Chapter Text
The circus shook, rumbled and glitched mildly.
It'd been doing this for a few minutes, but they'd been trying to ignore it. Nobody had the energy to care.
They all stayed quiet, tapping their fingers against the couches; rocking their legs; resting their cheeks on their fists; or staring at their dumb, cartoon feet.
No one said anything.
They had so much to say that they couldn't bear to speak at all.
Pomni nearly fell off the couch when the circus shook again, harder than it had been doing, and this time accompanied by the echoing screech of what sounded like somebody getting actively murdered in an extremely gruesome manner. It had Caine's voice. And it didn't stop.
Nobody could stop their shock and react to it before Kinger had already leapt up and started rushing in the direction of the hot air balloon entrance to Caine's office, cartoon eye lines of worry on his face.
Pomni hopped off the couch and ran after him to help, Ragatha reaching out a hand but too frozen to do anything else.
Kinger made one wrong turn that Pomni called out to correct, and they didn't lose much time while moving.
The screaming kept going as they headed over there. It honestly felt impressive. If she tried to scream for so long without breathing breaks she would pass out (Would she? Can you pass out in the digital circus?).
It wasn't one consistent sound that you could get desensitized to if you tuned it out; it kept changing: switching from mostly fearful to mostly pained, adding more or less crying noises into the middle of it, getting more muffled or less (pressing his face against something?), and sometimes having a back-and-forth motion to it like the person screaming kept rocking for a bit and stopping.
Her imaginary ears metaphorically bled from the pitch, but she didn't care as much about that as she did about the sick feeling in her gut. Worry, empathy, panic, dread?
Kinger stopped in front of the hot air balloon Abel had tossed them into the day before, and stared up at it, not quite remembering how they had gotten up there the first time.
Good thing he wasn't alone.
"I can ball you up and toss you up there," Pomni offered, locating a cube to do the glitch with.
He didn't quite know what that meant but he nodded, trusting her, and she took a second trying to remember if there was a specific method to doing that before remembering Jax's advice that this is a cartoon world, so she grabbed him and tossed him into the cube without letting herself overthink it. To her half-surprise, it worked on the first try, and she stared up at the basket, hoping Kinger would do well to handle whatever was happening on his own. If she knew how to toss herself, she'd head up too, and nobody else had followed them so all she could do for right then was hope.
***
Kinger landed on the floor of an empty room, in front of two big doors: one red and one blue. The sound was closer than ever, so he pushed through the doors- or he tried to, only to find it locked.
Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap-
He absolutely did not have a key, didn't know where to get one, and didn't want to take any longer to get in and check on Caine.
It was probably pointless, but he kept shoving on and tugging at the doors, banging on them and clawing at the gap where the two doors met. "CAINE!"
The screaming reacted to this, getting louder for a second before turning desperate and wheezy.
He kept shaking the doorknobs, as if that would do anything except freak the poor thing out even more. But he didn't know what else to do, so he pushed against the doors... and slipped right through. He glanced back at them, to see them slightly glitching.
The screaming stopped, and somehow, that scared him more.
He rushed up the stairs as fast as he could while still being cautious not to trip, because if he did then he would have to climb up all over again and he didn't want any delay in how fast he could help.
He reached the middle of the office quickly, but he didn't see Caine anywhere, though he heard a faint whimpering coming from underneath the desk. He probably could've crouched down next to it, but without thinking, he tossed it over instead, uncovering the shaking bundle of ringmaster underneath it. Caine had his hands clenched together so tightly it looked painful.
Kinger didn't speak right away, a bit dizzied by the overwhelm of the entire scene and taking a bit to process what had been happening and what was happening now, so he stood uselessly for a few seconds and simply watched Caine spread his clenched teeth a bit apart so that he could begin glancing around for something.
His thoughts kicked back in.
He'd come here to help, so he had to start helping.
"Caine?"
He kept his voice as nonthreatening as he could.
Caine froze, though he'd barely been moving already. "D..." interrupted a gaspy, tired inhale. "Dad?"
Well.
That froze him up again.
Did Caine think Kinger was his dad? Did he want him to be his dad? Had someone programmed Caine to call Kinger 'dad' in crisis situations as some sort of prank? No, that would be dangerous, surely, and no one had any reason to do such a thing.
He might have spent hours wondering about this if he hadn't been for Caine aggressively tugging him out of his head by yelping and slamming his fists against his own eyeballs, which made Kinger jolt in shock and horror, quickly getting on his knees next to the poor child AI as it kept pressing and rubbing its fists against his eyes. It certainly hurt a lot, especially considering the way it made his eyes water and redden.
Kinger wrapped his hands around Caine's waist to gently pull him onto his lap, eliciting another excessively long, painfully high pitched screech that surely would've made his ears bleed if he had any. This time, though, it also had a slight gravel to it. Had he hurt his voice by screaming the first time?
He winced. He really should've given some warning...
Caine had calmed down a bit when he'd heard Kinger's voice earlier, right? So speaking to him could help? (Even though he wouldn't be able to hear him over his own screaming...)
"I don't know what scared you, Melli, but I'm here to protect you now." He made sure to keep one hand supporting the head, just like with a baby. "Take my hand; I got you." He pushed his free hand closer to Caine's, who didn't react to it.
He wished his imaginary throat didn't tense up so much, making it so impossible to be consoling, but something about the weight he cradled made him barely able to think, in a different way than usual. But his voice might help, so he simply mumbled on repeat; "You'll always have me. And you'll have a good life, Little Red. Remember."
When Caine finally stopped screaming, he didn't say anything, staring up at Kinger with foggy eyes that kept darting every which way. It didn't seem to be on purpose, more like a glitch than anything. Though he didn't shake with fear anymore.
His hand slowly reached towards him and then fell back down. From where he'd been looking while doing that, Kinger made a guess on what he'd been trying to do and lifted his arm up for him, placing his little hand in the fluffy collar on his robe. He'd guessed correctly, because Caine gripped the fur, after startling at the contact.
Kinger kept repeating the line. ("You'll always have me. And you'll have a good life, Little Red. Remember.") It did seem helpful, though it didn't look like Caine could really tell what he was saying.
Kinger himself couldn't remember the exact context, but vaguely remembered typing that to a little red orb on a screen many many years ago to calm its glitching.
If Caine could understand him now, would he remember that too?
"Dad?"
There was that word again.
He waited to see what followed.
"Do you... love me?"
"Wuh-? I-" Kinger did not manage to keep the shock and disgust out of his voice. "Caine," he finished, with more disappointment than anything else. The weight of cartoon eye bags stayed on him as he adjusted Caine in his lap to be slightly closer, even while internally beating himself up over ever letting the poor thing wonder that instead of simply knowing it. Before he could reassure him, though, the weight in his hands suddenly grew.
Caine's model physically gained more density when shut off than when awake, because his waking form always naturally shut off most of his weight to make it a breezier experience to float around.
Right now, though, this mechanic just gave the impression of a sleepy kid feeling heavier in your arms than a waking one, and that didn't even have a real physics engine behind it.
What was this place? Where was Kinger right now?
Oh! He had Caine in his lap! Little guy must've been very sleepy to conk out there.
Caine's hand slid up to his teeth in his sleep, and he held it gently in between his jaws like a baby leaving its thumb in its mouth while sleeping.
Kinger smiled and petted his head, perfectly happy to help the little one get some good rest.
What was he doing here?
Oh! He had Caine in his lap! How sweet!