Chapter Text
On the kitchen counter, Ragatha had left out a container of a chicken alfredo bake. Pomni’s mouth watered. It smelled so delicious. This was the kind of food she had missed from the real world- simple, homemade recipes.
Although, they should probably make a schedule. They couldn’t leave it to Ragatha to do all the cooking, even if she had a knack for it. Pomni certainly did not have any culinary talent. The height of her expertise was a dry chicken breast and some rice. Maybe Ragatha could teach her when this was all over.
Before Caine provided all their meals. She wondered if he enjoyed that at all, or if it was just a necessary chore for him. Maybe if he enjoyed it, he could do it one night a week. Maybe they could teach him to cook.
That thought is much too soon, and it hurts her heart to think about.
Pomni grabbed a to go container and started to load it with the cheesy pasta.
“Hey,” Zooble greeted, walking into the kitchen, “I wanted to talk to you.”
Pomni’s shoulders slumped. Of course they did.
“What’s up?” she asked, “I’m just grabbing lunch for Kinger. He’s coming here for dinner tonight.” She hoped the promise of getting to talk to Kinger would draw them away. Please, please I just need a break. It felt selfish when Kinger was the one spending all his time with Caine. She shouldn’t complain.
“I was hoping to talk to both of you together actually,” Zooble said. Pomni gave them a side eye.
“Then come to the beach,” she said. She didn’t mean it. That would be a terrible idea for Zooble and Caine.
“No.”
“Then you’ll have to talk to us separately,” she said, “Someone needs to stay with Caine.”
“Why? I thought Kinger removed his powers,” Zooble said, “It’s not like he can hurt himself.”
Pomni bristled. “I mean- that we know of,” she said, “But either way, we can’t leave him alone.” Zooble crossed their arms. “He’s- he’s not feeling well.” She realized it sounded like Caine had a stomach ache.
“How would you like to be alone right after you tried to kill yourself?” Pomni asked.
“If I did what Caine did, I would know I- nevermind,” Zooble said. The room felt colder.
“It’s not important,” Zooble said.
Then why did you bring it up? Pomni asked. She doesn’t say that. She really doesn’t have the energy for a fight.
“Listen, if I can’t talk to both of you, just give Kinger a heads up, okay?” Zooble said, “I was talking to Jax and Gangle.”
Oh, yay.
“What if the beach was like, a more permanent thing?” Zooble asked, “I mean what’s your plan for when Caine is ‘stable’? Is he just gonna come back?”
“We hadn’t gotten that far,” Pomni replied, “We’re just focusing on Caine right now.”
“Right. Like he wants,” Zooble pointed out.
“He was all by himself for five days,” Pomni said defensively, “He needs some help right now. And yes, at some point, he would come back to the circus.” Pomni thought that perhaps she should tell Zooble the full extent and history of Caine’s isolation, but would that make them sympathize with him or make him feel like a lost cause?
“Why? Why do you want him back here?” Zooble asked, “No one feels safe around him.”
“I’m not saying he’s coming here now or even for a really long time, but the beach can’t be permanent,” Pomni said, “I mean- you’re basically shunning him.”
“Things won’t go back to how they were before,” Pomni promised, “There will be rules, and Caine won’t be in charge anymore, but we can’t just lock him up on the beach forever.”
“People get life sentences for less than what he’s done,” Zooble huffed. Pomni wasn’t sure if that was true. She tensed up.
“People also get trials,” she said, “Kinger and I aren’t being naive about this, Zooble.” They rolled their eyes.
“Well between your bleeding heart and Kinger’s guilt- I’m not too sure anymore,” Zooble spat, “I’m not even saying we leave him alone! Kinger can be with him, all he wants. You can visit whenever you want. Anyone can visit him whenever they want.”
“That’s still a prison,” Pomni pointed out, “Is anyone other than Kinger and I going to go see him?”
“Maybe that’s what he fucking deserves.”
Pomni sighed. She needed backup. She needed Kinger. “I’ll talk to Kinger, but I know if the beach is permanent,” she pleaded, “It will kill him.” Zooble uncrossed their arms.
“Just talk to Kinger,” they said, “He can talk to us tonight.”
“Got it.” Pomni tried to give them a disarming smile. Zooble didn’t return it. Pomni packed up her own food. She didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.
She walked through the hallway to their rooms on the way to the beach. It was all going to be fine. Kinger and her would have to tell the others that Caine had been in solitary confinement shortly after his creation. Then they would understand why locking Caine up would be a death sentence. It was going to be fine. They would present their list of how they wanted the circus to be run to Caine, and then it wouldn’t be such an awful place to live. He would follow their rules, and the others would like him, in their own time. They could all be friends one day. It would all be fine. He wouldn’t be alone anymore, and then he wouldn’t want to die. It was going to be fine.
“You’re a failure!” she shouted at the AI.
Her eyes widened and her lip trembled. The memory sticks in her chest like a knife.
It felt so good to say at the time. She had felt strong and brave when she had said it to him, riding off the high of righteous anger. She was proud of the others when they joined in with their own grievances. She hadn’t known the full extent of Caine’s pain, that was true. She still poured acid onto a burn victim.
She had almost killed him.
But she could help him now. Teach him how to be a person. How to get along with people. The others would come around eventually.
Even as she repeated it over and over in her head, her logic was falling apart. Real relationships were messy. There was no guarantee any of the others would want anything to do with him after everything that happened.
One unkind word from Jax, one dismissive glance from Zooble, Gangle being scared of him, Ragatha being on edge might send him collapsing again.
He needs a friend.
She couldn’t be his friend. If she was his friend, and he killed himself-
She leaned up against the wall, trying to catch her runaway breath. This was not the time to have a panic attack.
The others signed her up for this. They told her if anyone could reach Caine, it would be her. They made her responsible, and now they were ganging up on her. She wasn’t a therapist. She was an accountant who gave decent emotional support.
She slammed her head against the wall. The pain barely registered. Hot, fat tears ran down her face.
Caine was going to die.
He was going to die.
He was going to die and she was already at his funeral, giving his eulogy, pleading with the others please, please, please there was good in him, there was something worth saving, he liked bees and parakeets and he wanted to see the ocean, but she failed him. She failed. She failed.
“Pomni?” Ragatha opened the door to her room. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Pomni swallowed and tried to speak. Ragatha waited for her. Pomni swallowed again. “I-I don’t think I’m doing the right things,” she cried.
“Okay,” Ragatha nodded, “Why don’t you come with me, and we can sit together. You don’t have to talk.”
Pomni crawled to her feet and followed Ragatha into her bedroom. Ragatha guided her to sit on her bed and put a fleece blanket over her shoulders.
“I have a teapot in here,” Ragatha said, “I could make you a cup…” Pomni didn’t respond, staring at one of the paintings of a ranch on her wall. Ragatha started the electric kettle and got a mug out. She put a teabag in it and carried the empty mug to Pomni.
“Smell this,” she said, “Tell me if you like it.” Pomni took a whiff. It smelled of mint and lemon.
“Yeah, that works,” she said softly.
“I have a hibiscus tea too,” Ragatha said. She grabbed the other flavor and held it to Pomni’s nose.
“I- I uh like the mint one.” Ragatha poured in the hot water and gave it to Pomni. She cupped her hands around the warm cup and breathed in the steam.
“Careful, it’s hot,” Ragatha warmed. She made a cup for herself. Pomni gave it a few minutes, then took a small sip. It tasted bright and refreshing. Ragatha sat on the bed next to her.
“I’m sorry,” Pomni said.
“Do not be sorry,” Ragatha told her, “You have a lot going on right now. It makes sense if it’s overwhelming.”
“Everyone has a lot going on right now,” Pomni said, “We’re all dealing with trauma right now.” Most of it thanks to Caine.
“That doesn’t mean what you’re going through isn’t important,” Ragatha said. Pomni knew Ragatha was the best person who could have found her. It was true she had a tendency to paint things over with a positive veneer, but she also genuinely cared for people and could be very insightful.
“Do you want to talk about what’s happening?” Ragatha asked, “How is Caine doing?”
She sounded…surpisingly concerned about him. Kinger and Ragatha had been in the circus the longest, and therefore both knew Caine the best. Pomni wondered if there was something to that.
“He’s acting normal, kind of,” Pomni said, “It’s hard to tell with him.” Ragatha nodded.
“You said you felt like you weren’t doing the right things,” she said. Pomni’s shoulders slumped.
“I talked to Jax and Zooble,” Pomni said, “Or well, they came to talk to me.”
“Jax wants to punish Caine somehow,” Pomni explained. Ragatha crossed her arms.
“Punish Caine how?” she asked. Pomni shrugged.
“He said he didn’t know. And then Zooble said they talked to Jax and Gangle,” Pomni explained, tears starting up again, “And they want to keep Caine permanently separated from everyone.” Ragatha raised her eyebrow.
“No one talked to me,” she muttered, then she turned back to Pomni. “Oh, sorry! I shouldn’t- And that made you upset?”
“I just feel like everyone is ganging up on me,” Pomni said, “They wanted me to bring Caine back, but they’re mad I’m trying to help him, and I don’t know-”
“I don’t know if I’m too soft on Caine or too hard on him or what the right thing to do at all is,” she went on, “I just feel responsible.”
“It can’t all be on you,” Ragatha said, “Do you want me to talk to Jax and Zooble? I can tell them we need to give Caine more time. It’s barely been two days. He needs to get his bearings.”
“They want to talk to Kinger tonight. They didn’t even care that Caine needed to have someone with him,” Pomni said.
“I wouldn’t listen to them,” Ragatha said, “They’re being reactionary. We need to at least give Caine a chance to improve. That’s not going to happen overnight.” Pomni nodded.
“And as for punishing him, I grew up in a household where my mom would punish us pretty harshly,” Ragatha admitted quietly, “It just made us sneakier.”
That was… a really good point actually.
“Caine already lies to us,” Pomni said, “If we punish him, it’ll just give him more of a reason to.” Ragatha nodded.
“I can’t let them isolate Caine. He’s already been through that,” Pomni said. She needed to tell someone, for her own sake. The weight of what she knew was starting to crush her.
She told Ragatha everything she knew about what Caine had told her about his origins and added that Kinger had confirmed his story.
Ragatha got very quiet. “That’s pretty awful,” she said, finally.
“Keeping him isolated is just going to make him worse,” Pomni said, “This is just to stabilize him. He needs to learn how to act around us.”
Ragatha was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about him actually. I was going to ask you if he was up for visitors.”
“Really? I thought you weren’t ready to see him?” Pomni asked. Ragatha shrugged.
“I can’t avoid him forever. I won’t ask him any questions or anything. I don’t mind just sitting there with him,” she said, “I don’t want you and Kinger doing it all by yourselves. That’s not fair.”
“I was going to bring Kinger lunch,” Pomni said, “You could come too.”
“Sure!” Ragatha stood up, “Why don’t we bake them something? I think that would be good for you too.”
“Oh, okay,” Pomni agreed, “Are you sure that’s okay to do?” Ragatha gave her a confused look.
“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” she asked.
“What if it… gives Caine the wrong idea?”
“Like what?” Ragatha asked her, genuinely puzzled, “If I knew someone in the hospital, I would make them something.”
“Right.” Pomni followed Ragatha into the kitchen. She decided if she wanted to be like anyone in the circus, she’d want to be like Ragatha and Kinger.
Ragatha started getting out flour and eggs. “I know Kinger loves apple pie, but that’ll take us at least two hours,” she said, “I know Caine doesn’t really eat. I don’t suppose he has a favorite dessert.”
“I have no clue,” Pomni said, “He likes bees.”
“Maybe something with honey?” Ragatha suggested, “Or sugar cookies? We could decorate them like bees.”
“I am so not good at baking or decorating,” the jester said.
“I can teach you,” Ragatha said, “It’ll be fun!”
Pomni agreed, and Ragatha showed her how to measure flour and sugar. As it turns out, baking was just math, and Ragatha was right, it was soothing to measure and mix ingredients.
“I’ve missed being able to do this,” Ragatha admitted, “It feels so good to make food again.”
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“Oh, my grandmother taught me to bake,” she said, “But my mom made me take a cooking class. I had to learn all about how to be a proper lady.”
“Neither of my parents cooked,” Pomni shared, “They ordered takeout, like three times a week.” There was a pang of homesickness in her chest. She had come to terms with staying permanently in the circus.
She’d never get to call her mom again. They usually talked once a week. And she couldn’t ask her dad for advice. Even if she needed it. What would he say about her now?
Pomni started kneading the dough like Ragatha showed her. Ragatha started a batch of icing.
“So we’ll need yellow and black,” she said, “And white, probably. Do bees have any other colors?”
“Uh, I think that’s good?”
They put the cookies in the oven and waited.
Ragatha mixed the food dye in. They started talking about holiday memories- Ragatha’s grandmother would visit and taught her how to bake and sew. Pomni’s family traveled for the holidays.
Ragatha’s favorite holiday was Halloween. Pomni grimaced. She hated anything horror related.
“I don’t know. I guess I like Christmas.”
“What are you guys doing?” Jax asked, walking in.
“Baking,” Ragatha said, “Did you need something?”
“I came to grab a water bottle.” He walked up to the fridge and pulled a plastic bottle out. “What are you baking for?” Ragatha crossed her arms.
“Because we want to.”
Jax gave her a side eye. “Okay.” He took his water and left.
“What do you think of Jax?” Pomni asked when she was sure he was out of earshot.
“That’s a loaded question,” Ragatha said, “He threw me in a deep fryer.” She sounded bitter.
They took the cookies out of the oven and allowed them to cool.
“Do you not forgive him?” Pomni asked, feeling another pang of guilt. She knew she had led the decision to collectively forgive Jax. Had she pressured Ragatha into it?
“I do forgive him… I mean, he was close to abstracting, and I don’t want that to happen,” Ragatha said, “I can tell he feels guilty, and I don’t want him to beat himself up over it and abstract, so I forgive him. And he has been better.” Pomni noticed that too. His jokes had been much less mean, and he had stopped the cartoonish violence entirely. Ragatha felt one cookie and declared they were cool enough to decorate.
“He didn’t used to be like this,” Ragatha said, “He used to tell jokes to cheer us up, but after… well everything, his jokes got meaner, and he just got worse. But, I remember he wasn’t always this way.” Pomni nodded.
“But I don’t trust him,” Ragatha said, “I’m not going to tell him my secrets or have a heart to heart with him… we used to be friends, but I don’t know if we could ever go back to that. He’s someone I need to hold at arm’s length for my own well being.”
Pomni nodded again, starting to pipe icing on the cookies. She was not good at this.
It was pretty easy for her to forgive Jax because she didn’t have much history with him. The others told her stories, but hearing them secondhand she didn’t get the full impact, and the others had forgiven him as well. Caine had actually hurt her, and his impact was felt in every part of her life.
Was Jax really different from Caine or was she a hypocrite?
“I told Caine I wasn’t his friend,” she told Ragatha, “Do you think that was mean?”
“It was certainly blunt,” Ragatha admitted. Pomni looked at her cookies. They were coming out much more even and the colors weren’t blending.
“I wanted to be honest. I thought he could tell if I wasn’t being sincere,” Pomni said. Of course there was another reason Pomni couldn’t be his friend right now. “Do you think… there’s hope? I mean, could Caine learn to get along with us?”
“I don’t see why not,” Ragatha said, “I’ve known Caine for almost eight years now. It used to be just Caine, Kinger and I.” Pomni didn’t know that.
“How was that?”
“Pretty lonely,” she said, “I spent most of my time with Kinger. He was in rough shape. He really needed me. I did try talking to Caine, but- well if you think he’s hard to talk to now… he was even worse back then. I couldn’t even hold a full conversation with him. He would just teleport away in the middle of them.”
Well, that was interesting. Caine used to have way worse social skills.
“Do you think he knew how to have a conversation?” Pomni asked.
“Thinking about it now, no I don’t think he knew,” Ragatha said, “At the time, I just thought it was bizarre. But he can learn things, he’s just starting from zero.”
“We can teach him,” Pomni said. Ragatha nodded and looked away.
“As for the other stuff that happened, like I said, I’ve known him a while now. He’s never lashed out at us before. Not like this, and it’s not like we haven’t been frustrated with him before,” she explained, “I’m not saying that what happened was okay, but I mean- obviously something was going on with him that we didn’t know about, so I’d like to understand it.” Pomni nodded. Understand and teach. That seemed doable. Ragatha inspected their cookies.
“I think these look great,” she said. They high fived each other with floor dusted hands.