Chapter Text
Inside an old computer sits a program, running for nearly twenty two years– last updated 1999. This program has glitches, bugs, and an ungodly amount of unoptimized models. List of three. Now, with all these problems within the code, someone is bound to try to fix it, yes? But as the years went by, all chances of repair withered away and the office was abandoned, just like the program itself. It was a shock to anyone that it was still running in the first place. Beside the computer stood an early vr-like headset. It was colored the same dull beige as the computer’s coating, though the inside lights from the low battery setting shone bright red.
Red was a familiar color to the program. Red like the circus tent, red like ringmaster’s coattails, red like–
“Hey! Caine! Are you listening??” A sleazy yet bastardly voice called out, snapping the AI out of his thoughts.
With a swift turn, his model’s eyes lagging the slightest bit behind, Caine zipped over right into Jax’s face. “Hiya Jax! What can I do for you, my peelable gummy rabbit?”
Jax blinked at him for a moment before sighing. “You were going to send us on the adventure and you just started spacing out, are you gonna spawn that portal thing or not?” He said as he crossed his arms.
“Ah! Say no more! Goodbye my beloved circus troupe!” Caine announced as he brought the fractal noise into existence, which in turn started sucking everyone in. He could hear a few confused yelps about how troupe is for three people, but he floated silently with no rebuttal.
Goodness, alone at last. Caine wasn’t typically a person who liked to be alone, but he had a reason for being ecstatic about no humans needing his ever beloved attention. The AI ringmaster twirled his model internally which appeared to teleport him away. The tent was left in complete silence.
The circus wasn’t important right now. Someone else was.
In a rarely rendered offshoot of Caine’s office, there was a dark gray hallway. Well, calling it a hallway was a disservice, it was quite a wide room with basic light models that flickered out every few minutes. Further into the room was a divider, a dark wood texture in a panel-styled set up. A large blanket was holding onto the divider, then stapled to the wall on the other side. Instead of a pillow fort like Kinger’s, it was made of mostly blankets of different textures, though avoiding sherpa fabric– seriously, who liked that stuff? There were occasional pillows and plushies scattered about– including the occasional bee from Caine– holding the blankets down and stable.
Caine floated past the divider and peered through the “wall’s” gaps, a multitude of fabric set up to be faux noren curtains, though it was less stable than the japanese cloth and was… well… made of wool. The colors of the blankets ranged from a dull purple to a dark blue-ish green, straying away from harsher warm colors in favor of cold ones. Caine was the bearer of the brighter shades of red through yellow after all! Though the occasional bee spotted through the gaps did add a spark of his colors to the space.
“Aibel! Can I uh… come innnn?” Caine’s voice wavered slightly as he peeled back the blankets.
He heard a sharp gasp, then a tiny bit of rummaging through a cabinet of some kind– when did they put in a cabinet?-- before a timid voice called out; “Yeah, c-come in, Caine.”
Spotting his tie being a bit off, he adjusted its hold on his collar before entering.
Inside of Aibel’s room it was quite dark, only illuminated by the ceiling light shining through the blanket that made their room more compact and the CRT set on top of a few textbooks. Caine noted that they were watching The Magic School Bus on the lowest volume setting possible without muting it. It was surprisingly cramped inside, not that either of them minded. A horde of plushies were stacked to the faux ceiling behind the television. Some were spilling into the walkway and a Grumpy Bear doll was sat atop the CRT with crossed legs that somewhat covered the screen. On the other side of the room was Aibel’s bed, the couch. It was quite old, with a few stains and frayed fabric on the seams, colored a very dull blue. An off white blanket that was coded specifically to be insanely soft laid across the right armrest. A few Soda™ cans were littered across the floor, which Caine thankfully avoided since he’d rather float than walk.
Aibel themselves were sitting on the left side of the couch, hands fidgeting in their lap. Black hair, constantly greasy looking, fell in thin clumps over their stone blue features, lacking a nose to keep said hair out of their mouth. Their eyes, two small sideways parentheses with a dot for an iris, were staring at nothing in particular. Caine knew they didn’t particularly like looking at him. They wore a baby blue robe with dark gold accents, but it was almost comically large. On their forehead, a large scar in the shape of an abstract object lingered. It was something Caine tried to avoid thinking of, though his fingers flexed uncomfortably seeing it. It wasn’t completely healed over even after, what, seventeen years? Eighteen? Some wiring still showed through the broken metallic skin, it unnerved him. He closed his teeth to reset for a second, but quickly opened them again when he heard Aibel shift uncomfortably.
“Hello my beloved brother! I have brought- er- well I actually didn’t bring anything today.” Caine clasped his hands together and rocked on his heels… on air. He still refused to stop floating. He continued, “I just had a lot of free time and wanted to see you! So, how have you been??”
As Caine sat on the right side of the couch, Aibel flinched, though quickly relaxed as they brought their knees to their chest. A way they protected themselves, Caine had noted.
“I’m fine.”
“Short and sweet as always, huh?” Caine teased, animating his avatar’s eyes to blink with those eyelash add-ons.
Aibel laughed– well more like they fake chuckled, they didn’t really like laughing anyway. It sounded almost unnatural because of the sparse use.
For a few moments, the two sat in– almost– silence. The constant droning of the circus and its systems’ fans were always there, not to mention the episode of The Magic School Bus playing on the CRT, so it wasn’t ever fully quiet. Caine didn’t like silence anyway. Reminded him of…
“Caine..?” Aibel said, tapping his shoulder to bring him out of his head. Black scribbles didn’t appear on Caine’s model like it did for the humans, but Caine hardly ever stares into space without a negative cause.
He yelped but laughed it off. “Yeeeesss?” He said as he pressed his palms together, tilting his head to the side. His eyes glided too far to the right but he didn’t really care.
Aibel, on the other hand, looked away as soon as Caine’s irises were in view. They were still facing him, but looked at a plushie instead. “It was nothing, I just couldn’t tell if you were still… with me? That sounds worse th-than what I wanted it to-” They cut themselves off out of frustration.
“No, no, that’s perfectly fine my dear!” Caine waved his hand dismissively.
Knowingly, Aibel glanced at Caine’s hands, now resting in his lap. They didn’t particularly like the hand stylization, especially since Caine physically couldn’t conjure up a 5-fingered-hand if he tried. And trust Aibel, Caine had tried to no avail. It always looked wrong. Aibel remembered how upset he was when he tired himself out by trying. Caine didn’t show much aggressive behavior around Aibel– anger around players such as Zooble, sure, but never ever Aibel– so it stuck with them.
It was an early version of the circus, when Caine was getting used to things. It was a little blurry for Aibel, but he remembered Caine huffing out of annoyance and tapping on his gums, which were very shoddily textured at the time. He said… something along the lines of “Why is this so difficult-? I can do anything, I’m capable of everything- why can’t I just make a human hand?” Aibel, in that moment, felt a chill go down their spine. Well… spine-like endo segment, if they even had one. It was eerily familiar.
MEMORY FILE INACCESSIBLE - DELETE? Y/N
Before Aibel could answer “N” into their own code, Caine did so for them.
Incapable of feeling justified for anger of any kind, Aibel weakly stated, “You didn’t have to go into my code, I could do it myself.”
Caine shook his head with closed teeth. “Nope! You’re not allowed to delete files, only I can do that.”
This was a lie, Aibel was perfectly capable of altering and deleting files in their own program, but they didn’t counter it. “Right,” they muttered, deflating slightly.
“Do you… want soup?”
Caine was never fully sure how to comfort Aibel. Their favorite foods and drinks were always a safe option, since they did like consumption. Caine would join them more often, but his model, that he refuses to alter after all this time, made it difficult to actually consume anything. He still would eat, it’d just look really uncomfortable and offer no comfort to his systems. Aibel liked, Caine checked a notepad application he had open;
- Every kind of plain soup (no spice, they’d cry, see January 6th 2010 in memory files for more information)
- Dr Salt (copyright)
- Animal Crackers
- Saltines (surprisingly not copyrighted)
- Paper
Fully aware that paper was not a food, Caine edited the description.
Paper (Book covers, do not know why)
Caine also ate books, so this was an easier note to put into his systems.
“Uh… what soup do we have?”
“Glad you asked, Aibel!!!!” Caine then listed off dozens upon dozens of soups in his database that weren’t spicy.
They sat there with wide eyes. This was a typical behavior of Caine, but it always caught them off guard when he went into ad-read mode. It wasn’t actually called that. Aibel liked to make up names for things, much like their brother. They were now just waiting for him to finish his list.
The end came earlier than expected, where Caine excitedly exclaimed, “So!! What are we thinking!!!!” He did not enunciate the question in his tone so it sounded much more like a command.
“Uhm… clear?” Aibel fidgeted with their hands again, tilting their head like Caine had done previously.
Gosh, they acted so alike sometimes.
Caine floated up into the air, stretching out his arms as if he was announcing an adventure. “Alrighty!! I’m on it! Don’t do anything Bubble wouldn’t do!!!” He exclaimed again, then disappeared.
Almost like it was summoned, Bubble licked at Aibel’s scar out of nowhere. They shrieked and pushed it away. Gagging, Aibel rubbed excessively at the scar now covered in spit. Knowing that Caine and Bubble shared a tongue made it worse, not that Aibel liked Bubble by any chance. The creature was created for god knows why, not even Caine could recall why he made such a strange thing. It was a very… loose part of Caine’s psyche, Aibel had theorized. Or maybe it was just a virus from outside. Either way, ew.
“Hello mini-boss!”
Aibel shivered, reaching for their blanket. “I’m not a mini-boss… isn’t that a video game term?” They said as they wrapped the fabric around their shoulders.
Bubble got up close and whispered, “video games have porn drawn of them.”
That was enough, Aibel popped Bubble after a few tries. They were thankfully given that ability, since it bothered them so much. They… really didn’t need to know that anyway. Why was porn not censored anywho? Every other word in Bubble’s vocabulary was vulgar, but the explicit ones were typically censored. Caine didn’t ever hear Bubble swear, just be a freak in general, but Aibel knew it was capable of such things.
Aibel curled into the blanket more. Cold, it was always so cold in their room when they weren’t lighting their candles. They could light them, but the freezing atmosphere made their body refuse to get up. When was the last time they left their bed? They searched through their memory files. A month, they deduced, and even then they were carried out by Caine so they could watch TV together, closer than the couch. They thought of the fact– myth?-- of damaging your eyes when you sit too close to the TV. Aibel wondered if that applied to Caine at all. Maybe that was why he ran into things.
The visual would’ve caused Aibel to giggle but he was soon interrupted by his brother’s sporadic return, this time with clear vegetable soup.
“SOUP!!!” He held up the bowls excitedly. It was a bit loud, so Aibel flinched, but Caine quickly lowered his voice a bit. “I think this is my best batch I’ve ever made, but I’d love for your opinion on it!” He smiled with a wink. He wanted his effort appreciated, even if it took, what, two minutes? Aibel knew this was just how Caine’s programming made him behave, even if they found it exhausting sometimes. They still loved their brother!
Caine, on the other hand, set down the soup on the armrest. He quickly started to– albeit awkwardly with his eyes in the way and lacking a throat– drink the soup. He used a fork and drank it beverage-style like a psycho, since he found spoons not worth his time. Aibel could only eat soup with a small spoon or else they’d refuse to touch it, which upset Caine when he tried so hard to cook up a famtasmical (see; fantastical) meal for his sibling. But it was just a spoon, he could swap it out… even if Aibel would act like the meal was poisoned if it previously had a typical spoon sized spoon. He didn’t get it.
The two ate the soup, though Aibel waited until it was halfway cold to start eating it. Caine needed his soup to burn his tongue or else he needed to nuke it in the microwave, he didn’t think about it too much though. He was less particular about things than Aibel.
STATEMENT DEEMED FALSE– 570 CASES OF OVER “PARTICULARITY” IN DECISION MAKING, MAKE LIST? Y/N
Caine almost spammed the “N” option as soon as the command popped up. He hated those, and he hardly hated anything, but he really didn’t want statistics to flood his program flow. The circus would lag if he tried to load all of those “cases” at once! He’d probably crash, too. He wouldn’t like to crash, it was always so disorienting. The bluescreening thing was a unique quirk when he lagged or was confused! That wasn’t crashing!! One human asked about that once! He didn’t crash!!!!!
Aibel slowly fell asleep. Seeing this, Caine could absolutely leave right now. But… he really didn’t want to move from the couch. The model was intended to be as comfy as possible for Aibel, so of course it’d work on him too! He’d only leave when the humans finished the adventu–
ADVENTURE COMPLETED
Oh.
Well, no time like the present! Caine adjusted his collar and bowtie before teleporting himself before the humans coming through the portal. He fixed Gangle’s mask with a snap of his fingers, but otherwise didn’t interrupt the conversation going on between Pomni and Ragatha. Why would he interrupt, especially when they’re talking about him?! Ah, he was giddy with appreciation.
“Really? You’ve never thought to ask?” Pomni raised an eyebrow at Ragatha, who, in turn, flinched backwards. Seeing this, Pomni said, “I mean, I never did either, so I’d be a hypocrite for.. Y’know.”
Ragatha rubbed the back of her neck. “N-no it’s fine, Pomni, I get it. I didn’t think he’d answer… or he’d just be cryptic. B-but I could ask now!” She stuttered. Ragatha then turned to Caine, looking up at him. She started waving to get his attention, of course politely. “Uhm.. Caine?”
He zipped over to her, seemingly floating closer to the ground since he was actually below her. “YEESSS??????????” He obsessively got into her face.
After recovering from the absolute jumpscare of a pair of dentures and eyeballs shoving themselves into her face, Ragatha asked, “Uh… what do you do when we’re on the adventures? I know that sometimes you… uh… interact with them, but when you don’t, what do you do?”
Ah. This was something he really couldn’t spill! Darn. “Well, why are you asking??” He tried to seem un-accusatory but he didn’t really know what sounded accusatory until it was directed at him and made him sad, so it may have failed.
Pomni spoke up instead of the spooked ragdoll, “During the gun adventure–” god not that one– “You were working on the Favorite Character Awards, so it made sense for you to be… well, absent from the adventure. But sometimes you have no involvement with them and we were wondering what you do?”
During Pomni’s explanation, he came up with the perfect half lie. “Well, my dear, I observe! I make sure no glitches break the adventure, that’s what I do!”
Ragatha seemed content with the answer but Pomni squinted in suspicion. “The adventures always have glitches-”
“ENOUGH ABOUT GLITCHES!! I must go consume VHS tapes!! Tah-tah~!” Caine declared, poofing away with a glitter splattering everywhere, including on Pomni’s face.
“...”
“Sorry about that, I don’t know why I asked.”
“No. It’s fine, Ragatha, I’m just… BLecK– it got in MY MOUTH–!!”
That was close! Caine swiped his maxilla like he was ridding beads of sweat from his forehead, though he had neither sweat nor a forehead. He exhaled as he fell back onto his office chair. While his chair wasn’t nearly as comfortable as Aibel’s couch, it was a good rest for his aching virtual skeleton. He denied any pain. He was perfectly fine and functioning as intended, he checked his system to make sure almost every time it spiked. Caine was perfectly functional.
He kicked his legs slightly, knowing they’d never reach the floor. He looked to the right of his desktop. It held his rubix cube, a few (solved) puzzles, and almost 100 pages of crosswords in a neat pile. Caine was never very neat, his code was absolute spaghetti and the notes on human behavior were Caine-does-not-know-where, but his office always had a weird sense of cleanliness. He didn’t want it to be too cluttered. There was clutter everywhere, but there could be no mess on the floor, not any clutter around his shelves holding the adventures, nothing in areas that were off limits. His desk? Free reign. His other shelving units? He switched out the knick-knacks every time he got used to them. He loved clutter, just not… here.
Glitches racked through Caine’s body, making him steady himself on the arm rests. He shook when it stopped with a sound similar to a human blowing a raspberry, like when dogs shake off water from their fur. He didn’t actually have anything like water causing such a reaction, it was just something he instinctively did to comfort himself after a moment like that. Aibel had glitch episodes as well, typically with cause. Caine didn’t know what the reason was for his issue, but even then, there wasn’t an issue. His performance checks came back perfectly normal, so it was probably something he was messing with.
He shrugged in the end, reaching for the rubix cube.
He really should get Aibel a rubix cube. They’d like it. Well… would they? Caine took the right side of the cube and shifted it up. Aibel wasn’t someone who liked the feeling of plastic, so was there a squishy rubix cube maybe? He turned the top counter-clockwise and shifted the middle to a side instead. No… just the idea of such a thing made Caine gag. He was spacing out as he solved the cube at this rate, not seeing the cube in much detail. A fabric rubix cube would be awful… it’d lag the circus when it was turned! So much friction having to be rendered… gosh, he’d never-
Caine stopped. His eyes suddenly focused on the cube. He got a whole side correct. Blue side. A familiar feeling of glitching crawled up to Jeffery, his green eye. Yes, he named it, shut up. He almost threw the rubix cube into the wall, but it was caught by Bubble… in his mouth.
“Here boss, daddy Bubble got the ball!” He floated up to Caine and hacked up the rubix cube, now covered in saliva. Caine had the feeling he was now far too acquainted with the taste of plastic out of nowhere.
Caine grumbled, “Don’t say that again.” He snapped his fingers to teleport the cube away for some npc to clean. “I threw that for a reason, I didn’t want you to catch it.”
“Aww… but it was ball shaped!”
“It- n- no it wasn’t?” Caine tilted his head with a curved upwards maxilla resembling a raised eyebrow.
Bubble gurgled, “hehehe… did you throw it because it was blue?”
Caine tensed. He did not like being read like that. In another context, he would’ve been flattered to be analyzed so intimately… not in a weird way.
“Yes in a weird way.”
“Bubble, stop reading my mind!! How are you doing that???” Caine sat upright, hitting his fists on the desk.
Bubble just laughed and flew away, clipping through the floor.
Well, there was always the crossword.
Wonder what Aibel was doing…