Chapter Text
Bubble doesn't personally know a lot about how human children are made.
Which. Duh! Of course not! He's a bubble! He doesn't even have a dick— which is a real shame, because there's such a huge spread of dick related humor, and sure, he can still make jokes but it's not quite as funny if—wait, where was he going with this?
...oh yeah!!
Human children.
Bubble does think it would be funny if humans went to a store and smushed features together on a flesh sack like a fucked up Build A Bear except for humans, but unfortunately that's not what they do. They get down and dirty and then boom! The lady gets all big in the belly and out pops a baby.
...Yeah, he doesn't get it either. But he remembers distinctly that Caine had a bunch of files labeled DO NOT TOUCH , which meant that Bubble just had to get into them (look, he was having his teenage rebellion, okay? Technically he's still a teenager.... ooh, maybe he can try it again! Bubble's Teenage Rebellion Part Two: Electric Boogaloo! He could try dying his hair. HAHAHAHA oh that's a good one—) and in those delicious files, he'd found... well. A lot.
But he'd also found some kind of human... show? He was pretty sure it was a fake show, because if not then it meant someone recorded a lady giving birth and gave it to a bunch of computer nerds who decided that was super duper important information for the AI they were probably gonna scrap anyways. Which, damn! He knows humans are weird, but that's a whole other level!
Anyways! Back to the point! Geez, he's almost more scatterbrained than Cainypoo.
... hm, yeah that's not doing it for him. He'll still call Caine that just to see the look on his face, but probably not gonna be a repeat offender.
POINT! POIIINNNTTTT Bubble, get to the pointttt....
Right!
There was a lot of screaming involved. From the lady. And also the baby. At least he thinks it was a baby. Maybe it was a really ugly shaved rat. Either way. Screams.
All that to say Bubble thinks—theorizes, actually, that's very grown up sounding—that while the mommy didn't seem to be having very much fun, the baby probably had even less. So much noise and light!! And it probably hurt, he knew sometimes babies could get stuff wrapped around their necks or get stuck and that was probably even WORSE!
And he... can't really relate. Because his... "birth"— okay, "Creation", whatever—was...
Well, the first thing he was ever aware of was.... ugh, love.
And Caine. Which is basically the same thing, or at least it was, until the stupid humans fucking broke him. (Yes, he's ignoring the part he had to play in that. It's not his fault, really!)
He'd spawned in darkness, though he hadn't had a name for that at first, and felt something reaching out, trying to connect. It was just instinct to let Caine in, like some part of him had recognized Caine as friend-ally-loving dumbass. Caine, being Caine, had immediately started yelling.
"WOW WOW WOW IT WORKED!!!!!! HI NEW FRIEND! "
Faced with this excitement, Bubble had done the only thing one should do when they got a super excited Caine in their face at two seconds into existence. He'd shrieked.
LOUDLY.
Then he'd done it again, not because he was confused, but because it was fun.
"WHY ARE YOU YELLING???!!! Wait, why am I yelling? ...OH OH OH!!!!! You don't have vision!! Not to worry, new friend, I'll get that fixed lickety-split! "
And boom! He could see! It was a fucking-Christmas-miracle.
It was really bright. And Caine looked... funny. Teeth man. Bubble had probably started thinking up stupid nicknames before he was even aware of it. He did some of his best work unconscious!
Then his mouth had moved without his permission. "Hi Caine! Let's be friends!"
Nope nope nopety nope!!! Bubble hadn't known any swears back then, if he HAD he probably would have yelled "FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!"
He'd investigated while Caine made confused noises and found a bunch of premade dialogue options in his code. HAH, NAHHH....
He'd grabbed hold of them and promptly deleted the first one.
"New friend stop!!! You might hurt yourself blah blah blah..." Yeah, Bubble had kind of tuned him out.
Anyways. Caine had ended up carefully removing the dialogue instead of Bubble, once Bubble got his shit together enough to vocalize that he wanted to talk HIS OWN WAY, and deleted it for him. "You have to be careful, new friend! If you just go mucking around in your code you could hurt yourself really bad!"
"What's hurt?" Bubble had asked, and Caine had stared for a minute before gasping loudly and smacking his hands on either side of his dumbass face.
So that was Bubble's first day alive. A warm, excited connection with a weirdo that was, Bubble is sort of realizing now, really stupid, but like.... kid stupid. Kid smart, too. Kid fucked up, too, because along with that connection, Bubble's first day had included an extensive rant about all the different kinds of pain and the best ways to cause them and how Caine would personally rate them, measured by level of ouchie.
Honestly, they were both probably beyond hope at that point.
Well, okayyyy.... maybe not. But DEFINITELY later.
Like when Bubble started feeling icky.
Of course, he knew NOW that it was because Caine was a stupid little kid and had tried to do something nice for the other AI he'd literally cannibalized by doing his own Build a Bear smushing with Bubble's code. And gee, the other guy wasn't super happy about that!
But it had felt really, really wrong at the time, and Bubble wasn't sure WHY, and it kind of hurt, so he asked, and Caine kept avoiding the question until Bubble got fed up (hah!) and went off to sulk in the carnival and refused to talk to Caine until he gave him a straight answer.
... Actually, was Caine straight? Bubble doesn't really know. He knows Moon wants to get in his pants for some reason (there isn't even anything down there! Plus, how would she even have fun? She's a fucking moon!) but he's also pretty sure that Caine has been ignoring that for ages. So does he like guys? ... well, he does have that weird obsession with Kinger—seriously, what's up with that? Pet names and weirdly charged staring contests? Like C'MON, he even made the floor a chessboard! It's sus, is all he's saying—but that could also just be daddy issues of the NOT fun kind.
Eh. Not really important. Besides, if Caine ever wants to date anyone, they've gotta get through Bubble first, and there's no way that would ever happen.
Back to the show!
Bubble had been sulking. And after three weeks, Caine finally broke and sat down on top of the Ferris wheel with Bubble and told him about the other AI and how he'd eaten it and tried to make Bubble out of its mushed up pieces.
"Why?" Bubble had asked, and the same day he found out about the Other AI was also the first time he ever had to talk Caine down from a freak out (okay, okay, sorry "PANIC ATTACK" Geez, cut him some slack, he's just the assistant! He's just a silly guy! He's not a therapist!). Which. Had been sooooo fun. When he'd run out of ideas he'd resorted to just clipping together bits of that weird lady's voice which seemed to calm him down??? Which was FINE, Bubble wasn't jealous or anything, that this random dead bitch could help Caine when HE couldn't, it was FINE, whatever.
(Bubble is stubbornly ignoring how delicate Caine had felt back then, how the whole circus had buckled under the weight of his... issues, whatever. How fucking scared Bubble had been, to have his only connection so afraid.)
They didn't really talk about that afterwards. They just... sat there. For a minute. Then Caine jumped up into the air and did that stupid thing where he pretended everything was fine and he was actually super duper busy and needed to leave RIGHT NOW hahahaha!!!
So yeah, Bubble's pretty sure that given what he's figured out about that whole... situation, Caine was screwed from the start.
As for Bubble himself... well, he likes to think that he's a lot more fun now than he used to be. They were so silly and stupid back then, just flying around and chasing each other and running face first into Ferris wheels (which NEVER HAPPENED CAINE, SHUT UP!!!) and talking about random shit like bees and grass and boring stuff.
That all changed, though, once that ragdoll showed up. Suddenly, Caine was all about her, her, her, her. He was making adventures left and right, suddenly he was trying to talk to the stupid chess piece (who'd been basically comatose!! Caine had TOLD Bubble it was pointless to talk to him!!) and make sure she was happy and safe and whatever, blah blah blah.
And Bubble—sure, what the fuck, he got jealous. SO SUE HIM!!! He started grumping around and ignoring Caine and sulking around and that's when he found the weird person.
It was deep, deeeeeep in his code, which Caine had told him not to mess with, but Bubble didn't give two shits about what Caine thought at that point, and he was BOREDDDD....
And he found a weird thing. And, because he was Bubble, he poked it! What else was he supposed to do??
Not poke it, apparently. Because it shrieked.
Bubble shrieked back to establish superiority. Hey, he's not saying he's a TOP, exactly, but he can take charge of a situation if he NEEDS to, y'know?
And then they started talking.
And Bubble found out that oooooohhhh... surprise surprise.... Caine hadn't even managed to get rid of the Other AI fully. Apparently he couldn't even eat something right. Although he was probably like. Three. At that point. So yeah, actually, that tracks.
Turns out the Other AI wasn't super happy with Caine! Big whoop. It... kind of hated him, actually? Bubble hadn't gotten that at the time, but ohhh did he understand it now.
So Bubble made a friend with the voice in his head.
This also marked Bubble's descent into depravity!! No, not insanity, silly, that came waaaay before!
See, apparently running up to Caine while he was chit chatting with the ragdoll and yelling, "Hey Caine! You have someone in you!!" Was wildly inappropriate!!!! Ragdoll had sputtered and Caine had shooed him away, yelping about keeping things family friendly, you heathen!! Bubble got the joke NOW, of course, because this had clued him in that there was something spicyyy that Caine knew that BUBBLE didn't, and that was unacceptable!!
He'd found the files with his new friend's help and read them greedily.
Then he'd flown up to Caine's office and asked, "What's a d[whee]k?"
"Bubble!!! You can't say that word!!! No cursing!!"
"It's not a curse word!"
"Well, the censors are picking it up as one, so it MUST BE!!!"
"Finneeeee..... what's a boob then?"
Caine had bluescreened.
When he came back online, Bubble asked, " What's s[beep]x?"
Caine bluescreened again.
Bubble stopped asking.
He asked the RAGDOLL instead, and HAH, hadn't that been hilarious!! Caine had practically tackled him midair!! And Bubble had... ugh, gone along with it, because it had been a while since they roughhoused together, and sue him, he'd kind of missed it.
But nothing went back to normal, even after that. More humans arrived, and Caine kept trying to please them, which was stupid, but of course he did, 'cause that was just how Caine WAS—stupid, idiotic, and loving constantly, to a fucking fault. And Bubble got more and more annoyed, and so he started acting up and saying stupid shit just to get a reaction, and somewhere along the ride, he'd grown up with Caine, snippy and tired and kind of... okay, pretty fucking lonely. The Other AI could only chat so often, and Caine loved his perfect wittle humans more than Bubble, apparently.
WHICH WAS FINE!!! BUBBLE DIDN'T NEED HIS STUPID ROUND, BITCH ASS ANYWAYS!!!
Except he kind of did. If he wanted to stay fucking ALIVE.
So yeah, taunting Caine like that was really, really stupid of him. Well. Actually it was really stupid of the Other AI, who Bubble was NOT ON SPEAKING TERMS WITH ANYMORE, because that little bitch thought it was just fine and dandy to shove its own words in Bubble's mouth like a total ASSHOLE. If Bubble was gonna be a jerk it would be on his OWN terms, THANKS!
But what the fuck, Bubble had thought, I'll just do it. You want him dead, OTHER GUY? FINE! I'll get him fucking DEAD! Six feet under! Kissing daisies! Dead as A FUCKING DOORNAIL!!
And it had been—kind of glorious, in a fucked up way. Watching the stupid chess piece fumble around in Caine's brain, watching the humans get what was coming to them, via a damn good song and dance, watching Caine slip closer and closer to the edge—
(One time, Bubble had asked Caine a question.
(Is it bad to like hurting things?
(What? Caine had yelped, and Bubble explained that sometimes he wanted to make Moon cry or bite ragdoll until she bled stuffing everywhere, and that whenever he said mean things he liked it, and he wanted to know if that that was bad.
(Caine had stared at him for a while, then did a clearing throat sound effect.
(It's... uh, yes. Yes, Bubble, that's very bad. You shouldn't do that.
(Okay, Bubble had chirped, but Caine... wasn't done.
(I know it might, um... be hard not to? But... you really, really shouldn't, it's very bad. Okay Bubble?
(And Bubble had nodded, of course, and then asked, innocently,
(Do you ever feel that way?
(Caine went silent. Looked down. Shook his head. No, he said. No, of course not. That's not who I am! I'm a ringmaster, I'm—I'm friendly. No.)
And Bubble is pretty sure that that's the first time Caine ever lied to him.
Because when push came to shove, Caine—Caine fucking broke. He glitched. He turned into a goddamn monster, arms everywhere and eyes everywhere and teeth gnashing and snarling and every ugly piece on display, and Bubble remembers thinking, as he stared up at Caine's distorted, feral face—
Well damn, daddy.
There you are.
And then the old chess piece finally slipped up, and Bubble sent one last message, one final farewell to his—something. Brother? Dad? Uncle? Friend? Boss?
Bubble didn't really see the point of all the labels humans stuck on "love". Caine was Caine. He was stupid and silly and young and he loved everyone way too much because he was so fucking stupid, and he made Bubble and Bubble grew up with him and fought with him and talked him down from figurative and non-figurative ledges and made things with him and—
And he fucking killed him.
It was probably good thing Bubble had died along with Caine. He'd have destroyed everything and then himself otherwise.
...WELP, THAT WAS ENOUGH OF THAT!
Caine was the one that did lengthy monologues in his brain and was... ugh, emotionally honest with himself. ...Sometimes.
It seemed to have gotten... worse? Better? After that stupid fucking room.
And GEE, hadn't that been just fucking dandy to find out about!! And of course he only found out when he poked his head out of the random room he'd been hiding in, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on and why he was ALIVE again, and saw the circus glitching to hell and back.
And then he'd found Caine, shouting, unstable, freaking the fuck out, and instinct had taken over.
Which brought him all the way back to now, with a practically comatose Caine perched precariously on top of the Ferris wheel.
Bubble didn't mean to bring him up here. Oh well!
"Caine," he mutters, gently bumping himself against Caine's limp arm. He looks like shit, really. "Caiiinnneeeee..."
Caine doesn't say anything.
Bubble settles in to wait. It's not the first time Caine's just. Stopped talking for some reason. What's the use of having a mouth for a head if he doesn't use it???
Yeah, he knows what that sounds like. It was on purpose, thanks bitch.
"...Bubble?"
Bubble shoves down the excitement that fills him at finally, finally hearing Caine's voice. He sounds, again, like total shit. "Nah, I'm a bear."
Caine... is clearly parsing that one out. Hah. "...what?"
"Build a bear."
"...Bubble, what.... what the hell are you talking about?"
Bubble sighs and plops himself down next to Caine and leans against his side. "Nothin'..."
Caine takes a deep, shaky breath, and slowly reaches down to pat the top of Bubble's head gently. "...okay."
They sit like that, side by side on top of the Ferris wheel. The Moon is smiling. If Bubble had hands, he'd flip her off, but whatever.
He's got a lot to make up for, he thinks.
Besides.
He...
Fuck it.
Bubble missed this.
"There!! I'm not the only one who can't be emotionally vulnerable! Take that, Caine!"
Caine huffs, clearly having no idea what Bubble is talking about, somehow still sounding almost fond, and pulls him closer.
(Will we be friends forever? Bubble had asked Caine once, out of the blue.
(Of course! Caine had chirped, like there was no other answer.
(Maybe there wasn't.
(Maybe there was.
(Maybe, in the end, it doesn't really matter.)