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Caine had better and worse days.
In regards to his legs – sometimes he was able to walk, run and play softball with no real problems, or no more than a casual stumble – and sometimes he was barelly able to get out of bed and walk to the main tent without aid… or even at all.
And in regards to his mental health… it was similar. Sometimes he was almost the same as when he still held a title of ringmaster – chatty, loud, overly energetic – and sometimes he was subdued, quiet, avoiding eye contact, drowning in negative thoughts, guilt and regret.
This was one of the better days. At least it started as one.
Caine didn’t even need to use his walking stick or anyone’s help! And he was invited to spend a day at the digital lake with humans! He was promised he could participate in some beach-related-activities and noone would throw a ball in his eye. An overall win!
So he sat at the edge of water, mimicking Gangle and drawing in sand with a stick, finding the act fascinating. Everyone but him switched skins in the changing booth to match the occassion. He opted to just take off his vest and bowtie and roll up his sleeves.
He was still getting used to his new model, not feeling comfortable with the thought of altering it further any time soon, and thankfully noone pressured him anyway.
Pomni was sunbathing with a conjured drink in hand.
Kinger had his not-good-day: which ment that whenever he tried to keep himself lucid, his head hurt. Everyone just let him stay in the light, Gangle and Ragatha promising they’d be supervising - or as Jax calls it "baby sitting" even tho it suprisingly does not invole any infants - Caine (they thought he didn’t know). The chesspiece was focused on digging the deepest hole he could. He was already so far down, only the cross on his head could be visible, and he shown no sighns of stopping, murmuring about „darn scallywags, out to get his bootey”.
Zooble and Ragatha were on the towels, fighting between trying to inflate (the ragdoll using her mouth, while her companion some kind of bike-tire-pump-thingy) beach accessories and conjuring new ones – which always ended up without air. Tho their frustrations seemed more lighthearted than really annoyed, since they joked around and laughed at their attempts.
Gangle sat a bit away from Caine, adding little rocks and sticks to her sand-drawing as finishing touches. He admired her creativity. It was so simple but effective! She’d drawn some kind of humanoid cat-creature with big eyes.
While Caine, of course, was drawing bees.
They were both so focused on art, that they didn’t register someone approaching them. Caine jumped in his spot, when a wave of sand hit him from the side. He immediatelly locked his jaw, wheezing, coughing and spitting with a whine, feeling his eyes burn and fill up with tears.
"Ooops” Was all Jax said.
Gangle yelped. "Hey stop! You ruined it!”
"You shouldn’t have been drowing on the ground, it’s for WALKING you know?” Rabbits tone was mean. "Besides, now you can start all over withiut moving, you're welcome." He snickered and his footsteps, now deliberatelly strong and loud, suggested he walked away.
Caine was still focused on getting sand out of the sensitive inside of his face.
"I haven’t even finished…” Gangle sniffed. Then shuffled closer to the AI.
"You, okay?” She asked carefully.
Caine showed her a tumb up while still coughing and spitting.
"Just… ugh, just some in my… eyes…”
"Maybe you should rinse your face with water?”
"No, no it’s…”
"Great idea!”
How was Jax back at them again?! Was he walking in circles just to find an apportunity to…?!
Hands grabbed Caine under his arms, and lifted his tiny model up effordlessly. Before he could register more than just Gangle’s angry "JAX!” he was thrown into the lake with a splash.
"What? He can swim, right?”
It took Caine few seconds to get his bearings in the water, before he managed to resurface. Thankfully, it was not deep, he was able to stand up, and drag himself back to shore. There he opened his maw and let out a small flood of water, a little fish swimming out onto the ground along with his two, now perfectly cleaned eyeballs. He coughed and fixed his model, reataching the eyes almost instinctevly.
"Are you okay?” Gangle asked, placing a ribbon on his shoulder. Caine took a deep breath and turned to Jax, big smile and his ringmaster voice on.
"I’m much better! Thank you for your quick thinking, my Laudable Leporidae!”
Jax scoffed at that, making a fake-caring face.
"You’re welcome. See? At least someone appreciates my problem-solving skills!”
"More like problem-causing…” Gangle murmured.
"Pffff please, what’s a freaking beach party without some harmless water….eh… shenanigans?!”
When noone responded, Jax dropped his hands with an annoyed sigh.
"Whatever, you nerds are no fun…”
Caine stood, fiddling with the – now unproffessionally out of his pants – edge of his wet shirt. There was some weird... weight in his stomach that he wasn’t sure the orygin of. That phrase the rabbit used, making him… uneasy.
A voice, annoying, always presant in the back of his head, even when it’s owner was no longer around…
A memory.
"You should die! …. You should throw a fffffreaking beach party!"
"Caine?”
He jolted, realising that Gangle was now holding him firmly by the shoulders.
"IM OKAY!” He exclaimed way to fast and way to loudly. That made the ribbon girl flinch but not pull away.
"You… you’re sure? You bluescreened for a second…” She looked at him with worry. He hated to worry the humans.
Kinger once said it hurt him to see Caine hurting.
He doesn’t want to hurt them.
He promised to never do that again.
He’d rather…
"I’m absolutelly peachy! It happens to me from time to time, you sure did notice!” He said waving his hand dismissivelly. She nodded, unsure. He has to sell it better.
"Sometimes some error pops up and I freeze, still getting used to less processing power! But I assure you, my dear, it was nothing significant! Apologies for your unease!”
"Oh… no it’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
He smiled at her, ignoring the feeling in his non-existing gut.
"Okay, you want a towel to dry yourself up?” She offered but he shook his head.
"No need, with this lovely weather I’d be dry before you manage to say Konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka!”
Gangle chuckled softly.
"I don’t think I’d be even able to repeat that.”
"Oh that’s right it’s from my secondary language module, let me…”
"I WILL FRY YOUR FUCKING ASSES UP INTO A BURNING PILE OF PHOENIX SHIT!”
Both of them cringed hearing Sun’s cheerfull scream.
"Is it just me or does she keep on getting worse?” Ragatha asked. Caine didn’t even notice when she abandonded her inflating-mission to walk over to them, shielding her eye from the light with one hand.
"Perhaps we should reinstall the filter just onto her? HA! GET IT?! AS IN SUN-FILTER?” The AI joked, looking around for reactions of those in the earchot.
Gangle smirked, Ragatha let out air though her nose, shaking her head and Pomni – tho he might’ve imagined that, since her face was mostly covered with giant sunglasses – let out a little, amused "pfff”.
"YOU’D ALL LOOK BETTER DEAD!”
Caine dropped his hands.
"I swear she’s worse than Bubble sometimes…” He murmured.
A second passed before he realised what he said and an icy, clawing feeling returned into his stomach, with double the force.
Oh and another thing, he knew that one well anough already to properly name:
Guilt.
Noone seemed to notice tho, if he didn’t hate himself so much at the moment, he’d pat his own back as a congratulation on his acting skills.
Gangle and Ragatha started a conversation about the floating toy situation – Zooble seemed content with the giant dohnut they finally managed to conjure – but Caine was not listening, trying to reposition his thoughts into something less awkward. Standing in place while others talked, and looking offinto space was not helping, so he walked off.
He crouched, ignoring the instant ache of his model’s knees (it went away after a moment) and looked down the hole in the ground.
Kinger was still digging, diamonds, gold coins and bottles scattered around him. But he payed those no mind, focused on his goal, that only his own, dellirious mind understood.
Caine wanted to reach out. Finding himself drawn towards the chesspiece whenever he felt… things. Especially unpleasant things. But at the same time, he knew that Kinger was not lucid at the moment, and disrupting him might just distract and ruin his fun.
Still, the AI needed a distraction himself.
"Hey, whatcha got there, Kinger?” He asked, carefully trying to make his voice more casual. It hurt him to see his creator like this. But he wasn't sure about all the mechanics. Something tugged in his chest, especially when those unfocused eyes looked at him without even a tint of recognition...
"Oh! Scurvy-dweller! Don’t bite!” The chesspiece jumped pointing his small, plastic shovel at Caine. The AI lifted his hands up.
"I won’t! Sorry!”
"Good boy!” Kinger reached out and patted Caine’s head. Despite the fact that it was just his crazy-talking, it still made Caine want to lean into the gesture.
"I’ll… leave you to… whatever lovely adventure you have going on there, then.”
"You too, thanks for asking!”
"Yeah, okay, have fun… dad.” The AI murmured, so quiet he was sure the chesspiece, who was already back to his digging and sea-shanty-humming didn’t hear.
That pesky, cold feeling in Caines gut slightly lessened, but was still there.
Caine looked around. Everyone was back to their activities… He drummed his fingers against his leg, thinking what to do and where to go…
Lonely.
Could one feel alone, while surrounded by people?
He interracted with them. The talked, they smilled at him, they cared. Well some of them.
Why did he feel so…
Wrong.
With no other ideas, Caine got back to his spot on the shore, doodling with the stick. His mind was not there tho. Beach party… it wasn’t his adventure idea. It wasn’t a suggestion box (ugh) one either…
His bees started loosing shape, but he paid it no thought, lazily moving his wrist, barelly even looking down at what he was doing from between his teeth.
"You should die! …. You should throw a fffffreaking beach party!”
Ridiculous, it wasn’t even a party, neither an adventure! Ergo, it had no connection. He was just hanging out with humans at the lakeshore. His mind had no right to connect those two dots and then add more unprompted.
"You should die! …. You should throw a fffffreaking beach party!”
He hated that voice. He hated when his digital brain replayed its words. Nothing warranted it to do so. He was having fun, with his lovely humans. He had no right to feel lonely! Even if the only OTHER AI there was threatening everyone’s lifes and was non-interactable mess.
"You should die! …. You should throw a fff...!”
He missed that voice. Why did Sun and Moon regain their codes after Caine was brought back but so many other things couldn’t?! Inclueding himself? It didn’t seem fair…
"You should die! .... You should...!”
He did. He already did. Dragging so much of his work and other digital beeings down with him…
"You should die! …”
Caine did. And Caine got back. But he didn’t. And it was Caine's fault, and he will forever feel alone, because he can’t even fly up to talk to Moon, and ever since he lost his admin privlidges she seemed to loose some of her interest with him and Sun is unchinged and…
"You should…”
A snap sound jolted him back from his thoughts. Broken stick in his clenched fist.
Huh.
"Oh…” Someone’s voice could be heard above his head. Ragatha sat in front of him, her eye scanning the ground around. "You surelly got into… a zone.” She said with a strained smile. Caine put down the stick slowly. His eyes stared blankly at the round shapes he’s been absentmindly carving in the sand. Some of the orbs had eyes and sharp teeth. Some sticked out a tongue tauntingly. Some were completly covered with frantic scribbles.
He blinked looking up at Ragatha, unsure what to say.
"There is surelly a resemblence!” she said, with a little smile pointing at one of the more Bubble-accurate sketches.
"Huh…” he only managed to let out. When did he draw all that?
"Um… are you…?”
Why was everyone asking him if he was okay today?! Was he that bad at beeing okay that it was distracting to others? He used to be so good at swallowing it down, back when noone cared to ever think about his feelings and… Well, untill he wasn’t...
"I’m fin…” He started but Ragatha’s words made him cut short.
"…missing him?”
He stared at her, his jaw and eyes wide, body frozen. Ragatha looked to the side, nervously rubbing her neck.
"Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume, but you seemed pretty… off once you mentioned him, and now I saw you drawing and…”
"Yes.” He answered, his voice suddenly sounding so alien to himself he thought he might've glitched.
"Oh. I’m sorry.” She said.
"I’m not.”
They stared at eachother. Caine wasn’t sure why he said that. It was truth, but one he’d rather not share. And now, he did. He needed to work on his bean-spilling problem, it was getting annoying.
"Oh… what do you mean by that…?” she asked shyly. Great. He made her uncomfortable. As if him beeing uncomfortable with that wasn’t enough. He just had to ruin a day for others as well… But there was no point in trying to dismiss everything now. She got too good at reading him ever since she started helping Kinger with his walking. And he did promise to never lie...
"I’m… not sure…” he confessed, looking down at his hands. "I do miss Bubble. I miss him around. I miss talking to him, bouncing my ideas against his squishy head. For so long he was like my only... he was my main sorce of interractions... I suppose I miss HAVING Bubble but… I don’t think I…”
"You should die! ….”
"Useless”
"Defective”
"Tell daddy Bubble how bad thing!"
"You deserved to be abandoned…”
Caine frowned.
"I would not want him back.” He murmured.
"Oh.”
He suddenly realised the implications of what he said.
"Nnnnnn..not that I don’t feel sorry or bad that he’s gone! No! Of course not! There are just a lot of things I DON’T miss!” He scrambled to justify his cruelty. Like always. Trying to make himself look like the victim… But he didn’t want her to see the monster again. He so desperatelly craved for her, for everyone to understand. The explenations just exploded out of his voicebox, before he was able to think them through or let guilt shut him up. "I…I just don’t miss how he berated me, or h-how he bit you, wonderfull humans!” He felt his body glitch slightly. Damn. "I don’t miss when he licked things he was not suppose to with MY tongue and…well... Or! Or! Or! I don’t miss when he swore! Or made those censor-worthy not-familly-friendly comments even after I told him a thousand times how uncomfortable it made me! Or, or I don’t miss how he voiced all of my darkest thoughts and insecurities for a lame joke! Or how he provoked me to have a complete system overload and mental breakdown, or, or how he… he just…” He felt dizzy, so he paused to take few deep breaths.
"But I… miss him. And I’m sorry… And I’m not. And I’m relieved and I’m… heavy… And I hate him, and I love him and…” He was so faulty, why did his mind make no sense? He was shaking. No way she’d believe he was okay now… Once he lifted his eyes, preparing for scrutany or confussion, all he was met with was sadness.
He’d preffer the former.
"I think my… my logic module is broken…” he murmured, shrinking on himself.
"I… I understand you.” Ragatha said, her voice soft.
Caine almost scoffed at the absurdity. What could a human know about his contradictory-emotional malfunctions.
"What? I surelly doubt that…”
"No, no. I do! ” She reasured him, forcing to lock eyes with her again. She sighed. "I do know what it’s like to miss someone who… I know doesn’t fully deserve me to.”
There was something heavy in her voice, making Caine listen carefully. Something raw.
"Someone who hurt you and made you feel it was somehow your fault...” She continued, her gaze doping to the ground. "I know what it’s like to love, heck to feel obligated to love and miss and care about someone who… who was connected to you. Who was family. And the guilt that hits you when you realise you dared to be happy, even happier without them…” She rubbed her not-button eye as if trying to keep tears in. "It tends to… ruin a perfectly good day because someone or something suddenly reminds you of how awfull and ungratefull you are for enjoying something when they can’t. For enjoying life without them, after so long of having them there.” She sniffed and looked back at him with a little, awkward smile. "To mourn when only half of you wants to…”
"I… I know what mourning is…” He said almost in a whisper. "I have mourned before…” He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, while the unwanted images of black masses with colorfull eyes flash before his eyes. "But I’ve never felt… that wrong about it. Even when guilty or when I tried to be a good AI…”
Ragatha cringed at that, but only slightly. Humans didn’t like when he reffered to his emotions or supposed sentience as "deviations” or "malfunctions”. He did accept those parts of himself (or more so gave up, never able to get rid of them) but it didn’t mean they were not factually against his design.
"This feels wrong… but wrong differently.” He conclueded.
"Yeah.” She nodded with another sigh. "Like it would be wrong to miss them AND it would be wrong not to.”
"Exactly! It’s frustrating! I don’t know what to feel!” The fact he was not suppose to feel ANYTHING was left unsaid.
Ragatha nodded.
They sat in silence for a moment.
"Beach party was Bubble’s idea…” He spoke finally. "And you all liked it… so, he couldn’t be bad… if he was better at my job than me.”
Ragatha glanced at him, looking strangly offended.
"Hey, hey, none of that!” She said, putting a hand on his shoulder, making him refocus his eyes on her face. "This is him speaking now, right?”
"No, I said it.”
"No, ugh, I mean, it’s the mean voice in your head that sounds like Bubble?”
He shut his jaw for a moment. How could she know?
"I’m not sure which was first.”
"What?”
"Bubble or that voice…”
"I don’t think it matters.”
"What should I do…?” He hated how small his voice sounded all of a sudden. "What should I feel?”
Ragatha took a very deep breath.
"I don’t know.”
"Oh.” Well that didn’t help much.
"I don’t think there is a should in this situation at all…” She continued. "But I know the only thing you can try to do.”
He looked at her expectantly.
"Live. Move on if you’re able to… With the right people around, all those messy things will sort themselves out, maybe never completly, but enough to be able to find a way forward. It’s not like we can forget those… people, but we can learn to live without them or their memory hanging over our heads and dictating the way we’re suppose to be or feel.”
Caine stared. It sounded so… fantastical, so far away and untouchable. Almost like the macroverse. But she spoke about it with such… trust and hope that he allowed himself to relax a little.
"What I’m trying to say is… I think we… you are allowed to both miss and not miss him. Feelings and relationships are complicated. Just because what you had was toxic doesn’t make your positive feelings any less valid. And it doesn’t make you a bad person for the negative ones. It just makes you… well… a person.”
Caine took a moment for all she said to sink in.
After a while in silence, she rubbed the back of her neck with a little awkward chuckle.
"I guess I’ve done a lot of thinking about it myself…”
He always wanted to have more in common with humans, to understand them and to be understood by them. It did make him feel lighther that Ragatha was able to relate to his… predicament, but at the same time, he felt awfull. The last thing he wanted was for people he cared about feeling the same awfull things he did… At least this time it was not by his making.
"If I may… um… I’m just… glad, well not GLAD, but like…” Ragatha stumbled over her words when he still didn’t say anything. "I just preffer, when he’s not hurting you… anymore.” She said. "Because I don’t want you to be hurt.”
Caine swallowed, and spoke, before even processing his own words.
"I preffer when she can’t hurt you too. Anymore.”
Ragatha nodded.
He felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over him.
"And… I’m sorry for… for using…” He said, his voice breaking a bit with the weight of his own actions, now reinforced by more personal context.
"I know.”
He forced himself to look back at her face. He expected anger, fear, resentyment. He was NOT expecting a sad yet warm smile. She was full of surprises today...
"I don’t want me to hurt you ever again either…” He spoke once more, trying to hold back whatever emotion was threatening to overwhelm him this time.
"I know. And I know that you wont.” She said with such confudence that it shocked him. It wasn’t a threat. It was a confession.
"At least… not on purpose.” She added, still smiling and gave his chin a little nudge with her fist.
He shook his head.
"Never.” He promised. She opened her arms. He hesitated for a moment before crawling forward into a hug.
Ragatha gave good hugs. He already got two before and he loved them. Her model was soft, but she also knew the perfect strenght with which to squeeze, and her hair smelled sweet. She was defenitelly his second favourite hugger after Kinger – Caine wasn’t sure why the chesspiece was on the top, since his hard-wooden model and lack of arms made it tricky, but the AI has never felt as safe as during those thirty-seven times his creator held him close. Be it during a panic attack or just for casual comfort. Gangle held third place. He only hugged her once before, and not to get him wrong, he LOVED IT, but she was a little hesitant with her hold and with how light she was touching him, the ribbons tickled a little. He lacked data concerning other humans, but he sometimes (he did it thoughout the years, but felt less ashamed of it now) imagined what it could feel like…
He didn’t get much more time to update his hug-rating any further, because both him and Ragatha got suddenly hit with a rubbery projectile, that burst at contact soaking them with water.
"Jax!” Ragatha exclaimed after yelping and letting go of Caine.
"Ooooh did i interrupt something?!” The rabbit chuckled. He was bouncing a water balloon in his hand. "I just wanted to cool you both down! The Sun did threaten to burn us alive, so I’m beeing a good friend and…” He suddenly looked to the side, behind them, aimed and threw the balloon. There was a splash and an angry Pomni scream.
"Motherfucker!!!!”
Jax giggled, and imemdiatelly another, differently colored ballon materialised in his hand.
"…aaaand making sure noone gets turned into a rasin!” He finished the lie, fluttering his eyelids with an innocent smile.
"Oh how considerate of you…” Ragatha spat out sarcastically.
"Yeah, I’m just the be…-” the rabbit didn’t finish because he got hit square in the face with a water baloon.
"Hey!”
"Let us repay the favour, bestie!” Ragatha was smirking, already up and holding three more waterbaloons.
"Okay, wait, that’s not fai….”
Caine’s projectile hit him right in the chest.
"Okay! Wait, let me reload!” Jax groaned, a bit annoyed even when there was a playfull spark in his eyes. But they didn’t "wait” as another baloon hit him on the back of his head.
"Oh come on!” He was now completly soaked. Zooble stood a bit behind him on a tanning bed, all four of their arms holding baloons.
"Don’t start the fire if you can’t hadle the heat!” the toy-box character teased.
"HA!" The Sun approved on the joke.
And so the ambush started.
Ragatha was conjuring and handing Caine balloons, before throwing some herself. Jax first tried to fight back, but he was completly surrounded, especially when Pomni quickly joined in with a slingshot. And the only escape rout he found, between swearing, jumping and yelping, was ironically into the lake itself.
Once he resurfaced, he spilled water out like a fountain and held his hands up with an annoyed but defeated look.
"Okay, fine, fine I give up! Learned my lesson and shit…”
Caine, Zooble, Ragatha and Pomni exchanged looks, their ballons still in the air, ready for another attack. And then they all began laughing. Gangle joined in, after cheering them on from the side before.
Jax rolled his eyes and lowered himself in the water, whatever he murmured to himself, turning into pathetic boubbling.
Zooble then invited everyone to get some snacks at the picknic blanket under the tree, and began conjuring different drinks. Caine sat amongst the humans, even accepting applejuice offered by Pomni. After a while even Jax dragged himself to them, if only to snatch a pack of crackers and leave wet puddles on his way to the towel-pile, leaving the group chuckling among themselves.
In that moment Caine suddenly felt… less alone. Like maybe Ragatha’s words could apply to him to… with right people.
"HEY! WANNA GET SOME FRIED EYES ON THAT SANDWITCH?! LOOK UP! LOOK UP! I HATE YOU ALL!”
...and in the shade.