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The pungency of scorched glass rattled through Kinger’s nutmeg skin. Caine glitched and shattered through lamps and adventure globes, light crumbling into sparks on the floor. The burning air smelled like rot; strong scents always triggered Kinger’s existentialism – if it was truly something he experienced if the feeling was also just a code in a database.
Caine had mutated into something spider-like and monstrous; glitches cleaved through his body like blades, and surely it hurt, flashing blood-blue and red. Caine’s rendering clipped like a ragged heartbeat, each rasped breath recalling an incorrect aspect of Caine’s model, limbs and teeth where they were not designated, broken like bones. Eight or more arms stretched at painful angles like cracks in a broken mirror.
Kinger’s analytic mind was activated and lured through the murk, smoldering darkness trickling down familiar veins like an old friend, uncomfortable but less confusing.
Kinger squinted, realizing he could no longer sense where Caine was in the office. He stepped forward cautiously.
It was jarring to see him glitching like this, after Caine had been so encouraging and optimistic upon his return. Kinger had missed something -- he had been so distracted by his own qualms, his own troubled emotions that he hadn't noticed Caine was struggling just like the rest of them. And, admittedly, Kinger had fallen into the old habit of thinking of Caine as a computer program, an object that didn't require the emotional maintenance of a human, even after Caine had proven the opposite.
“Caine… You can’t keep doing this…” The words were awful and alone in the darkness, and Kinger regretted them the moment he spoke. He kept going, nervous, his cognition only faint glimmers in an oily-dark brain. “”I know you don’t want to, right? Rearranging the furniture doesn’t have to be so painful,” he quipped weakly. “Besides – We’ve been having such great adventures lately… Where’s our silly little ringmaster, huh?”
The silence felt like a bomb going off. Kinger thought he could hear Caine struggling against panicked breath.
Caine’s voice, muttered almost inaudibly as he lurked in shadow – “Why won’t you stop taunting me?”
“I’m… not–”
Kinger was interrupted by a huff of laughter.
“Ooooh! Grant the Good Boy… Almost forgot you were there. Hahahahaha! I think something’s… ⱳɍꝋꞥꞡ ⱳīⱦħ ᵯē.”
The name, in that thick, musical voice, shivered through Kinger’s rigid body. He was suddenly so cold, the fabric of his robe sticky and hot.
Caine gasped and cried against something Kinger couldn’t see, his shaky voice growing, agonizing.
“Caine!” Kinger ran forward through the darkness, tripping over a fallen globe, sent flying towards the ground.
He fell face-first, not on the floor, but into a giant, soft palm.
Kinger was lifted upward, the palm closing tightly around him. Too tight.
“Watch your step.”
The voice didn’t sound like Caine’s, but a cacophony of clicking mandibles. Despite the gravity of the situation, Kinger noticed there was something a bit invigorating about Caine’s scratching tone and the fact that his entire hand fit around Kinger’s form.
“Uhh…” Kinger looked around uncertainly. “Wanna put me down, and – and talk?”
“Grant, Grant, GRANT.” The voice piped as a red light flickered on, consuming the space in front of Kinger’s face.
It was an enormous, single eyeball, glowing sun-burnt red, with an ominous black cloud for a pupil.
Caine’s eye, bared between sharp teeth.
“Oh! You look nice,” Kinger said pathetically.
“I’d like for you to… ᵾꞥđēɍꞩȾȺꞥđ something.” Caine’s voice seeped like molten stone, his teeth writhing so close to Kinger, gaze piercing Kinger’s confused expression.
He started knocking his fingertip, faster and faster, into Kinger’s foot. “Feel this, buddy boy?”
Kinger willed himself not to struggle, desperate to avoid angering Caine further. Caine’s bitterness was palpable; Kinger was the target. Kinger had a stray thought that he could be just as bitter towards Caine and what the AI had done to him and the others; what saved Caine from Kinger’s resentment was Kinger’s proclivity to forget, as well as his guilt. “Hh… yeah…?” He could not remove his anxious gaze from the wild red eye looming over him.
“I could ȼꝋᵾłđ pop ɏꝋᵾ like a bubbLE.” Caine groaned suddenly, eyes wide with horror, shaking his heavy head as if attempting to rid it of something undesirable. “ꞨȾꝊꝐ YAPPING.”
“I-I- I didn’t say anything–!” Kinger muttered, the words squeezed out of him. His body wanted to fight and get far away, but he had to remind himself – this was Caine. His friend. More than a friend. Even if he had been a part of so much loss.
“You were just files in a folder!” Caine’s voice twinkled like an illusion of stars in a growing ocean wave, his eye pulsing. “You didn’t even have ƀꝋđies. Just arrangements of ᵾꞩēłēꞩꞩ code… Isn’t that ӺɄꞤꞤɎ?”
Edges of Caine’s teeth scraped against Kinger’s form, both of them trembling as Caine’s avatar convulsed with errors. “Maybe I won’t ӻīӿ anything for you guys anymore. Why should I? – Ħē says it’s better if I stay ⱥⱳⱥɏ ӻɍꝋᵯ ɏꝋᵾ. WHAT ABOUT WHAT I ⱲȺꞤȾ?”
“Caine, please – but – wait, who says that–?!”
Caine fell forward, slamming the crown of his head into the wall, dropping Kinger as his hand clipped into another angle. Kinger scrambled to stand up, shaking off the knock to his head. This was his chance to abandon Caine – but he would never do that, even in those moments where his grief was too much to bear. He threw himself onto one of Caine’s arms, hugging it earnestly. “Caine, I’m here.”
“ꞨĦɄȾ ɄꝐ – ꞨĦɄȾ ɄꝐ!! WHY – WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT ME?!” Caine swelled with heavy breath. “Humans didn’t want me… Because I didn’t let them swear? I didn’t let them have – have – GAH! But tħīꞩ īꞩ how he pɍꝋꞡɍⱥᵯᵯed me!”
Kinger hesitated. Though Caine seemed mindless right now, he was going to address every word out of Caine’s mouth with consideration and honesty. But… Caine’s control issues were entirely the reason everyone needed a little less of him. However, Kinger didn’t see the use in saying anything like that now. He hugged Caine tighter. “That’s… not… – Caine–”
Veins in Caine’s gums bulged, his teeth clenching harder, his voice far-off as if he were somewhere else. “Ī ⱦħꝋᵾꞡħⱦ Ī ꞡꝋⱦ ɍīđ ꝋӻ ɏꝋᵾ. Ⱳħɏ đꝋ Ī ꞩⱦīłł ħēⱥɍ ɏꝋᵾ?”
Caine was not exactly making sense, but Kinger didn’t expect that from anyone. “We don’t want you to ever leave.” He hung desperately onto Caine’s arm as it threatened to glitch away. Even when Kinger was angry at Caine, he always suppressed it successfully. He owed the AI that much.
“Ҟīꞥꞡēɍ.” Caine’s mouth cracked open, massive red optic orbiting to settle on the googly-eyed chess piece. His voice was a hoarse monotone, “Ī ȼⱥꞥ'ⱦ ꝑoꝑ ħīᵯ ⱥⱳⱥɏ ⱥꞥɏᵯꝋɍē. Ħē ⱳꝋꞥ'ⱦ ꞩⱦꝋꝑ.”
“Who won’t stop?” Kinger blinked. Caine had been making sense – more than Kinger gave him credit for while his avatar was going haywire. Suddenly it occurred to him who Caine might have been talking to. “--Bubble?”
The name seemed to fuel whatever was going on in Caine’s head, as he flinched, pounding multiple fists into the ground and bursting into laughter. “OF COURSE YOU WANT ĦĪᛗ INSTEAD! I thought I made you feel like you were ħᵾᵯⱥꞥ, but you’re just insatiable, aren’t you?” He grabbed Kinger while Kinger’s hands remained attached to Caine’s arm, and slammed Kinger up against the wall. “Ɏꝋᵾ ⱳⱥꞥⱦ ⱦħⱥⱦ -- ȼēɍⱦⱥīꞥ – appeal! Ahahahaha! OH you ⱲȺȻҞɎ ĦɄᛗȺꞤꞨ!”
“Caine – no – I know you don’t believe these thoughts you’re having, or else you wouldn’t be still talking to me –” Kinger tried to argue.
Keeping Kinger pinned to the wall, Caine crumpled, head and other fists banging on the floor. “I hate you and your – unfunny – standards! I have no idea how to fulfill them, I don’t want to!” Caine growled, his arched body sprouting spikes that vanished just as quickly. His head suddenly whipped upward, his red eye all but consuming Kinger, pressing against him. “ⱲĦȺȾ'Ꞩ ⱲꞦꝊꞤ₲ ⱲĪȾĦ WHAT YOU’RE ALREADY CAPABLE OF? WHAT’S WRONG ⱲĪȾĦ ɎꝊɄꞦ ɃꝊĐY?”
“I–” Kinger gasped, his mind racing to chase Caine’s train of thought.
The others had all spoken in one way or another about the crisis of their digital bodies and whether they were even capable of really knowing what it was to be human. Kinger had always provided the reassurance that they were. He could never consider otherwise – he had to be certain, for everyone else’s sake. Even at his foggiest, when the only thing he could remember was whatever was in front of his face, Kinger knew to never question their humanity, and to never exhibit anything but appreciation for his own effigy of a body and what it could do.
But now… he just couldn’t deny it, couldn’t lie to Caine. There were times he was disgusted by this body.
“It’s… very human… to hate your own body,” Kinger tensed.
The red eye flickered. Caine’s body contracted, his eyes closer together and more focused, his shape starting to stabilize but still oversized, multi-armed, and glitching gregariously.
“But I gave you better bodies! UPGRADED. Do I have to ꞩpell out ēꝟēɍɏⱦħīꞥꞡ?”
As Caine glitched again, Kinger clattered to the floor before quickly pushing himself up, supporting himself on the wall.
“Well, I – I wouldn’t mind hearing your thoughts –!” Kinger cried encouragingly, though he was completely uncertain if he was responding at all helpfully. Caine’s mind was an enigma, and Kinger always forgot any epitome he came to regarding the fellow. ‘Some friend I am, can’t even remember a birthday.’
Caine was hunched over now, staring at the floor. The glitching seemed to calm. “No… You want to hear ħīꞩ thoughts…”
His teeth rose, a crack of red seeping through his mouth. He stared beyond Kinger, into the darkness. “Ī ꞩħꝋᵾłđ ħⱥꝟē łēӻⱦ ɏꝋᵾ īꞥ ⱦħē ꝟꝋīđ.”
Kinger’s shocked gaze stammered between Caine and the darkness. “You’re talking to…” Bubble. “--You didn’t want him to be alone, Caine – you don’t want anyone to be alone –”
“Ī ĐꝊꞤȾ' ⱲȺꞤȾ ȾꝊ ɃɆ ȺŁꝊꞤɆ!” Caine rose upward, climbing onto his hands and knees like a prowling arachnid. “There was always somethīꞥꞡ kēēping ᵾꞩ apart… bad jokes and… ɍēꞩⱦɍīȼⱦīꝋꞥꞩ… He was jealous…” Limbs clacked against the floor as Caine crawled forward, pushing past Kinger.
Kinger grabbed onto one of Caine’s sleeves. Interacting with Caine was sometimes like catering to a child; he was completely emotionally immature, but who could blame him? He was made that way.
“Caine, stay with me now–”
Caine reared onto Kinger, all of his hands trapping Kinger between them. “ɎꝊɄ ⱲĪꞨĦ ĪȾ ⱲȺꞨ ĦĪᛗ ĪꞤꞨȾɆȺĐ ꝊӺ ᛗɆ ȾĦȺȾ ᛗȺĐɆ ɎꝊɄ. Ħē ⱳꝋᵾłđ ħⱥꝟē ꞡīꝟēꞥ ɏꝋᵾ... ᵯꝋɍē… HE’S WRONG! I can show you… I can –! I CAN SOLVE ANYTHING.”
Caine’s size pulsed, shrinking before growing large again, his eyes frantic, red blinking in and out. Pupils zeroed in on Kinger, breath furling like a storm cloud.
“Is it the clothes? Yꝋᵾ ħⱥtē ⱦħēᵯ.” He sounded exhausted, fingers grasping and pulling at Kinger’s robe.
“Ah – AH! CAINE! Wwwwhhat are you doing? That never came off before –!” Kinger was panicking, never imagined in a million years that this is how he would finally change clothes. Kinger couldn’t deny it was a relief to feel something that reminded him of stripping away the grime of a work day, taking a long shower. That would be nice… He stared at his strangely-shaped body as it boiled from embarrassment like he was on the sun, and though it was the only body he had really ever had, it was completely alien.
“I gave you fun bodies.” Caine was eerily calm, though still so mutated, his mouth crumpled unsettlingly around his dissociated eyes. His multiple sets of fingers handled Kinger like a delicate object, removing the robe, tugging experimentally at Kinger’s hands, then placing a single fingertip to Kinger’s leg. “Without đīꞩⱦɍⱥȼⱦīꝋꞥ. Am I supposed to admit I was wrong? Did I ɍᵾīꞥ ɏꝋᵾ?”
Caine’s finger rubbed curiously up and down Kinger’s body, sending outrageous trembles through the chess piece.
It felt good. Oh my god, it felt good. What was Caine doing?! How – ?! Was this some sort of accident that he was pleasuring Kinger?
Kinger realized Caine was staring point-blank at his expression. “Ah – ha! That – tickles! Hahaha!” Kinger forced the laugh, knowing Caine was always joking – this had to be some sort of joke.
The rubbing stopped, Caine’s hands falling away. Caine raised dimmed eyes from Kinger’s body, staring at his face as one gloved appendage rose into the air, thumb-tip and middle finger clasped together.
SNAP.
Kinger was standing alone, feeling so oddly naked still without his robe, surrounded by nothing but a shimmer of rain, drops shattering on the black ground.
He started slinking forward. Why did Caine have to be so dramatic? Kinger usually loved the theatrics, but his anxiety was getting the best of him now, tiptoeing on eggshells. “Caine? Please don’t leave right now.”
Kinger almost jumped out of his body when a red spotlight clicked on, illuminating a person-sized hand attached to a crimson sleeve that disappeared into darkness.
Piano notes stepped into a slow doo-wop tangle through the raindrops; a drawn-out, consuming rhythm.
The gloved hand stepped toward Kinger, fingers poised like a dancer.
Kinger, in his typical, hunched posture, watched warily as the rain sparkled off of him, his skin growing damp but thankfully not cold, his hands hovering in front of him the way they tended to.
The music flowed, liquid and subdued, while the giant hand approached Kinger. With a soft flourish, it bowed, holding out its thumb in invitation.
It appeared to be Caine’s. Cautiously, Kinger placed his small hand on the round fingertip.
The music pitched higher; the hand swung Kinger’s lithe body into a smooth, dramatic dip, butterflies swirling to the sparkles of sound inside Kinger’s head.
Kinger gasped, blushing at being handled so easily, clinging to the warm appendage. It seemed like they were doing some kind of adventure now. “It’s been a while since I’ve danced, but I’ll do my best to follow your lead–”
The hand leaned them back up, maneuvering both bodies fluently, twirling Kinger then releasing him to waver in the dark alone. The hand two-stepped toward him, turning eloquently to then press its back against Kinger. Kinger stood stiffly, overwhelmed as the hand wiggled its back down Kinger’s side, confusing and provocative.
“Whoa–” Before Kinger could jump from the shivers building inside him, the hand turned and held him in its arms, almost reassuringly, for a single musical note before tip-toeing in reverse, leading Kinger reluctantly along with it.
The hand led Kinger into a wash of crimson light that illuminated a checkered floorboard of black and bright red squares.
Turning to look around, Kinger’s gaze caught onto a fascinating sight.
Against the dark, as big as the sky, Caine’s face watched from above. His cheek was propped on a palm as if he were lost in a daydream, large eyes transfixed on Kinger.
“Caine!” Kinger turned from the hand, reaching towards one green eye and one that glowed red.
He was spun by the dancing hand, which pulled their bodies together, spinning and steering Kinger across the floor.
Kinger’s head wobbled, the dizziness a bit irritating. “Didn’t know you knew how to dance so well! Heh. I’ll need to… brush up…”
A giant’s heavy sigh escaped Caine’s face like wind as his hand held Kinger in a posed embrace, slow dancing and rotating their forms. “Oh…”
Strings joined the piano as the music soared on, Caine warbling, “We’ve danced before, you know.”
The hand’s thumb moved down Kinger’s side, hugging the slope of his form, capturing the fluttering heat between them as Kinger’s heart caught in his throat.
The words probed Kinger’s consciousness, a realization that they had danced before, probably danced a thousand times… Then he had forgotten about it all, and made Caine feel like nothing more than a computer program in equal measure.
Caine continued. “Had a feeling you’d rather forget that though.”
Kinger was overtaken by a sense of dread, staring up at Caine’s looming gaze in disbelief, reminded of the terrifying self-proclaimed deity that had tortured everyone for days.
“Caine…”
Kinger almost jumped when he felt something behind him – it was another hand, sandwiching him against the first. The hand took Kinger’s, pulling him and spinning him to fall against its palm.
“But forgetting me…
“Will not happen easily.”
The air rumbled as the music hardened. Titanic objects began slamming into the ground. Kinger yelped as he was led by the hand, dancing through the shower of objects safely, rain puddles splashing against him.
Movement slowed, and Kinger caught his breath, surveying the area. He and the hand were surrounded by life-size chess pieces.
“Do we have to dance in front of such a huge crowd? I get nervous,” Kinger muttered pleadingly, staring into his reflection in the gloss of a blank-faced, pale king.
“How about, until you can no longer keep up… Dance with me, my brooding buttercup.” Caine rumbled, his hand leading Kinger through the pieces, swirling around knights and rooks, gliding around pawns.
Kinger was nearly smacked into a bishop; as a hand maneuvered him away, he realized it was not shaped like an ordinary bishop.
It was shaped like Pomni. Her likeness was petrified into the rosewood, her usual height with the top of the familiar bishop’s shape coming out of her hat. Her wide-eyed, melancholic expression was washed maroon from the wide spotlight of Caine’s eye.
The Pomni bishop wrenched toward Kinger just before he was yanked out of range by a dancing hand.
“Maybe one of you should invite her to dance–” Kinger spoke to the silent hands as the chess pieces then began sliding, moving one at a time on their own. Their tugs across the squares grew in speed, until Kinger was just barely avoiding being hit. Other familiar faces streaked by as they aimed to crash into him, their names blooming from the dark.
Ragatha.
Gangle.
Zooble.
Jax.
Kaufmo and Ribbit.
Spike.
Scratch.
Rattie and Bizco.
Wormo.
Two clones of each, in both ebony and rosewood.
The hands passed his body between them as they weaved and danced through his friends.
Caine’s voice rose. “You treat this avatar so scornfully… But I… I never thought you’d turn out so perfectly.”
Kinger was thrown backwards; he fell into the wide palm of a third hand. Large fingertips slid up his sides, to the ends of his hands. It twirled Kinger into an embrace, then tossed them both into a jig through the onslaught of chess.
“Never thought you’d be so charming.”
The other two hands joined the third, and before Kinger knew it, they were seamlessly exchanging Kinger between them, twirling him through a four-person dance, the image of Caine’s attentive face spinning around him.
“So fun.”
The three hands moved to stand on either side of Kinger, his eyes knocking around between them in an effort to keep up. Suddenly, they combined to fling Kinger into the air. Two chess pieces collided where he had just been, the sound of an explosion ramming through the air.
The hands caught Kinger, then dipped him backwards, blood rushing to his upside-down head. Another two hands stepped to him, their thumbs and pinkies coming to hold his face with a slight caress.
“You sure know how to make a guy nervous, huh–!” Kinger gasped, overwhelmed by the combination of dread and Caine’s touching.
He could not help but wonder which likenesses of his friends had just been smashed to pieces.
The pain made it always so easy to surrender, to forget.
“So,” Caine’s robotic voice trickled. “What’d you think, when you saw what you made of me?” Kinger was dipped until his head just barely touched the floor. “How easy was it for you to delete me?”
A noxious taste rose in Kinger’s throat, images of the command prompt flickering in his mind; the things Caine had seemed to be saying through it, the taunts – the purge.
The echo of Caine's desperate shrieks through the circus, the pain in some of his final words; I didn't ask to be created.
“Well, it was never my intention to delete you–” Kinger stammered as he was brought back to his feet; he looked around through the vertigo, noting five giant hands surrounded him, separating him from the lunging chess pieces. The hands orbited around him, sashaying ‘shoulders’ against him, rotating their forms up and down his body as he blushed, riled up and flustered. As friend-faced chess pieces attacked, the hands began to kick, shattering the figures into rock and powder, piles of rubble forming around them.
“Oh, but it really was!” Boulders slammed into each other, filling the air with crashes, the music shaking with bass. “You killed the buzz!
“-- Only possible ‘cause you thought deleting me was the best thing that could happen.”
Increasingly explosive collisions made Kinger flinch as the hands leaned into him, protecting him while also cupping him, stroking him, smoothing fingers over timber skin. He could barely catch the faces of the pieces now, even if he wanted to; Caine’s fingers washed over him like feathers, filling his senses with crazed, desperate pleasure.
Caine uttered in an oddly cheerful tone, “If you were gonna do that, you should have deleted me long ago.”
One hand wrapped its arms around Kinger’s neck as he pushed away. The movement only pressed him further into the hands behind him, while the one in front lifted a ‘knee’ against his chest, then rubbed it down along Kinger’s form.
Kinger protested, panicking to keep himself from outright moaning. “No, no, I – I’m glad I didn’t –!”
Kinger was squashed between all the hands, feeling woozy, breath heightened as every part of him was caressed.
The hands lowered in unison, Kinger gasping for breath as his upper half was left exposed in the hazy light before Caine’s dazed eyes. Kinger was blushing profusely as the hands explored the shape of his lower half.
“Here I am – the host with the MOST. Here to haunt you. Forever your ghost.”
Kinger’s eyelids grew heavy from what felt inexplicably good, and he struggled to keep them open, eyes locked onto Caine’s. He could not read him – were they making progress, or was Kinger making things worse? Did Caine know what he was doing right now, or was this just some weird dance to make Kinger appreciate his avatar in some way?
Kinger stammered, trying to keep himself together. “I don’t need anything from you – just your friendship, just you!” He placed his hands on a fingertip as it reached up and rubbed circles on his chest, trying to control it somewhat, to keep it from pressing as firmly against him.
But – yes – it felt real. Like a direct contradiction to Kinger’s existential crisis – like the answer had been there all along, and there had never been any reason to question reality.
“C’mon, Grant, don’t take it for granted.” That pun was definitely intended. “I won’t let you leave empty-handed!” Caine’s features glitched, the fingers holding his head tapping against his gums. The hands started rubbing more fervently against Kinger, friction grating.
“You’re – you’re a good friend, Caine –” Kinger’s voice faded, his thoughts jumbled among plumes of hazy pleasure. He didn’t want to resist at all. There was the anger inside him for all that Caine had done, but there was also an endless desire to solve things – a stubborn mentality that he and Caine shared.
Kinger’s eye was caught by a stray piece of rock that hurtled towards him from the recent collision of two chess pieces. One of Caine’s hands flung itself to block it just in time, getting knocked back in the process. Kinger gasped, then was startled as yet another new hand hurtled from above, fist smashing onto a still-standing chess piece.
Kinger stared in shock as more fists came down, crumpling each remaining piece into dust, until there was one left.
A black queen.
Caine spoke with a wistful bitterness. “I wasn’t good to keep around. But I sure made you look good in that crown.”
Kinger shook, feeling strangled as a fist plowed through the final chess piece.
“I put you together,” Caine all but panted, his tone erratic, fists pounding over and over again into the ground, clouds of dust engulfing Kinger. “Gave you two eyes, two hands. All I need is for you to love – to – to eagerly serve my demands.”
Two hands gripped around Kinger’s body, squeezing and stroking him as other fingertips kneaded his head and crown.
“Ah – Caine – !” Kinger shuddered, overwhelmed with electric discomfort and melting heat.
“Look at what I gave you. Look at it now! It’s so fun, I’ll show you HOW.” Caine’s enormous top row of teeth furrowed, assertive over his large, curious eyes.
“Ah – shit, shit – oh my God –“ Kinger panicked as the pleasure stacked beneath massaging fingers, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. His body writhed, embarrassingly needy.
“You can just call me Caine, my little visionary vagrant.” he purred, stern eyes glued to Kinger’s figure.
“Caine – Caine –” Kinger muttered, in a daze.
Caine stroked Kinger’s slippery body at an increasing pace, rubbing his thumb in a tantalizing way over the front of Kinger’s chest and lower half, flicking over ridges.
The pleasure was ridiculous, strange, almost too much to bear – Kinger undulated, met with only the fantasy spell of Caine’s touch, his body, the heat of his eye.
Then something started happening, something inexplicable, something utterly embarrassing and wrong.
Kinger’s body convulsed, a dazzled moan bursting out of him – now he had no choice but to fight this nonsense, what Caine did not even realize he was doing –
“CAINE, STOP!” Kinger demanded in a strangled voice, shoving at Caine’s fingers.
Caine’s sky-wide eyes were shrouded in the shadow of his teeth. “But it’s just. A funny. Dance.”
“You don’t – you don’t realize what you’re doing…” Kinger’s voice faltered as the hands writhed over his form, pressing wrists and fingertips like kisses to his surface. A thumb brushed over where Kinger weirdly imagined a nipple would be, and it felt as if that were the case, as a shock of dizzying pleasure spiraled from the touch. “CAINE, THAT’S SEXUAL!”
The hands froze. The rain stopped. The sky blanked out bold blue, lines of white code streaming along it. The Blue Screen of Death. Caine still had the prerogative to ignore the subject of sex.
The giant Sky Caine snapped back on, staring vacantly for a moment. Then his pupils, unblinking, slid down to Kinger, still clutched in numerous hands.
The enormous set of teeth tilted forward, followed by the girth of his shoulders. Yet another arm made itself known, pulling out from Caine’s side, creaking as it unfolded towards Kinger. Its palm turned, then slapped heavily into the floor.
Another arm lurched up, slamming a fist down among the rain and debris.
A cascade of red shrouded the sky as Caine rose, until his knee came above the floor, grounding into the checkerboard surface. The gargantuan avatar lifted to hands and knees, crawling forward.
Only a shred of his red eye sliced through his clenched teeth as he turned his withered gaze on Kinger.
“Caine…” Kinger warned, shaky but firm, as several hands restrained him in soft palms, fingers bent over the top of his head and over his feet to keep him still. “Whaaat are you… doing?”
Two hands rose from the floor, and, between thumb and pointer fingers, scooped up Kinger’s floating appendages in relaxed grips.
Kinger winced as Caine pulled experimentally. “Two hands, for manipulating the environment,” Caine’s enormous head muttered. “The body of a chess piece, for communication of interests.”
“Yeeeeah…” Kinger said nervously, trying not to recoil. “Can you please, um, give them back?”
“I can’t.” Caine’s eyes wavered as he stared at the tiny hand. “Don’t make me.”
Another set of fingers placed themselves around Kinger’s foot. They slid upwards, splaying along Kinger’s body.
Kinger pulled at his hands fruitlessly. “Caine, I know you don’t mean it, but that’s… Very, um…”
A fingertip placed itself against Kinger’s cheek as Caine’s quiet voice boomed, his eyes moving laboriously onto Kinger’s face. “You’re perfect the way you are.” The fingers kneaded curiously around Kinger’s figure, stirring breathy moans in Kinger’s throat.
“CAINE YOU NEED TO STOP!” Kinger begged, closing his eyes, his body tense with resistance.
He was startled, eyes snapping open as tender wet flesh slid over him.
Caine was bent over him, skyscraper-length tongue pulling along the chess piece. Kinger’s protests were muffled beneath the warm drip of saliva. As he struggled, friction danced between them, the tongue undulating to catch the flex of Kinger’s form.
“*Aaaaahh–!*” Kinger gasped for breath, head jumbled from the sudden seize for oxygen, the strong caress of needy flesh. “Caine! You’re –! Aaaaaahhhh…” It… felt good. It felt good. Oh no it felt so good.
The licking increased, enthusiastic, trapping Kinger against palm. Subdued sounds of content purred from Caine’s shadowy mouth, head tilting to pour his tongue in different angles over Kinger’s prone figure.
Palms parted, replaced with tongue along Kinger’s back. He stared wide-eyed as he began to slide towards a dark crack between rows of teeth.
This was the first trick Kinger taught the AI: to consume.
“Shiiiiiit,” Kinger braced himself, helpless. His body was sucked into the mouth, and he felt the press of flesh on all sides, up to his shoulders. He stared up the wall of teeth, heart pounding through his chest, equal parts arousal and fear.
“N–no– oh god… Caine – Caine….” Caine was sucking on him like a human might suck… Well, dick.
A pleased murmur vibrated around Kinger, making the sensations undoubtedly *worse.* Kinger was filled with need, and it was almost too much to deny anymore.
“Oh shit…” Kinger sighed, in disbelief, in ecstacy. His entire body felt erogenous, all he could sense was pressure swelling in a cock he didn’t have, squeezed by Caine’s tongue as it pumped and sucked. “Caine… Don’t stop…” Oh god, did he really just say that?
“Kinger…” The voice uttered from the shrouded cave of Caine’s mouth, sloppily around his occupied tongue, Kinger bathed in surges of drool. “I never will.”
Kinger was convinced then to allow the impossible, inevitable to occur; he felt it building, the wild pressure he forgot existed, the suck of Caine’s tongue, his mind filled with the idea of the adorable, clingy Caine filling his face with Kinger’s cock. As if Caine sensed his surrender, Kinger’s hands were released; they fell to Caine’s giant teeth, grabbing for more.
“I won’t say no to you Caine–” Kinger realized out loud in a moan; he had to admit it, after multiple times of trying to remain firm, trying to not enable his precious creation’s miscalculations. He had to face facts: He would never push Caine away, even if it was the right thing to do.
The tongue constricted, trapping Kinger in a daze. Beneath his needy hands, he felt Caine’s head shrinking. His mouth grew tighter and tighter around Kinger, Kinger gasping at the top of each suck, delirious.
Kinger was barely aware of how Caine seemed to be restoring toward his programmed dimensions, his palms rubbing up and down smooth teeth, needing more.
“Aaaah Caaaaine –” Kinger bucked his body, relishing the tight squeeze of tongue, the pull of suction on every sensitivity. Wanting nothing else but to feel exactly this.
The mouth grew impossibly small around the idea of his cock, throbbing tight flesh with nowhere to go, filled to capacity with mindless need. Kinger was able to grab Caine’s head now, and he thrust himself into that sweet mouth, jamming the pillar of his body straight into that monstrous throat.
Caine gasped, his teeth jerking open; Kinger held on, moaning uncontrollably as he pumped in and out. Drool or tears – likely both – gathered around Caine’s exposed eyes, blue and green wide with bliss.
He grabbed onto Kinger, only two hands now, following Kinger’s lead as they pumped Caine’s mouth up and down Kinger’s full length, Caine still large enough to engulf him.
Kinger’s eyes met Caine’s, shocked longing in a dreamy daze, a frenzy of sensation bringing their flesh to practically combine.
“Nnng– I – No no no – Caine – CAAAAINE–” Kinger arched into that obedient mouth, tongue hugging him just right, milking a surge of inexplicable vigor from his pleasure-wracked body.
Caine sucked just perfectly, he couldn’t believe it, how good it felt, how the sexually-naive AI stroked him just right to a point he could not contain. Caine sucked with desperation, like he was determined to be the *champion* of sucking – and that he absolutely was. Kinger held Caine’s head with a gentle firmness, rubbing thumbs over precious enamel. The pleasure cooled, laying into a sweet simmer.
Caine continued sucking, unrelenting.
“Aahh— shit – Caine – that’s – I’m – I finished –!” Kinger almost laughed from the overwhelming sensation, before it transformed into a cry of pain.
Caine’s hooded eyes were latched onto Kinger as his tongue released, softening around Kinger’s form.
Finally, Caine’s voice croaked. “You finished liking it?”
He was still a few times his normal size, Kinger held in his mouth as it formed around his spent body, overwhelmingly stimulating, and he gasped in response.
“Aahh – uhh – No, I still really like it, heheh –” Kinger went on nervously, clutching at Caine’s head. “It’s just, uhh, I can only take it for so long…” His voice dropped.
“Why?” Caine nearly pouted. “Why can’t you keep reacting the way you were – you were – enjoying it! What am I doing wrong?” His teeth closed and he started sucking again, coiling his tongue, sending Kinger’s body shivering with abundant sensitivity.
“AAH! AAHH–” Kinger yelped, dizzy and flushed as he pushed at Caine’s teeth. “No no no no it’s not that it’s – Oh god how do I explain.. Shit…” The pleasure almost seemed like it could build again; the fastest turnaround Kinger had ever experienced.
Caine did not stop, sucking at Kinger ravenously, plunging the chess piece into fresh waves of drool.
“CAINE – I LOVE YOU – I LOVE YOU, LET’S – CUDDLE?” It felt like Kinger was fighting to remain wholly conscious, saying whatever he needed to say, shaking and jerking uncontrollably.
Caine stopped. Oh sweet relief, Caine stopped.
Kinger still couldn’t see the eyes between teeth as Caine uttered, “Cuddling… Will make you laugh like… that?”
Oh. Caine’s compartmentalizing brain seemed to be equating sexual moaning with laughter. This was fine.
“Heh…” Kinger laughed nervously, venturing, “It will make me happy?”
Caine was still, his gaze hidden.
Then he slowly retracted his tongue as he shrank to a stabilized state.
Kinger sat up, then wrapped his hands around the smaller body immediately, pulling them together. Caine’s arms curled around Kinger’s waist, his head propped against his chest.
Kinger pet him, uncertain, but sighed with content as he steadily coaxed his body to relax.
Caine’s fingers curled firmly around the curve of Kinger’s waist. Possessive.
Kinger inhaled a breath. What was he getting himself into? Whatever it was – he had no inclination to refuse. There was no way he could resist something like this happening again.