Chapter Text
1-03 || NO BEES IN WINTER
Macroverse - Hospital 3rd Floor
December 25th 2023 - 05:00 a.m.
Caine
The first thing Caine notices when he wakes up, is that his jaw is still on Pomni's covered legs. From the signals coming from her mind, he knows she's still sleeping soundly.
He opens his jaw tentatively and looks towards the window. The Sun hasn't risen yet but the sky is not dark anymore. Caine really wants to go near the window again, maybe even out in the open to go look for bees. He finds it quite discouraging, not having seen at least one yet in six days now, but he doesn't feel like leaving his spot.
He's never had the pleasure of falling asleep near some of the players. Actually, he's never fallen asleep near anyone… well, except for Bubble, but Bubble doesn't count, right? Besides he's only used him as a pillow most of the time… it doesn't count. He knows some of the humans used to have sleepovers, especially when they were not in the best of headspaces, but he's never been invited to any of them.
At first he convinced himself that it didn't matter. That he didn't care nor need for a sleepover. Besides, he didn't even need sleep inside the Circus and neither did them.
The thought makes him pause. This is actually the first time he's ever slept before. He never had the urge as he didn't have it in the first five days of his stay in Pomni's hospital room as her, apparently invisible to anyone else, uninvited guest.
But yesterday evening was quite different. It must have been his unplanned escapade around the hospital, right? It must have taken a toll on him, especially since he doesn't seem to be able to go past fifty meters or so from her.
Caine squeezes his jaw shut. There's too many variables. Too many things he's not in control of. It's disturbing. His tiny body shakes and he hugs himself, not really noticing when his jaw slides off Pomni's legs and rests on the mattress.
“You okay there?“
Despite the soft voice, Caine jumps. He opens his jaw, getting his hands under him and sitting upright.
Pomni is staring at him with those forest green eyes and for a moment he wants to shrink into himself again. She looks positively disheveled, with her short, dark hair sticking in all directions and deep bags under her beautiful eyes.
“Y-yeah…” he manages, suddenly feeling the urge to swallow the lump in his… he doesn't have a throat, he reasons trying to calm himself.
“You're shaking,” she whispers after having glanced at the clock on the nightstand. She carefully tries to sit up in bed on shaky arms, but she falls right back on her pillow.
“Uh, wait! You're still too weak!“ Caine immediately finds the strength to float closer to her, putting a hand on her shoulder before he can stop himself.
He feels his eyes twitch and an electric discharge goes off from his own head, traveling through his arm and hand and going through Pomni where he's touching her on the shoulder.
She doesn't flinch nor seem in any kind of pain. After a moment, Pomni sits upright again, her eyes wide as she stares at her shoulder. Then her gaze falls to her arms as she rests them in her lap and finally her eyes land on him.
He stares right back, his mind still a bit disoriented after having given her a potential electric shock but then he realizes.
Caine takes his hand back, his breathing growing faster, “I-I'm… I'm sorry!“ He says, scrambling for some kind of excuse. “I didn't mean to- I wasn't…”
He's such an idiot. Pomni practically yelled at him yesterday that she doesn't want anything to do with him, most of all that she doesn't want him to touch her. He's touched her, it was instinctive for him. He was only trying to help.
But he's not any good at helping. He's been trying to help his players ever since he created the Circus, but more than half of them abstracted and two out of the current six remaining players are abstraction risks. Not to mention he's lost his mind and attacked them in the worst way possible just before being thrown out.
He's ruined it.
He always ruins everything.
It's what he does and there's no way for him to ever be nothing but defective.
There's… his vision is turning white on the edges. What's going on?
He doesn't really understand but something reaches him in the fog that's surrounding him.
Something on his chest. It's soothing. Or at least he thinks it is. It's making his breathing slow down and his eyes aren't malfunctioning anymore.
He has no idea how long it's been, but when his eyes focus back again, he's lying on his back.
The perspective is slightly different from what he remembers. For one, the room is a few centimeters off and he can't see the tall trees he usually stares at from this position, but he can still see the sky.
It's now a different shade, much more orange and he quite likes it.
“Hey.“
A voice brings him back fully and Caine opens his jaw more, allowing his eyes to look towards his right.
His jaw is slightly more elevated than his torso and Caine realizes that it's resting on the pillow. Pomni's pillow…
“What happened?“ he asks, forcing his words out. The room around him is spinning and he doesn't know how to get it to stop. “The camera rig is malfunctioning again…”
“…what?“
“Or maybe it's the rendering engine…” Caine sighs, concentrating on Pomni's warmth as he feels her arm squeeze him into her side. “I can't feel my eyes…” he mumbles, turning on his side and burying his head in the crook of her arm to avoid the offending light coming from the window.
✦ . ⁺ . ✧ . ⁺ ✦
Macroverse - Hospital 3rd Floor
December 25th 2023 - 01:38 p.m.
Caine
Caine watches. That's what he does. He watches and gets data and more data until he's cracked every single puzzle he's trying to solve.
This one right now is particularly confusing. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it whatsoever.
Pomni's sister, Violet, had arrived about an hour or so ago and had readily settled on Pomni's bed afte helping her sit up straight.
The two of them had talked for a bit before Violet produced an object from violet_purse.fbx… purse… it's just purse.
“I know it's late,” the woman says, giving Pomni what Caine now recognizes as a book. “I wanted to give it to you yesterday but I forgot… “
“Looks like you also forgot to wrap it,” Pomni smirks, eyeing the book in her hands.
“Merry Christmas!“ Violet stands up, trading her spot on the bed for the chair. “Oh and, by the way, you know that I'll be waiting for my own Christmas present.“
“Are you serious? Where's the spirit of Christmas? The point of giving gifts is just to make the other happy, not expecting anything in return.“
“I don't expect anything in return now!“ Violet chuckles, hand over her heart, “I'm generous, so I'll give you a couple of weeks time, don't worry.“
“That's so generous of you…“
“Yup! Yes, it is! Anything for my little sister.“
Caine silently startles as the sisters start to go back and forth. Up untill now, he'd been staring at them from his almost entirely hidden position up on the drawer. It didn't occur to him though that Pomni was probably aware that he was still here.
Caine really doesn't want to intrude on their time together, even though he knows Violet wouldn't be able to actually see him or hear him, but Pomni is. What if she wants her privacy as she now gets to spend the time she lost with her older sister?
After all, Caine had never been invited to the players' gatherings despite dreaming of being included since the beginning.
He'd tried lots of tactics at first, to convince his beautiful humans to actually spend time with him, the last one being that dreaded “Escape The Circus Adventure” that had basically ruined everything.
He feels himself shiver and he wraps his arms around himself. He needs to calm down.
Pomni freezes in her reply for a moment. Long enough for Violet to notice.
“Abi… are you okay?“
“Hm? Oh yes… I'm fine.“
He allows his eyes only to float out of his mouth and peak over the edge of the drawer, throwing a longing glance at the sisters again.
They are laughing. Correction, Pomni is laughing. He never actually saw her laugh in her new model… six days and he never managed to make her laugh. He just brought her more pain. His mere presence had been disruptive to her. Just like he always seemed to do the wrong thing in the Circus.
With time, Caine had accepted the fact that if the players didn't want to spend time with him, it was because he was defective. Something is so deeply wrong with him. Even Bubble, an AI he himself created from scratch before he created all the other AIs and NPCs inside the Circus, had thrown it in his face, just how worthless he is.
Caine retracts his eyes inside his mouth as he allows himself to float backwards. His back hits the wall and he concentrates, letting go and then going through the wall.
A muted light engulfs everything and Caine turns around, admiring the trees still covered in snow.
The Sun isn't as bright as it was the other days. There are a few clods passing through and Caine resists the urge to snap his fingers to make them disappear. It's still so hard for him to remember that he has no controll over the objects inside the Macroverse as opposed to his near omnipotence inside the digital realm.
Caine growls as he decides to settle on the nearest tree branch, looking for flowers.
He knows that near flowers there are bees.
But there are no flowers.
And there are no bees.
He's realized this only recently, but still he always looks around frantically everytime his curiosity for the world around him gets the better of him and he inevitably ends up spending one or two hours each day just flying around looking for the tiny black and yellow creatures.
Today though, after the first five minutes or so, he gives up, slumping against the tree branch and closing his jaw.
There's no need to be excited anymore.
There are no bees in winter after all.
✦ . ⁺ . ✧ . ⁺ ✦
Macroverse - Hospital 3rd Floor
December 25th 2023 - 08:45 p.m.
Pomni
It's been several hours and Violet left her room just a minute ago.
Pomni sighs as she sits up in bed, swinging her legs out and landing her feet on the cold floor.
She takes a deep breath as she stands up shakily, her muscles burning from all the exercise she did during her first day of rehab.
She smiles a bit when she takes a few steps, reaching the window and leaning on it.
It wasn't like the last time she tried, where she had felt like a doll, trying to balance on stuffy legs. Surely one single day of therapy mustn't have done that much, but somehow she feels so much stronger already.
Could it be that discharge from earlier? It felt like her batteries were recharged and she surely did better than she expected during her first therapy session…
As Pomni takes a few steadying breaths, she looks outside the window and spots him.
Caine.
He's balanced on a tree near the entrance gates. He seems to be fast asleep, his jaw closed and tilted forward towards his chest.
At the image, Pomni is reminded of the pang of panic she felt hours before.
She knew it wasn't her own panic because it somehow felt completely outside of her body but she also could clearly recognize the emotion.
It was so strange and Pomni doesn't know what to do with the realization that maybe, Caine had been telling her the truth when he told her she was broadcasting her thoughts to him.
She remembers she had been furious at the thought that he had been getting inside her mind again as she was remembering… she shakes her head. She doesn't want to remember.
Everything, Gummygoo, the Circus, the exit door… all of it is gone now and Pomni has no intention of ever thinking about the Circus again.
She just wants to find the others, track them down and then be together again, leave this entire nightmare behind.
But something isn't right.
Caine is there with her. She can't make him leave and a part of her doesn't want him to leave as much as that sounds crazy to her.
As Pomni mulls over her incoherent thoughts, she's startled by what she sees next.
Caine is waking up. Pomni watches as the tiny figure, he can't be taller than a meter at most, startles and floats from the branch, looking around for a moment towards the sky before turning around and flying slowly towards her.
Before Pomni can fully make the decision to go back to her bed, something makes her want to crawl under the bed and cry.
She knows that sensation isn't hers, it's coming from Caine and it's getting stronger as he approaches the building.
Pomni's makes a split second decision and turns around, leaning with her back against the window and crossing her arms to make it seem like she's just standing there.
As the sensation grows stronger and more desperate, Pomni hugs herself and rubs her arms with her hands.
She really needs to talk to Caine.
✦ . ⁺ . ✧ . ⁺ ✦
Macroverse - Hospital Parking Lot - Tree
December 25th 2023 - 08:47 p.m.
Caine
The next time Caine opens his jaw, it's been a few hours, the Sun is already down and he's got a headache, again.
He stands up on the tree branch, shaking off a bit of his disorientation, staring at the sky. He shakes his head and starts floating over to the hospital again.
He's not really paying any attention to where in the hospital he ends up. He'll even pass through all the rooms if it means he'll be able to reach Pomni in a straight line. He doesn't think he has the energy to avoid the other sections of the building.
As he finally goes through the third wall and reaches the corridor on the third floor, he notices a familiar model talking to one of the models with the blue-ish scrubs on.
“I know! It's such a night and day difference!“ Violet says and Caine perks up, tilting his head towards the brunette. “I wonder how it's possible?“
“Sometimes being there helps, even if you don't talk and just read a book, you know?“ The nurse answers and Caine floats a bit closer, grinding his hands together.
“I never thought about it much before. At the time I was just thinking about how nice it would be for Abi to just wake up and go home…”
“That helps too,” the nurse replies after a pause.
Violet takes a hold of her purse as she stands up, walking down the corridor and the nurse follows her, “How did she do in the rehab session?“
“Quite well,” the nurse smiles.
Caine doesn't follow them. He just stays floating in front of Pomni's door, his head still turned towards the two women as they approach the elevator. He doesn't really need to be close to them to hear them.
The nurse is continuing with her monologue, “Doctor Riley tells me she's quite the stubborn patient.“
Violet laughs, “Yeah, that checks.“
The ding from the elevator makes Caine jump a little and he watches Violet enter. The nurse waits in front of the elevator.
“Are you coming tomorrow as well?“
“I really want to but… I'm just exhausted. We talked it over and Abi wants me to take a day off.“.
The doors close as the two women shout something about a “Christ-mass” and Caine feels the familiar presence of Pomni's sister growing fainter before disappearing completely a minute later.
Now, he's alone as he turns, staring at the closed door.
No use in keeping Pomni waiting, she's probably wondering where he is.
He takes a shaky breath and goes through the door.
He finds her leaning with her back against the window. Caine gives her a sneaky glance and sees Pomni's head turned to the side, looking out the window.
He doesn't feel particularly inclined to say anything, so he just floats over to the drawer. Before he can sit on top of it, Pomni says, “You know… I should probably apologize.“
Caine stares and watches as Pomni sighs and turns her head towards him. “For what?“ He asks in confusion, tilting his jaw to the side.
“For yesterday… I… I know you didn't read my mind. You tried telling me I was broadcasting but I didn't believe you.“
“Oh… well, it's no big deal. We're both pretty new to all this connection…” Caine gestures with his hand as he tries to find the right word… he doesn't, “thing… I was probably wrong anyway.“ He concludes dismissively. After all, except for that incident, he didn't catch any more of Pomni's thoughts. For all he knew, he really did read Pomni's mind… involuntarily, that is.
“No, you were right.“
Caine continues to stare, not even noticing as he starts floating towards the bed. When he gets close enough, he puts his feet on the mattress and now he's almost as tall as Pomni.
“I… well… while you were outside, I caught some of your… uhm… you had a panic attack this morning and I could feel you spiraling the entire day.“
That… Caine freezes. That can't be right. He doesn't spiral. Okay well, he did have a less than ideal reaction just before he got thrown out of the Circus but that was a one time occasion. He was just having some kind of bug with his own mind file. He was about to fix it, right after having apologized… but there had been no time for either of those things…
“Is that how things were inside the Circus as well?
“What?!“ Caine jumps from the bed, now floating in front of Pomni. “No! I just… I'm still trying to adapt to this Macroverse, that's all! I don't have… panic attacks! That's ridiculous! I'm AI!“
“It's okay!“ Pomni says, her hands now in front of her, trying to calm him down. “Everything is different for you now, too. It's fine if you're feeling a bit overwhelmed.“
“I'm not overwhelmed!“
“Caine-”
“No!“ He shouts, interrupting her, “I'm not defective!“
“I never said that!“
“Yes, you did!“ He's starting to feel it again, that constriction in his chest. It makes everything so much harder if he has to talk and ignore the fact that his chest feels like it's being squeezed from the inside. “Panic attack, spiraling… that's for humans. I'm not human! Humans are perfect!“
As soon as he says it, his vision goes white.
What's this?
He's never seen white before
Is there a problem with the room's rendering grid? Yes, that must be it, why else would everything not load correctly.
He wonders if Pomni's having trouble seeing too. He can hear her voice but the words aren't quite reaching him.
That's fine, the room will load back. He has no control over the Macroverse but he knows that if he gives a system enough time, it'll load itself on its own… eventually.
✦ . ⁺ . ✧ . ⁺ ✦
Macroverse - Hospital 3rd Floor
December 25th 2023 - 09:00 p.m.
Pomni
It takes Pomni just a few strides. She doesn't know where her strength is coming from but she reaches the bed and grabs Caine by the waist. She pushes him gently to his left before he can topple over the other side and guides his fall onto the bed.
His jaw is closed and as Pomni adjusts his position, turning him to his side and resting his jaw on her pillow, she feels him go completely unconscious.
She never thought he could lose consciousness but here they are.
“What a mess…” Pomni mutters under her breath as she starts feeling the strength in her legs leaving her.
She doesn't waste any time as she gently pushes Caine further onto the bed, making space for her and she climbs on it, turning towards him and staring at his sleeping form.
As she lays next to him, slowly petting his upper jaw, she notices that his feet barely reach her hand. He's basically tall a head and an arm. That makes her chuckle under her breath and then she feels something akin to static electricity shock her fingers. It doesn't hurt though so she just positions her hand on his tiny shoulder.
A few minutes later, Caine opens his jaw.
He looks tired.
“Hey… you okay?“
Caine looks around, his eyes spiraling on themselves without him ever moving a single muscle as he takes in the room and when they at last both land onto her, Pomni is finally able to see his mismatched green and blue pupils.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, as Caine lies stiff on his side on the bed, facing her, he asks, “What's… what's this?“
Pomni's hand stills for a moment and she feels his shoulder tense even more. Bad move, she reprimands herself silently as she resumes her gentle ministrations. “I used to suffer from anxiety when I was younger. Violet used to calm me by petting me.“
“Petting…” he murmurs, his jaw closing a bit so that his eyes are only visible through a tiny fissure, “feels nice.“
She smirks. “I bet it does.“
“Can you…” he scoots closer to her despite not really being any more space between them, “…not stop?“
“My arm's a bit tired…” she pouts as she petulantly sighs after his eyes become even more puppy-like.
She resumes her petting and Caine sighs contentedly as he buries his jaw closer to the side of her body.
“Hey, listen…” she starts, now moving her hand on the small of his back, “I know everything is different and… I know it's hard but, we'll figure it out. We'll get the others and… well, you can stay if you want…”
He produces something akin to a soft whine, “Nobody sees or hears me except you…”
“We don't know that,” she tries sounding soothing, “What if you can make yourself visible only to the people you want to?“
He stays silent for a few minutes after that. Pomni doesn't blame him, she also doesn't know what to say, so it comes as a surprise to her when Caine, whom she tought had been asleep, asks her, “What's a “Christ-mass”?“
“You don't know what it is?“ She asks but no other sound escapes him. He shifts a little to open his jaw and floats his eyes a bit away from his teeth in order to allow him to see her face. “It's a religious festivity, but most of us just treat it as an excuse to not go to work and get free presents.“ She jokes. She doesn't really feel like explaining Christmas to an AI turned entity right now. She'll have to eventually introduce Caine to the Internet, he'll love it. “How come you're so obsessed with my world and you don't even know the basics?“
“Well, the developers, they…” he hides his eyes in his jaw again, “they didn't finish me… they decided to leave and go work on something else. That's also why I don't walk.“
That's kinda random… “What?“
“You didn't notice?“ He asks in a small voice, “Didn't you find it weird my model has legs and I never used them properly?“
She has to admit it never really crossed her mind. “I thought you just… preferred to fly around or something…”
“Well, yes, I do actually quite like it but the point is that I can't use my left leg properly. My right also has some trouble with the joints… I tried creating a cane in the early days… it did more trouble than good, but after a while it just stuck with the rest of the look, you know?“
Pomni doesn't know how a cane could be any trouble to someone like him, but she asks, “Why didn't you try to fix it? You have your own code, right?“
He pauses for a moment before saying, “I'm not allowed to modify my code.“
“Well, it doesn't really matter since you're not a program here.“ Caine looks at her again and Pomni continues, “You're just you, right? Kind of reminds me of Q from Star Trek…” Caine frowns in confusion, “he's an entity of pure energy but he can interact with the world around him if he chooses, just like you.“ Pomni raises her hand, stopping her petting and booping him on his front teeth, “He's also omnipotent and a bit loony!“
They both laugh and it's like Pomni is finally taking a weight off her chest. She's never been able to talk to Caine like this, like they're just there to chat and not convince the AI that she feels overly controlled by him and his adventures.
“Wait, hold on a second…” Caine sits up in bed and almost smacks his upper jaw with Pomni's still raised hand, “you said you could feel my emotions?“
She looks up at him… well, he's not really that tall even though he's the one sitting and she's the one lying down, but she represses a chuckle and answers, “Yeah, well, I think… they certainly weren't mine. They were a bit muted while you slept but, I think so…” Pomni feels Caine start to vibrate on the spot. She sneakily reaches for the blanket, pulling it over herself up to her chin as she asks, “…Caine?”
“Wowowow!“ He spins up in the air, still in a seated position, his feet gripped in his hands, his jaw almost hitting the ceiling, “You could feel my emotions! And I can feel yours!“ He floats down a bit and stops in front of her, floating upside down, “That's so cool! It's like we're linked!“ He floats closer and Pomni can only see his eyes floating inside his jaw, “Just like real friends are! That's so amazing!“
“Wait, calm down,” she tries moving him right side up, but he makes himself intangible and her hands go right past him, “we don't even know how this works!“
“We will figure it out!“ He says dismissively, righting himself, “And if it works with us, it'll work with the others too! We can find them, Pomni… with the power of friendship!“
Pomni stays silent, staring wide-eyed at him.
“Oh, also!“ He resumes, floating over to the drawer and positioning himself on top of it, belly down, “I forgot to ask, how was rehab?“
That was fast, Pomni thinks, but it's better that he doesn't look depressed anymore, right?
“Ugh…” Pomni eyes Caine sprawled on top of the drawer as she sits up in bed, “boring and… exhausting. I swear a rubber duck has no business beeing this hard to squeeze…”
“Rubber duck?“
Pomni points to the nightstand.
Caine is so fast, Pomni is sure he pretty much materialized beside it, “This is a rubber duck?“ His eyes grow wide as he stares at the tiny rubber duck Pomni had wanted to incinerate just a few hours earlier, “It looks so cute! And it's yellow! Bees are yellow too!“
Pomni laughs easily. The sound shocks her a bit. When was the last time she laughed like this? Like everything is fine?
She shakes her head. She doesn't want to think about that, so she sits at the edge of the bed, listening to Caine yapping about bees and flowers and how much he misses Sunny because the Sun here has “no personality whatsoever”. She really needs to tell Caine that the Sun and the Moon here aren't NPCs… she also wants to talk about that burst of electricity he gave her earlier that morning. She had felt like all her strength had come back to her… but she's got time for that.
Right now, she feels like she's got time for anything.