Chapter Text
“Chris, I’m gonna be real here: on the very real pyramid of “Christine’s worst and most rancid ideas”, this one has to take the cake. No contest.” Comes a drawling, exasperated male voice.
Over the crunching of boots on snow, drawing away from a parked Ford Focus, Christine Kim laughs lightly and glances over her shoulder. Lightly falling snow settles on her hair, jacket, and beanie as she flicks on a bright flashlight. “Aww, what’s wrong, Felix? Worried you’re gonna put on another headset?”
Behind her, Felix Aguirre smacks a flashlight frustratedly against his palm, disheveled brown hair falling over his face. “No, I just think it’s a terrible fucking idea to go poking around a dilapidated C&A office after how well that went for us last time. What if there’s, like… I dunno, heat-seeking machine gun turrets mounted in the walls, or Vietnam-style pitfall traps?”
Chris rolls her eyes. “I doubt anyone even uses those anymore. And why in the world would C&A be wanting to protect this office? It’s just termites holding hands at this point.”
“Oh yeah, because that makes me feel so much safer,” Felix groans as his flashlight finally flickers to life, “I should’ve just blocked your number when you asked me to do this shit with you. ‘Oh Felix, do you wanna go do urbex stuff with me? I promise you won’t get tetanus from the dirty environment, or brain-eating amoeba from still water!’”
Chris slows as she approaches the groaning building. She casts her flashlight beam around, searching for an entrance into the building, but nothing immediately stands out. “I literally said you could back out. Dakota would’ve come with me.”
Felix throws his hands up in exasperation, judging by how the beam of his flashlight shoots up into the dark sky untouched by light pollution. “Well I’m the only one who has any sense of self-preservation here! It’s either I come along with you, or you two idiots end up doing some stupid shit together and dying!”
Heaving a sigh that sends a puff of fog billowing from her lips, Chris turns and starts skirting along the edge of the small office building. Felix lets out an intentionally loud sigh before following her.
It’s been two months since they’d escaped the circus, having found out that some weird device created by C&A had literally teleported them into the computer. Lord only knows how that sort of technology was created in the 90s.
They managed to escape from the computers they’d been sucked into in their respective abandoned buildings and gain some semblance of normalcy. Then, about a month ago, they’d managed to get in contact with each other and started hanging out.
Two weeks ago, Chris finally had to do something about that terrifying itch that plagued her—the deep-seated, gnawing apprehension regarding the fact that everyone’s computers had been left powered on when they stumbled out of the old C&A offices. Which meant that anyone else could wander in and get stuck in that collapsing, fragmented hell overrun with bloodthirsty Abstractions and countless pits that one could fall into and get sucked into the Void.
Only now, there’s no Caine or previous captives to help get someone out of there.
The thought of someone else being left to die or abstract there… it’s been keeping Chris awake.
As her mind wanders, her boot catches on something under the snow and she staggers forward with a yelp. Felix grabs her wrist, preventing her from falling.
“See? You would’ve cracked your head open without me here.” Felix tuts.
“Oh, you can shut right up, four-eyes.”
Felix opens his mouth to argue, pointing a finger, before losing steam and mumbling a wounded, “Fuck you.”
It’s got no bite to it, just a half-assed attempt at guilt-tripping, and Chris laughs. “Hey, I think the glasses suit you, bunny-boy.”
Felix scoffs. As they continue walking and slip around the corner to the building into an overgrown gap between a chain-link fence and the wall, Felix says, “A lot of people think they look better without glasses, but I think I’m pretty sexy with ‘em.”
“I think that’s just a cope because you know you’d put in contacts the wrong way.” Chris teases, shifting sideways to squeeze through a particularly narrow gap.
Felix rises on his toes, trying to fit into the same spot. His ass catches on the fence momentarily, and Chris heaves an annoyed sigh as she reaches out to make sure his jacket doesn’t get shredded on the briars, ivy, and chain-link. Once Felix is on the other side, he mumbles a ‘thank you’ before launching into another rant on how dangerous urbex is.
Finally, a line of floor-to-ceiling windows makes itself known in the narrow space. Chris hums in approval, sidling over to inspect the windows. And to her relief, one of them is completely shattered, leaving a big, open hole leading into the building. “Felix, look!”
Felix groans. “I hate you.”
But he doesn’t turn around, and he doesn’t stop Chris from entering. He just mutters something under his breath and follows her through the jagged maw of the window. Shards of broken glass crunch under their boots as they gingerly duck through, and they both slow to prevent slipping on the icy debris. Once they’re through, Chris raises her head and takes a look around.
The room is pretty cleared out, looking like some sort of hastily-abandoned office space. Cubicle walls rest folded against a far wall, moldy carpet stretches in haphazard patches across the floor, and a few scattered office chairs lie in various skewed positions across the space.
What catches Chris’ attention, though, is the stairwell at the far left side of the room. A set leads up, and another leads down. Which means there’s a lot to explore here. Chris’ face lights up.
Felix slides in front of her, holding his hands up to stop Chris from moving. As he does, Chris’ flashlight catches his face and his dark green eyes light up yellow-green like a deer caught in car headlights. Chris doesn’t react. That’s just part of their new normal at this point.
Something about being teleported into a digital world and back did… something to them. Chris isn’t sure what to call it, but it unsettles people. The eyes are one of those things.
Shooting Felix a withering scowl, she wiggles her flashlight side-to-side to make Felix’s eyes flash rapidly and mutters, “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Felix reaches out, grabbing Chris’ flashlight and turning it away from his face. “It’s back at the apartment, wrapped in warm blankets, drinking Fanta, and playing Red Dead Redemption 2. And I’m thinking that’s a much better idea than messing around in this dump.”
Chris clicks her tongue. The flashlights in hers and Felix’s hands flicker for a moment as their respective frustration rises. Static rumbles low in the back of her skull. “You can go home if you want. I’m gonna keep looking around and make sure I destroy any working computers here because I have a conscience and don’t want another poor soul to end up stuck in that world again!”
Felix curses under his breath, smacking his flashlight again as it dies out and struggles to come back to life. “Fine, Jesus, I’ll stick ar—god damn, I hate this electrical interference shit—I will stick around solely because I don’t like thinking about Dakota kicking the piss out of me for abandoning you.”
“How noble.” Chris says flatly, slipping past Felix towards the stairwell. They pause at the mouth of it.
Felix gestures vaguely towards the stairs. “So? Up or down, Indiana Jones?"
“Let’s go up.”
Chris starts heading up the stairs, breath coming in puffs. Behind her, Felix’s boots squeak against the cold steps.
Halfway to the second floor, the stairs creak and groan, like a beast rousing from slumber. Felix and Chris freeze, eyes wide. Their flashlights flicker again. But the creaking stops swiftly, and they exchange an apprehensive glance before continuing on their way.
At the top of the stairs is a short hallway with a few offices branching off of it. Most of the doors are left ajar, their hinges rusted in place, and Chris takes a breath before taking the plunge. She peers into the first office on her left.
The room is messy, like whoever had occupied it had left in a rush. The desk is crookedly skewed, the leather office chair tipped on its side behind the desk, and the computer’s keyboard and mouse are on the floor. Chris approaches the desk with a deep breath, peering around at the old, boxy computer on its surface. After a moment, she reaches out and moves the computer monitor off of the PC casing. She picks up the computer.
There’s no way to go about this elegantly.
Felix is already shoving the window open with a grunt of effort, and he shifts off to the side once it’s open enough for a computer to fit through. Chris pokes her head out, looking for a good spot.
A cracked, overgrown concrete sidewalk stares up at her from below the window. And she throws the PC through.
It hits the concrete with a deafening CRACK, bits of metal and plastic flying like grenade shrapnel on impact. Felix and Chris stare down at the carnage for a moment, making sure nothing looks salvageable, then duck back inside. “Onto the next, yeah?” Felix says.
They work methodically through the six rooms lining the hall, destroying computers as they go. Whether it’s throwing the PC through the windows onto ice and concrete, or grabbing whatever they can find to bludgeon the computers with, Chris and Felix leave nothing remaining. And as they step out of the sixth and final room, Felix grins crookedly at Chris.
“I admit: destroying stuff like this is kinda fun.” He says.
Chris smirks back at him, bumping him with her shoulder as she turns for the stairs. “Cheaper than a rage room, right?”
Felix laughs behind her, loping to catch up and match her pace. “Hey, I still don’t condone your risky, stupid habits. But yeah, I guess I don’t entirely regret coming with you.”
They make their way down the stairs again, passing the main floor and hesitating momentarily before descending into the basement.
The faint moonlight supplementing their vision is completely choked out by inky blackness here. And some small, pre-circus part of Chris worries about the idea of their flashlights going out.
She knows that they wouldn’t be entirely screwed, though. Since the whole ‘glowing eyes’ thing also means that the Circus’ escapees ended up with pretty decent night-vision. Chris’ baffled optometrist described it as having developed a ‘tapeta lucidum’ upon returning to the real world, which is apparently the thing that allows animals to see better in the dark.
Even now, as she glances around at the large, warehouse-like space falling away from the stairwell, she can make out the hazy shape of all sorts of servers, steel shelving, and cable.
Felix pauses, having seen the shapes in the dark as well, and tilts his flashlight around the empty space stretching out from the stairwell. A dusty glass barrier separates them from the void, and Felix shudders. “This is how we die, Chris. You happy?”
Without responding, Chris continues downward. The air grows less crisp the further down they go, although the frigidity remains. Now, it’s as if they’re descending into the throat of a dormant god with gnashing teeth hidden out of sight.
When they reach the bottom, Felix and Chris cast their lights around.
Powered-down server racks loom around the aircraft-hangar-sized space like skeletons, forming a labyrinth of monoliths stretching out into the blackness. Boxes upon boxes of god-knows-what are stacked too neatly on the shelves, as well as more server equipment and parts, and Chris can’t help the anxiety that twists in her gut.
“There’s no way we can destroy all of this.” She says, suddenly realizing the sheer size of the mission she’d set for herself.
Felix sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Unless you know how to build a bomb, no.”
Chris glances at him hopefully. Felix wrinkles his nose as he shuts her down with a cold, “No, I do not know how to build a bomb, you goddamn animal.”
Scoffing, Chris brushes past him. “Fine. But it might at least be a good idea to take a look around. Grant might know a way to destroy all this garbage. Or maybe we can find something to help us.”
“Yeah, and maybe Caine will poof into existence, human body and all, and say ‘Now how would you guys like to go on an adventure?’ before doing something unhinged?” Felix snickers with a grin.
She doesn’t grace him with a reply. Instead, she starts moving between the server racks, letting her eyes drift over the countless dusty structures. Thick cables run over the floor between them, never really showing where they begin or end as they weave through the servers. Snakes of copper and insulating rubber, frozen in a writhing twist.
Felix at least has the sense to stick close to Chris, his boots scuffing over the floor as he jogs to catch up to her. And despite his incessant complaining and abrasive attitude, Chris is actually very thankful that he came with her.
The far wall starts to make itself seen at the end of this passage through the server racks, and Chris slows a bit. Felix draws near, clouds of his breath puffing just above Chris’ head. “This place is creepy.”
“Yeah. I’ve done a lot of urbex stuff, but this is by far the creepiest place I’ve been in.” Chris admits.
Felix sucks in a breath, shifting his weight between his feet as Chris turns to face him. “Should we get outta here?”
For once, Chris actually agrees with him. She nods. “Yeah. Lead the—”
KSSSHT–
Felix and Chris go stone-stiff, flicking off their flashlights as the snarl of static rips through the underground server room. Chris’ heart rabbits frantically against the inside of her ribs, screaming, clawing, begging her to run away. Felix likely feels the same.
But something low, primordial, almost inhuman tugs minutely at her heart and mind, pulling her towards the sound. Behind her, Felix whispers, “What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know. But I feel like… something’s pulling me towards it. You?”
Felix twitches uncomfortably. “...I don’t like this.”
That omission might as well be a definite affirmative. And that’s enough to make Chris shakily reach down to grab Felix’s wrist. As she walks towards the sound, Felix momentarily hesitates. Then, he mutters sourly under his breath and lets himself be pulled along.
They weave back through the server racks, feet hardly making a sound as they stalk closer—two cautious animals investigating a hidden enemy. Their eyes scan the fuzzy grey outlines of the path ahead of them, terrified of being jumped. But nothing comes.
They make their way into a slightly more open area, where several wooden desks without chairs hold slightly more modern computers. Smaller casing, flat, rectangular monitors, and ergonomic mice sit neatly atop their surfaces, albeit covered in dust.
What catches Chris’ eye, however, is the faint bluish glow coming from the farthest desk. She squeezes Felix’s wrist, and he moves to bump their hands against her side in response.
They start for the light.
As they draw nearer, Chris swears the shadows at the edge of her vision stare back at her with flickering, multicolored eyes that roll about like marbles. Whispering, indistinct voices curl around her ears, soothing yet unsettling all at once.
Chris and Felix stop in front of the inexplicably powered-on computer. And lo and behold, the Amazing Digital Circus title screen flickers on the monitor. Though… it’s a little different from how it had been when Chris had entered.
The edges are a little less polished, more jagged, and the colors aren’t nearly as saturated. The low hum-buzz of analog static echoes through the space, and the sun and moon cycle the background between night and day in even, monotonous intervals.
As Felix watches, Chris extends her free hand towards the computer monitor. Not to do anything with it, but to move it out of the way of the PC tower behind it.
I need to destroy it, she repeats in her head like a mantra.
The moment her hand grows close to the monitor, a black, crackling hand juts up from the bottom of the screen, palm slamming against the inside of it. Chris is sharply yanked back, away from the entity, and Felix trips over his own feet as he pulls her. They collapse backwards, Chris framed by Felix’s stupidly-long legs, and stare in horror as a second hand reaches up to claw at the inside of the screen.
It almost looks like a person in the middle of abstraction.
Which means…
Chris rips herself away from Felix, leaping to her feet and shooting towards the computer. Vaguely, she knows Felix is shouting her name and scrambling for her. But she knows she can help this person before they abstract.
She can pull them out.
She can save them.
But how?
As if answering her question, one of the person’s hands breaks through the monitor, shaking as it reaches for Chris.
“P-POMNIIIII…” The voice, an incomprehensible cacophony of static and text-to-speech audio, croaks.
Only then does Chris hesitate.
This person, whoever they are, knows her circus name. And that means they might know how to drag her back there. Her heart thrums in her throat.
Before she can process, the inky hand has latched onto hers, squeezing tight enough to hurt. Static tingles, shooting painfully up her arm, and she bites her tongue hard enough to taste blood as a choked cry tumbles from her throat.
“CHRIS!!” Felix shouts, his arms circling Chris’ torso and yanking her away from the monitor.
Unfortunately, that yanks the creature out of the monitor with the harsh crack of breaking plastic, squealing computer audio, and the thud of parts—and the creature—hitting the floor.
Felix scrambles back, dragging Chris with him. A constant stream of ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck’ leaves him as he does, and he only stops pulling her back when the glitching static that’d ravaged Chris’ arm subsides. He bolts around to kneel in front of her, taking her hand and inspecting it closely. “You alright, Pompom? You got all your fingers still?”
Bile in her throat, Chris nods. “Y-yeah, I think so.”
Only then do they turn their attention towards the creature on the floor.
It’s rising onto its hands and knees, shrinking and growing more humanoid. Crackling static and electronic squealing twists and softens into quiet sobs, and the inky blackness slowly, slowly melts away.
Before Chris and Felix’s eyes, the terrifying abstraction-like beast becomes a young boy no more than 13. He’s shivering against the winter air, hugging himself in a too-big t-shirt and bee-patterned pyjama pants. Fluffy red hair falls over his face and neck, and a few small patches of vitiligo paint the dark tan skin of his arms and the left side of his face.
For a moment, Chris and Felix just… stare.
How are they supposed to react, after all? One moment, Chris was sure she was done for. And the next, their supposed monster is a small, very scared preteen boy.
Once Chris’ terror has sufficiently eased, she stands up, flicking on her flashlight, and slowly takes a few steps towards the boy. “H-hey…?”
The child hugs himself tighter, shivering violently. And that’s when Chris drops her guard.
Shucking off her jacket so she’s standing there in a hoodie and jeans, she approaches the kid and lowers herself to kneel in front of him. With gentle hands, she moves to drape her jacket over him. Before she can, Felix has materialized beside her and puts his own coat over the kid. Chris glances up at him to see him staring down at the child with an unreadable look on his face. His eyes glow from the faint light of the dying PC monitor as he looks at her. “You’re little enough, Chrissy, you don’t need hypothermia. Everyone else would kill me if I let you get that.”
She doesn’t have a rebuttal for that. Instead, she pulls her coat back over her shoulders and turns her attention to the child. Gently, she reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. It’s okay, you’re okay. You’re safe now, you’re not there anymore. A-are you getting warm now?”
The boy hiccups, pulling Felix’s jacket tighter around himself. In a small, shaking voice, he murmurs, “This is… warm?”
Chris raises a brow. If she didn’t know any better, she’d almost say he doesn’t know what ‘warm’ is.
The child raises his head to look at Chris.
Her blood runs cold.
Only one thing in her memory has those mismatched blue-and-green eyes. Something with bared white teeth, a booming, showmanlike voice, and a dangerous level of naivete and ignorance.
A god with the patience of a demon.
“Oh, hell no.” Felix says, a growl in his throat.
Chris swallows.
The name is lead and acid on her tongue. “...Caine?”
The boy drops his gaze to the floor.
Anxiety blooms in Chris’ stomach.
I did not sign up for this.
This is the absolute last thing Felix would have ever expected. Hell, it wasn’t even on his damn radar.
Caine is an Ai—or, he was—and that meant that he’d never be able to escape the C&A computers. Right?
WRONG.
Felix bares his teeth in a disgusted grimace, reaching out to take his jacket back from Caine. But to his surprise, Chris grabs his wrist and lowers his hand. Felix stares at her in disbelief. “Chris, you understand who this is, right?”
“I-I no, yeah, I do! I just–” Christine lets go of him and pinches the bridge of her nose, “–he’s a human now. Right? And a kid too. I don’t—I wouldn’t feel right just… leaving him here.”
“Are you kidding me right now? Do you know how many people he—”
“I know, Felix!!” She snaps, making both him and Caine jump. “God, I know!! Do you think I can forget the countless nights I’ve seen you cry in your sleep, or how many nightmares I have, or the way all of us just don’t feel human anymore? Fuck, I hate when someone sees my eyes light up and looks at me like I’m some kind of animal! But I will not leave a child to die of hypothermia! Do you understand me?”
Felix holds her glare for a few moments longer, debating whether or not to just turn and leave anyways. But his loyalty to Christine outweighs his hatred for Caine, and he simply rolls his eyes in annoyance. “Whatever. Can we just get the hell out of here?”
Chris heaves a heavy sigh. “Yeah. I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have.”
Tilting his head to watch her out of one eye, Felix waits. Chris rises to her feet, offering a hand to Caine. There’s a tremor in her movements, a nervous uncertainty that’s almost suffocating. And Felix hates it.
“C’mon, Caine. Let’s get you out of here.” Chris says, voice carefully level.
The AI-turned-human glances up at her again, then briefly at Felix before taking her hand. Chris helps him up, and only then does she notice that Caine doesn’t have shoes, either.
A pause.
“Felix?” Chris says slowly.
Felix closes his eyes, fighting the urge to scream. “Fine.”
He kneels down with his back to Caine. Chris glances at him, then gestures for Caine to move closer to Felix. The boy stares blankly at Felix, then up at Chris. “I, um. What am I doing, Pomni? Why is Jax on the ground?”
“Call me Chris,” Chris says quickly, “but I want you to go and wrap your arms around his neck. He’ll carry you so your feet don’t get cold.”
“Cold.” Caine echoes, looking down at where his feet are turning red against the freezing floor. “That’s what this feeling is?”
“Tick-tock, pearly-whites. I’m not a charity.” Felix hisses.
Caine jumps, immediately moving close to Felix’s back. He pauses momentarily before gingerly looping his arms around Felix’s neck. And Felix scoops him into a piggyback, rising to his feet.
Caine is lighter than expected, not crazily so, but just enough that Felix wonders if he’s younger than he looks. He looks around 13-14, but he could be younger.
Chris picks up her flashlight and turns, moving to lead the way towards the stairs. And that’s when Felix groans loudly. “I have to carry him up the stairs, don’t I?”
“Unless you can fly, bunny-boy, then yeah.”
Felix huffs audibly, but he doesn’t complain anymore. Instead, he follows Chris quietly while Caine’s quick, nervous breaths puff in his ear.
As they make their way up the stairs, Felix finds his mind occupied by a lot of big, uncomfortable thoughts. Thoughts like ‘was Caine always a child, then?’, ‘how are we gonna deal with this?’, and ‘how the fuck do we explain a random undocumented child with no birth certificate or anything to the government?’ are the most prevalent.
His emotions are a tangle of negatives, anger wrestling with guilt, guilt snarling at sorrow, and so on. He doesn’t know what to say or do, and he’s worried that if he opens his mouth, it’ll be to spit venom at someone.
Before he can stew in his own misery enough, Caine quietly says, “I’m sorry.”
Felix almost trips and falls back down the stairs. Christine slows, her head tilting slightly back towards Felix and Caine. Her flashlight flickers slightly.
“What?” Felix says.
Caine lowers his face, breath puffing against Felix’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to get mad at you humans. And… and do that horrible stuff to you.”
Felix is quiet for a long time. Long enough that they reach the top of the stairwell and step into the main floor’s small office space. A breeze whistles through the room, and Felix stiffens as Caine shivers and tucks his face into the warmth of the hoodie at Felix’s neck.
Eventually, Christine makes her way towards the front door and shines her light on it. After a bit of cursing and banging a busted chair leg against it, the rusted lock is able to be turned. The door squeals loudly as Chris pushes it open, and both Caine and Felix cringe visibly at the noise.
“That’s a terrible noise.” Caine says.
Felix adjusts his grip on Caine. “Yeah.”
They make their way out into the open air, the snow having stopped falling. The night sky stretches endlessly out above them, the stars painting it silver and blue, and as Felix makes his way towards his and Christine’s shared car, a tiny gasp makes him look back at Caine.
His head is tilted back to stare at the sky, his eyes wide and awestruck as they reflect the starlight. His mouth falls slightly open, and both Felix and Chris watch as Caine stares at the night sky. The boy is silent for a long time, scarcely even breathing. His left hand leaves Felix’s neck, reaching out towards the sky.
“Is that… what the sky is supposed to look like?” Caine says in a tiny, hushed voice.
Chris and Felix exchange a glance before looking back at Caine.
“Yeah. That’s the night sky in the… the macroverse.” Chris says softly.
Caine’s eyes shimmer. Felix stiffens, worried he’ll have to console a crying Caine. But the boy’s face splits in a watery grin. “It’s more beautiful than I ever could’ve created.”
The surprisingly eloquent speech is a little unsettling coming from someone who looks 13, but there’s something almost endearing about Caine reacting so strongly to the human world. Almost.
Caine looks down at his fingers through teary eyes, which are turning red from the chill. “And this is from the cold.”
“Yup. It’s terrible. The winter sucks.” Felix says flatly, but it doesn’t seem to hamper Caine’s joy.
“Put me down!” Caine says, starting to scramble free of Felix’s grip. Felix does as he’s asked, which drags a sharp sound from Chris as Caine’s bare feet hit the snow.
She turns and lunges for Caine. “H-hey, you’re gonna get frostbite!”
Caine either doesn’t know what that means or doesn’t care, because he starts running barefoot through the snow. Laughter, loud and exhilarated and clear as a bell, echoes against the frozen birch trees around the abandoned C&A building, and Caine dances on the frozen gravel road. Felix’s coat swamps the boy’s skinny frame, and he grabs Chris’s hood to stop her from running after him.
As Caine dances, laughs and sobs in joy, Chris stands at Felix’s side. Neither of them says anything. But a silent sense of knowing passes between them. The knowledge of that sense of endless relief and joy at being in the real world. Home. And Caine finally seems to know why they tried so hard to escape.
Caine spins around, grinning through fat tears, and asks, “Why would you ever want to leave this place?”
Felix’s mind drifts back to the circumstances that led to him putting on that headset: shouting voices and striking hands and a sense that nothing he did would ever make him worthy of love. But that isn’t so far from what Caine had going on inside the computer, is it?
Felix tucks his hands in his pockets with a smirk. “Curiosity.”
Chris glances at him briefly, knowingly, but doesn’t say anything. She looks back at Caine. “I was also curious.”
Caine tilts his head back to stare at the sky again. He’s shivering now, his teeth chattering as he says, “I’ve never felt anything like this. I feel so… small. And it’s the most wonderful thing ever.”
Finally, Felix lets Chris move forward to collect Caine. She says something quietly, something Felix can’t hear, and Felix moves towards the driver’s side door of his car. Once unlocked, he turns the key in the ignition, the car rumbling to life. He turns the heat on full-blast. Thank God for that.
His green eyes drift over to where Chris seems to be trying desperately to convince Caine to get in the car. And despite himself, a smile creeps across Felix’s face. The sight of Christine pulling out what appears to be all the stops in getting Caine to understand that his human body can now be affected by frostbite is absolutely hilarious. And a bit endearing.
She’s gotten through his own barriers in ways he never thought possible by now. Whether it’s unconsciously getting Felix to show a little vulnerability, or pulling him into shit he never would’ve done pre-Circus, she’s got him wrapped around her finger at this point.
Pre-Circus, he would’ve thought someone like Christine looked plain. Unassuming. But at this point, after living in the same apartment for several weeks—and being dragged kicking and screaming through a lot of non-consensual character development—he finds her… it’s hard for him to describe, and harder to put a name to.
Beautiful, a traitorous little voice in the back of his mind supplies. He shoves it down.
Chris seems to have finally convinced Caine to come with her, because she holds his hand with an exhausted look on her face. They approach the car, the crunching of snow growing audible through the vehicle’s closed doors, until Chris opens the back door with a rush of cold air, and gestures for Caine to enter. “Hop in.”
Caine does as he’s asked, and Chris removes her jacket to drape it over Caine’s frozen legs. “Give it a bit, you’ll warm up. Oh, and put that seat belt on.”
“Seat belt?” Caine echoes, glancing over at the belt she’d indicated. “Oh!”
“Do you know how to put it on?”
“I do not!”
“Gimme a sec, then.” Chris says, a smile in her voice.
After quickly showing Caine how to put it on, she unbuckles it and lets him do it. When he awkwardly manages to clip it, he lets out an excited noise and exclaims, “Oh, that’s fun!”
“Don’t unbuckle it while I’m driving, or your arms will fall off and explode.” Felix says wryly.
Caine takes that seriously, his face falling as Chris closes his door and steps into the passenger side of the car. “That seems very dangerous. Are all human vehicles volatile like that?”
“He’s bullshitting you, Caine, ignore that.” Chris laughs.
Caine’s eyes grow round in the rearview mirror. “Ah. I forgot there aren’t any profanity filters in the macroverse.”
“How inappropriate of you, Christine. Swearing around a child.” Felix tuts, shaking his head.
As he turns the car around and starts driving down the gravel road, Chris laughs. “I guess I shouldn’t be doing that. Or… does it matter?” She turns back to look at Caine. “Does the swearing bother you?”
Caine blinks. “I suppose not. It’s just a little surprising!”
“Anyways,” Felix says loudly, grabbing his phone and turning on his bluetooth, “Let me introduce our former ringmaster to the glory of Mister Worldwide.”
“Fucking hell, Felix, can we just talk with him?”
Felix cranks the volume, opening Spotify and turning on Hey Baby. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sultry vocals of Pitbull and T-Pain.”
“What do you mean, ‘sultry’?!” Chris hisses.
Felix laughs raucously, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Behind him, Caine has his hands pressed over his ears. But there’s a smile on his face, spanning ear to ear.
As unsettling as having Caine here is, it’s kinda a blast exposing him to stuff he’d never seen.
Where things go from here, Felix has no idea. But maybe it’ll be fun.