Chapter Text
The Circus has...always been weird. At least from the day Pomni had arrived, weird was a staple part of its normalcy. It was what made the Circus such an...well, an "Amazing Digital" realm of insanity and instability.
But today's "weird" didn't fit into the specific normal they had all come to recognize. It was jumbled and confusing, a cascade of havoc and chaos that somehow also creased over the edges of the Circus's familiar instability. Something that wasn't comfortable in the slightest. Something, if Pomni was being honest, felt so wrong in a way that she couldn't exactly describe.
Ever since Caine's return, the atmosphere of the Circus has been different. In a good way! Mostly...mostly in a good way.
It wasn't even really about his "God-like power" that was no longer implemented into his code, something none of them besides Kinger and Caine really understood, and even with the former ringmaster's description of it being similar to the removal of a "twin" that had been absorbed in a mother's womb- it still managed to make very little sense.
Maybe on a surface level, it made a little sense, if said twin was comparable to the void existence of a life and simply a remain of cells that never formed something human. Rather a cyst left to grow in the surviving child. But...Caine made it sound almost as if this "Evil" part of him was very much alive. Very much an AI existence of its own, the "twin", but a developing residual as well.
Corruption, is the simplest Pomni could understand it. Not so much of Caine, but not an Abel either. Just a part gone bad.
And Caine decided not to take Abel into the field and slew it, but rather released the counterpart into the wild.
Pomni...didn't quite understand it, and she couldn't say she was happy to know the AI that made torturing them as a pastime hobby for fun was still existing, she was glad that it was gone.
Mostly.
Caine had his...bouts of similarity to the corruption, a leftover remnant possibly, but nothing the same. Nothing that bothered them more than a flash of a memory, the trigger to a gun, the feeling of something more behind his intentions.
Caine was healing. Learning. An AI that was more than binary, more than two digits of program. Something that...cared.
But...
But sometimes...there was always that little piece of before that slipped into Caine's boisterous personality. That made the "weird" of before become almost...debilitatingly terrifying.
"It was only a mere suggestion!" Caine defended. "There was no harm meant by it- I swear!" Those big, loud, pearly white teeth chattered in his nerves, homochromatic eyes bulging from within.
"Caine, Caine. I know." Pomni meant to placate him, waving her hands downwards as if to keep the AI from floating off. "I...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell. I just...I- I can't. Not yet."
Can't. It was almost silly. She absolutely could, but the idea that the distance between them would finally be real, that communication would be cut completely off, and their final goodbye would be right then.
That she could no longer see him anymore.
She just couldn't. Not now.
Selfish as it may be, to keep him from swimming with his friends in the Aquarium. From being with them, when it was one of the many things that had been killing him from the inside. That he could finally talk and share and love (in his own horribly defensive way) the people he had lost.
Could Abstractions communicate? Did it matter? Whether they could or couldn't didn't change the fact that at the end of the day she was keeping him from them.
Those blobs of veinless eyes peered from beneath its jaw, seemingly content with the answer and no longer fixated on the outburst. Caine had been trying to get better at understanding consequence and subsequent effect, but often times, it didn't stick very well in communication.
"Alrightie then! I suppose that fixes the issue at toes!" Foot, Pomni internally corrects, not willing to make a big deal out of it. "Call me if you need me, my dear Pomni."
Unable to just poof away anymore, Caine made quick work of floating towards the picnic blanket where the rest of the cast had taken to for dinner. A routine that Pomni herself couldn't be bothered with tonight.
Seeing them laugh and joke only made the knot in her nonexistent stomach tighten. The feeling of dread and hopelessness that scattered the portions of her brain scanned head like bits of abstractions attempting to take hold. Wanting to root and burrow into weakness.
But Pomni had friends. And most importantly, she had communication skills. Abstraction was a worry, but a distant one, at least for her...at least for now.
And that was okay. It was okay because she was handling it. She was getting the grasp of feeling somewhat more stable and an idea of what mends that fractured pieces of grief. She was trying and abstraction couldn't plant its seed to grow if her mind didn't nourish its desires.
Just...today she couldn't handle more than just a couple friends. More than just...a friend.
So she turned her back to the picnic blanket, to the family she's grown to find connection to within the past half a year, and a sense of belonging and solace in for the last couple months since...everything...had happened.
And instead, made her way into the tent.
"Hey Jax." The shapeless figure wasn't typically active when consumed in the dim lighting of plastic glowing stars and the luxury of as many pillows as a king would fawn over.
Jax was rather...lazy as a blob, content to sleep away his worries while the rest of the Abstractions took to circling each other. It suit him well, his personality summed up to the numerous naps he had taken to escape the group of them.
(Sometimes. Sometimes, she couldn't help but wonder if this was a side effect to entering his mind, or if was because of his isolation to the Abstractions that attributed to this calm trance)
Sometimes, he would be awake to greet her, numerous rings of colorful eyes tracing each step closer to his palace of pillows, as if she was disturbing his peace. She swore once he may have even rolled his eyes at her as she had plopped down beside him, but nobody was around to tell her otherwise, so she just expressed to him how much she's glad he appreciates her company.
Today, though, was not one of those days. He was back to his hibernation, smooth black surface rising with each huff of his drawn in breaths and the peaceful hum that overlayed the bristling static.
It was...nice seeing him like this. Just this ounce of vulnerability he didn't keep hidden from her anymore was good enough to get her to relax. Loosen the frays of her growing nerves and flop down onto the well-loved pillows beside him. The ones she claimed as her own were currently covered by the piano Caine conjured for her, and she'd be fucked to grab it right now.
"It's been...God, it's been a long day." Both gloved hands ran down the paleness of her face, and briefly Pomni wondered if her heavy force could smear her blush. "What about you, Sleeping Beauty?"
She turned towards him, but Jax didn't so much as rise to the bait, content to sleep away his existence. Typical. "Yeah, I figured."
She wanted to chuckle, wanted to laugh at it all, but her breath caught halfway up her throat by the time the thought so much as bombarded her mind. "Caine brought up his 'ideas' with the Abstractions again. All in good spirits!" She quickly added in the AI's defense. She's not quite sure how much Jax can actually hear her inside his head, but she doesn't want to accidently set him off into a panic.
"But...he's worried the Aquarium is only so good as a placeholder. He doesn't think its a permanent solution to any, well, long term goals." Since their eternity is limited solely in his digital world, it's not extreme to consider the options, but...but Pomni just can't bare the idea of this particularly changing. Even in the long run it's just- it feels wrong.
"He's been looking into the files- the Abstracted files as far back as Scratch, and he's..." Should she be telling him this? It felt like something he should be clued in on, but if his existence is really so fragile to excessive emotion, maybe it wasn't the brightest to be unloading all of this onto him?
One of the multitude of his eyes peered beneath heavy, sludge eyelids before falling closed once more. It was good enough of an indicator to show he was listening, and good enough of a reason for Pomni not to set him off with Caine's recent discoveries. They don't need to have an Abstracted Jax on the loose breaking all of their hard work in repairs.
"Nevermind." And just in case it didn't satisfy the unstable creature of broken bottled emotions that slept like a rock beside her, she added, "I just don't really want to see you go into the Aquarium just yet. That's what's been bothering me."
Mostly.
She imagines Jax would have something to say to that. How she was too obsessed with him, or couldn't so much as be parted without him, his #1 stalker, but Pomni didn't mind.
Afterall, it was better than the alternative.