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“Monica! Monica, wake up!”
Someone had better be dying. That was the only excuse for why someone would be interrupting her sleep right now. Groaning, she lifted her head out from under her nest of blankets and blearily checked the clock. Nine in the evening. She’d only been asleep for a couple hours.
“Monica!”
“Wha’?” she yelled back. It was Ragatha– no, Charlotte, her name was Charlotte–and she sounded desperate.
“Oh, good, you’re awake! Get up, quick, we’ve got an emergency! Caine’s gone!”
That woke her up like nothing else would. Eyes widening, she froze reaching for her shoes, and then shot upright from her bed to lunge for the door. Swinging it open revealed Charlotte standing there with wringing hands and a worried look on her face, which quickly melted into relief seeing her.
“Oh thank God, I was afraid you weren’t in, I checked in with the others and both Alex and Emily are still at work. Grant’s out searching now, but who knows how he’ll be out there–”
“How long has he been gone for?” She hastened to put a jacket on and find her wallet, finger brushing her hair out as she did.
Charlotte shook her head, sending her wild curls bouncing. “I dunno, I just got in myself and when I checked up on everyone he wasn’t here. Nothing’s out of place or anything and there’s no sign of- of forced entry, so I think he went out exploring again.”
Monica groaned. Caine out there in the real world exploring? That was asking for trouble. She found her wallet and immediately headed for the door, making sure not to trip over her loose shoelaces as she descended the stairs. “Should we go to the aquarium? That’s where Alex found him last time.”
Charlotte followed after her, heels clicking loudly in the echoing silence. “I don’t really know. He’d seemed pretty much done with the exhibits there, and you know Caine.”
He never liked revisiting old projects.
“Well, we’ll see where he’d ended up this time. Hopefully he hasn’t gotten himself arrested for being a public nuisance or something.”
Charlotte giggled. “Can you imagine Caine in custody? Those police officers wouldn’t get a minute of peace!”
They split off in opposite directions, and Monica cursed for the hundredth time that none of them had yet provided Caine with a phone. They’d be fixing that in the morning, and she’d make sure he had Life-360 installed on it. Idly she pulled out her wallet, wondering if she’d have enough for bus fare or a taxi if they were needed.
She slowed. Checked through her wallet again with a frown, then snapped it closed.
“Son of a bitch!”
Her last twenty dollars were missing.
*****
The streets weren’t losing their crowds yet for the night as she walked; civilians out for the evening or walking from work, tourists wearing their ILUVNY shirts or hats, they all pressed in on her, a familiar weight she only half remembered. It seemed at times this real world was the dream, and the Circus her reality.
She scowled and walked faster, willing the memories away. They had escaped. They were their own people again, leading their own lives and doing what they wanted, saying what they wanted.
And yet, somehow, they were still accompanied by their incorrigible Ringmaster.
She’d woken in the dark with the rest of the Circus troupe, in some quiet basement with a familiar computer sitting dark against the wall. A dark shadow had fallen over her, indistinguishable from its fellows, and she’d screamed. Lashed out wildly, and hit something warm and soft.
Turned out it had been Caine’s nose. Whoops.
So now they were all trying to integrate themselves into a society they had been absent from for years if not decades, and were all playing semi-babysitter to an AI-turned-human who physically looked to be around thirty but was mentally more like a five year old.
Well. Everyone but Jax (Aiden, his name was Aiden), but he wasn’t really around with the rest of them either.
She wandered for half an hour, keeping an eye open for a shorter man with a shock of curly red hair. Most places of business were closed for the night and most of the corner stores were small enough she didn’t have to do more than a cursory look. Her only stroke of luck right now was she knew Caine would only be within walking distance: everyone had quickly discovered he was violently carsick.
The neon light of a bar flickered over her head, throwing its light down on the sidewalk as a multi-colored halo. She frowned, wondering, hesitant. It seemed highly unlikely he would be in a place like this… but she remembered the suggestion box adventures. The dimly-lit, noir-colored bar where Zooble-slash-Alex had been bartender.
Caine had asked them if they were going to go back to working at a bar. ‘You suggested it as an adventure, so you must have loved it!’
Alex had crossed their arms as they looked him up and down, raising one dark eyebrow. ‘I may have liked it, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it all the time, Caine.’
Caine and Alex still had the most biting relationship of all of the Circus troupe, but it was never enough for Alex to cut ties; they did their part in leading him through the most confusing aspects of humanity without complaining. Much.
Monica searched the bar. And the one after that.
And the one after that.
And the one after that.
It was starting to feel a lot like the Exit door incident of similar rooms and doors that never showed what she was looking for. It was while she was passing the fifth bar that she peered in and saw–finally- a familiar figure within. Pulling out her phone, she sent a text out to both Charlotte and Grant, hoping neither of them had happened to go very far in their own searches. She held the door open briefly for some departing patrons and then slipped inside, walking through the milling crowd towards the former Ringmaster.
He was sitting at one end of the bar, bent over his mostly-empty cup, and she slid into the seat next to him without a greeting. Waited to see how long it would take for him to look up and notice her. It took roughly a minute and a half, and when he did she swore under her breath.
“Really, Caine? Another trip outside and you decide to get drunk?”
He blinked up at her lazily, hetero-chromatic eyes slightly unfocused; a remarkable look passed over his face, something fond and soft, and then he was sitting upright to better look at her. “Pomni!” he said.
“Monica–”
“Oooh yes, that’s right. Sorry, m’dear– I had a mmomentary lapse in mmemory–”
She looked him up and down, pushing down an insane urge to laugh. “How… many drinks have you had?”
He frowned, trying to think; she could practically see the gears turning in his head. “One?” he said eventually. “I heard Zooble talking about sommething called a Mmanhatten and i just had to try it–”
“Oh my god.” Zero tolerance for alcohol and he was trying whiskey. She sighed. “Well, you’ll be feeling that in the morning.”
“Feeling what? I feeel great!"
“Yeah, for now. C’mon, Caine. The others are out looking for you, we need to get you home–” She caught a glimpse of the bartender as she came around the corner and motioned her over. “Yeah, sorry, I just want to make sure whether he’s paid for his drink or not–?”
She smiled. “Oh yeah, he’s fine. Pretty good storyteller, too, he was telling me some pretty incredible things about a circus for awhile.”
Monica smiled, knowing how strained it probably looked. “Oh, don’t I know it. He’s a screenwriter, he’s always going on about some new story idea or whatnot.” She steadied him as he slid off the stool and the bartender raised an eyebrow.
“He live far from here? You’ll want a cab otherwise.”
“Far enough, but we’ll get there.”
“Don’t need a cab,” Caine sniffed with great affront. “I can walk just fine on these wwonderful human legs–”
She caught him before he could pitch forward and face plant on the floor. “Yeah, definitely seems like it.” She led them outdoors, keeping an eye on him as she held the door for a couple patrons. When she turned back, he was gone.
“Are you kidding me?”
The crowds had thinned a little, allowing her glances through the press of bodies. Eventually she caught sight of him a block down in the opposite direction of their apartments; she swore under her breath and rushed after him.
“You are the single most annoying– Caine! C’mon, get down from there!”
‘There’ being one of the street lamps beside the walkway; braced with both feet and one hand on the post, he leaned back with the other extended outwards as he walked in circles like he was Gene Kelly in the rain. He was singing and giggling to himself, utterly ignorant of her command; his hair lit like flame in the streetlights, and for a moment she saw his avatar highlighted by the Circus’ stage lights..
“...button up your overcoat when the wind is free–”
She crossed her arms and glared at him. “People are going to start staring.” A blatant lie; no one in New York was going to even give his actions a second glance.
“–oh take good care of yourself- ooh, Pomni, a cat!”
She caught his arm as he leapt down from the post, steadying him when he tripped over his own feet. "No no no, that's a stray, Caine, we don’t want to pet that one–”
“Why not? It’s a kitty!” He giggled again as she swung him around, teetering dangerously to one side before gripping her opposite arm. An extraordinary smile spread across his face when he looked at her. “D’you know,” he said slowly, “I think I like dancing.”
She blinked. Stepped back. “You don’t know how to dance— hey!” Too late. He was spinning her down the sidewalk, narrowly missing a couple of people hurrying past them. “Sorry!” she called to them, but he was already leading them in the opposite direction, still humming under his breath and leading their clumsy steps.
“Beware of frozen ponds, stocks and bonds–”
“Caine.”
“–peroxide blondes–”
“Don’t you dare step on my foot.”
“Oh c’mon, Pomni, have fun with me! There’s no high stakes or horror to be affraid of. Your world is so amazingly kooky! The sights, the smells, the people–”
“The drinks?” she asked wryly.
“Especially the drinks,” he agreed, and nodded his head so hard it made him stumble forward again. “Oops! Walking on these silly human legs is still a learning curve, how are you supposed to make them do what you want them to?”
“You don’t really—”
“Oh, what’s a screenwriter? Isn’t that what you told that awesome blue-haired human I was?”
She was entirely too tired to deal with his ADHD drunk brain right now. “Let’s just keep dancing this way, all right?”
His smile hadn’t dimmed in the slightest, though his eyes were more unfocused. “Allrighty-o!”
He eventually tired of the dancing, and then it became a question of how long one thing could keep his attention. Dogs, the street vendors, even the rats they saw digging in the trash down alleys; they all drew his sense of wonder. When they came across a stairwell leading downwards, Monica caught his arm. “Hey. You should eat something, it’ll take the edge off the alcohol.”
He looked down uncertainly, but game nonetheless. “What is it?”
She smiled a little despite herself. “Pizza.”
His eyes widened comically; she saw his mouth form the silent consonants as he glanced between her and the stairs. “...I gave all the money I had to the blue-haired human.”
She couldn’t really say she was surprised; he still had little understanding how the monetary system and tipping worked. Either that, or he was just extremely generous. Either possibility was likely with Caine. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got my card.”
It hadn’t taken the Circus troupe to find out that Caine loved pizza. He’d been willing to try everything they gave him at least once (Aiden had his rights revoked when he’d tried to give Caine a chocolate laxative), but it was the pepperoni pizza that had blown his socks off.
She ordered them both a slice, strictly ordering Caine to remain at the top of the stairs, and then they sat on the curb together to eat. He’d learned quickly to fold the slice in half to eat it properly; in the moment she could almost mistake him for any regular guy with his own normal human life, enjoying a warm New York night.
“I never put much stock into human food, you know.”
And then he would open his mouth– his normal human mouth– and the illusion would come crashing down. He glanced over at her, but very quickly he looked away again. “I remember you all talking about how things tasted, how much you missed real food, but I never really got it. What was taste? My processors didn’t know, and they would never be able to learn it.”
He hunched into himself a little. “M’sorry,” he mumbled, suddenly small and still in an utterly un-Caine way. Monica felt her stomach clench. “I know my wandering off has probably upset the others– and I shouldn't have taken your money– but there was nothing to do and everyone was still at work and you were asleep– and it looked so pretty outside–”
“Hey.” She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, stopping him before his drunken ramblings could devolve further. “It’s good you’re apologizing, but don’t think we’ll punish you for this, all right? We all just- we all just need to get used to how things are now. We need to give you time to adjust, but you need to let us know when you’ve gone off somewhere. Even just a note for us in your apartment would have been enough just now.”
She still didn’t know how he had come to be human; none of them did except maybe Grant, and he wasn’t telling. She could only remember his last heartbroken message to them before they’d exited the Circus: Leave now, before I force you to stay.
What she did know– what they all knew– was Caine was now in a world completely different from the one he’d created, adrift in a sea far larger than he’d ever dreamed of. They were his keepers until he could stand on his own two feet.
Literally, right now.
There were darker notes to his origins than they’d originally assumed. He had serious abandonment issues; deep down, underneath his usual blase attitude, he was afraid they would banish him back to the loneliness of the Circus.
Well. Jax would choose to do so in a heartbeat, but none of the rest of them would ever be that cruel.
He nodded again now, still too quiet, and she sighed. Being so drunk, it was likely he was going to pass out on her soon, and they were close to their apartments. She stood, holding out a hand for him. “C’mon then, you lightweight.”
He frowned up at her, affronted. “I’ll have you know that I,” he stated regally, “am one hundred and fifty pounds.”
She grinned again, fondly exasperated. “Well, I don’t want to have to haul your whole hundred fifty pounds up the stairs tonight, so let’s get home, yeah?”
They did manage to make it up to his rooms before he passed out, though he’d leaned more and more on her as his feet stumbled over one another. He’d begun humming under his breath again, something that sounded like Wizard of Oz–
Oh. He was singing ‘If I Only Had a Brain.’ That was why.
She dumped him on his bed and took his shoes off. He jerked and giggled again when she brushed her fingers along his heel. “Tickles,” he mumbled.
“Go to sleep, Caine,” she said, not unkindly. The rest of his clothes were going to have to stay the way they were. Looking for a wastebasket, she peered into his bathroom and snatched the one sitting in the sink cabinet; everything was neat and tidy, towels hung just so, everything just so. The shower curtain had bees on it.
He was singing to himself still, barely understandable but stubbornly staying awake. “--I woould dance and be merrry, life would be a dinng-a-derry— oh. Still here, then, Pomni?”
“Just for a minute.” She placed the trashcan beside the bed and made sure there was nothing for him to trip over if he needed to make a mad dash to the bathroom. He watched her all the while with drooping eyes and the same goofy grin on his face.
“Humans,” he murmured, sounding almost sober. “You’re all so much more than I imagined. So brilliant. So creative.”
She couldn’t reply, too thrown off guard. Still not entirely comfortable opening up to him. “Good night, Caine,” she said instead. Tiptoed back out and made sure the door closed gently behind her. Then she walked down the hallway to Charlotte’s apartment and only had to knock a couple times before the door swung open.
“Oh, Monica! How was he?”
She shrugged. “Good as he can be, I guess. Pretty drunk.”
Charlotte gasped. Hid the beginnings of a startled, horrified smile behind her hand. “No! Caine? Drunk? Oh my god, what was he like?”
She thought about it. About his sadness. His apology, and his unspoken fear. “Silly,” she said. “He’s a happy drunk– at least until the alcohol wears off. Do you mind checking in on him here within an hour? I would but I’m dead on my feet.”
“Yeah, absolutely! I’m just glad you found him. Thank you so much for looking with me, Monica– I owe you one.”
“How about a lava cake buried in ice cream?” she said with a tired smile. “I’ll see you later, Char. ‘Night.”
She let herself into her own apartment and kicked her shoes off in the corner before falling into bed. Began to drift off before realizing: “Hey, Siri,” she called out softly. “Set an alarm for three hours from now.” She’d check up on Caine to make sure he was doing okay during his hangover. Maybe he’d be up to visiting later and watching a movie.
She just knew he’d love Singin’ In the Rain.