Caine, you’re only going to see more of him. The more adventures you skip, the more he’ll be showing up at your door and following you around. He doesn’t take ditching lightly. Especially now that it would be two of us.”
You nodded, “I know. I guess I’m just tired of being pushed around like this. If I just keep going on like this I’d lose my mind. Maybe...we could all skip together? Like, in protest or something?”
Jax laughed. He laughed very loud.
“Seriously?! ‘Protest’ his adventures?! Like that would even do anything for a start. You’re acting like he’s torturing you!”
“It must be nice to be the one doing the torturing over being tortured!” you snapped. Jax rolled his eyes and turned around, draping his arms behind his head.
“Most of Caine’s adventures are lame – but it beats just sitting around and looking at the circus walls until we all vomit and die or something.”
“Yeahhh, sorry Nectar, not to agree with Jax or anything, but, although they’re not the best things in the world to be subjected to, I think a good ol’ dose of mind stimulation keeps us all active and healthy! It might not be the best thing for everyone though…” Ragatha trailed off, looking between you and Zooble.
“I, uhm…I don’t really want to deal with Caine when he’s pushy. I really don’t like it…” Gangle added softly, now standing up and holding the fragments of her comedy mask in her arms.
“As King, I stand with the majority of my subjects!” Kinger suddenly interjected, giving you a little jump, “I stand for democracy in my fair Kingdom!”
Kaufmo just shrugged. He was sat on the edge of the couch with his back facing you.
Zooble leaned forward and placed their hand on your shoulder, “I guess it’s nice to have a comrade or whatever. It means we both won’t go insane alone.”
You smiled forcefully.
“Hopefully.”
It didn’t take very long. It didn’t take very long at all.
You woke up to Ragatha enthusiastically knocking your door, alerting you that another adventure was about to commence.
“Just letting you know where we all are!” she had said.
You went back to sleep shortly after that. You didn’t even get a chance to go back into a dream, however, as another booming, more grating voice hammered against the door next.
“Ohhhhh Nectarrr!” it yelled, nay announced, “Nectar, my sweet little honey dollop! I think you and me need to have a little private chat!”
His fist rapped against the door like a jackhammer, causing you to groan aggressively and wrap your pillow around your head. You knew he couldn’t get in unless you let him in – your bedrooms were boundaries for him, in a weird vampire way. On one hand, you savoured in the idea that you had a place where Caine couldn’t reach into, yet, on the other, it didn’t stop him from just screaming until you let him in.
“Now, now, Nectar, I know you’re in there! Today’s adventure isn’t hide and seek, you silly thing! You’d know that if you’d have been there for the send off!”
You stayed silent.
“Your ever-caring and attentive host noticed your absence today and wanted to check up on you and make sure you were okay! We wouldn’t want to have another abstraction so close to the last, would we now?!”
You hissed a curse so low that the censor couldn’t pick it up. The way his jovial tone didn’t falter even when he referred to...god he got on your nerves. You pressed the pillow around your head even more.
He paused for a moment, as evidenced by the lack of relentless noise.
“If you don’t want to leave your bedroom so badly, perhaps we could just talk in there?” he asked.
You held your silence.
“...I see! You’re not ready to come out and face the bright morning sunshine yet! Well, that’s a-okay for me! I don’t mind standing out here for as long as it takes!”
You were sure you didn’t have the will to hold Caine off for any longer than ten minutes, but by god you felt stubborn enough to try and drag it out to twenty. You felt in the mood to test his patience as much as he tested yours.
“Now, let’s see Bubble...seven across, ends in y – ‘appealing to the emotions in an obvious and tiresome way’. Boy, what a doozy – that could be anything!”
“Soppy! Fuzzy! Sappy! Mushy! Corny! Soapy!”
Was he doing a fucking crossword?
“My word, Bubble, all of those could be right! We need to truly think of all possibilities here!”
“...mmmmgmmgm...soupy…”
“Do you have any ideas, my sugar-coated confidante?”
You were sure that this wasn’t how crosswords worked. The answer couldn’t just be anything or else it would incorrectly affect the other answers around it. As they both continued shouting random words outside your door – and with each answer getting said more aggressively than the last – you realised that letting him stand out there and piss you off was another way of letting him get to you. You were too tired to deal with this. Confronting him head-on seemed to be the better option now. You knew this was inevitable anyway.
He yelped when you opened the door, perhaps thinking that his method of drawing you out would need more time than it did to play out. However, he quickly shot up after the shock passed, looking at you with large, mad eyes.
“Stay right there!” he instructed, picturing his hands around you like a camera-frame, “Golly gollopy, Bubble, I think I have it!”
He scribbled something down on the cartoonishly oversized newspaper in his hands. You fully took in that he was sat cross-legged on a stool and smoking a bubble pipe. And, speaking of, Bubble was floating around next to him.
“Hey, how are ya?” he asked casually as he floated next to you.
“I-”
“Gooey!”
Caine shoved the crossword in your face. You saw the big scrawling letters spelling out ‘GOOEY’ in red ink. From the brief amount of time he let you look at it, it was apparent that he had no idea how crosswords worked. For a start, he had written down ‘HONEY’ in a nine-letter space and it overlapped with BEEHIVE in a four-letter space.
“It turns out you were just the inspiration that I was looking for!” he commented zealously.
“Yeah, okay, well done Caine – look, I-”
“SO!” he had grabbed your arm so forcefully that he pulled both of you half-way across the hallway, “Do you fancy coffee? Tea? You know what – I think you’re a tea person! Let’s get some warm, sweet, possibly-delicious beverages into us!”
Digital space and time warped around you as you were dragged into a new area. Your breath was lodged in the back of your throat, body trembling as you fell down into a little café chair. You hadn’t been pulled around by that since you had a tour of the circus upon your arrival. You also hadn’t been so close to Caine since, now managing to take in how...unnerving he looked up close. His massive realistic jaw and teeth reflected your now anxious face in them, whereas his equally large eyes scanned a vintage looking menu.
You exhaled deeply, trying to calm down enough to be assertive in what you knew was going to be a tedious back-and-forth conversation.