Chapter Text
The sun smiles brightly as she looks down upon the girls (and zooble) playing at the digital lake. The sand feel warm, but not hot enough to hurt. Ragatha's hair is tied up with a cute blue bow that sways as she jumps. Zooble tosses the colorful beach ball up into the air with a tentacle-like limb, and spikes the ball over the net soon after. The ragdoll slides face first into the sand in an attempt to prevent the ball from hitting the floor, but ends up with a mouth full of sand.
"Nice shot, Zooble!" Gangle cheers, her hat floating somewhere int he water long-forgotten. "Oh, there you are Ragatha!"- exclaims the chess piece, the smooth wood of his upper half exposed- "I didn't know we were having sand for dinner. What flavor is it?" Kinger picks up the beach ball Zooble had spiked earlier, feeling the plasticky texture.
The group continues their game of volleyball, until Gangle spikes the volley ball directly into the deep blue of the water. "Sorry, the sun was in my eye.." she whimpers pitifully. Zooble glares at the flaming ball in the sky, who returns a blank smile. Oh well. Kinger volunteered to go get the ball, but Ragatha dives into the water first (she was scared kinger would eat the water.)
Code. Lines of green swim throughout every form of the circus. Caine sits in a beach lounge chair, coconut drink in hand, observing the the players enjoy the ball game he didn't quite understand. Cartoony beads of sweat drip from his upper jaw onto the flower-patterned tropical shirt he was wearing. Suddenly, [object:color-ball(bouncerubberphysics)] collided with [water:section3-lake(deep4)]. The code bugged out, causing a large section to be shifted forward by one space. Caine noticed the change, making a mental note to do some bug-fixing later, but didnt feel the effects.
Not yet, atleast.
The code continued to be altered by the bug. For most of the aspects of the circus, there was no major effect. Maybe a slight shift in reflections here, or the lighting become a little redder there. But, there was a slightly inportant line of code was changed.
If: blocking content(explicit), let: Arousal-pleasure(simulated)=true
Caine noticed Ragatha struggling in the deep blue depths, trying to look for the beach ball. He snapped his (still gloved) fingers, respawning the doll and the ball on the warm, sandy shores (and Gangle's hat while he was at it). "Thanks Caine!" Gangle said, holding her large tan sunhat with one end of her ribbon arms. "Yea, thank you so much Caine!" The red-haired girl replied as she swiped water off her plush arms. Kinger asked the AI if he would like to join their game of Beach ball, as Zooble shot him a sharp look. "No can do, Kinger boy! I am one busy ringmaster, and I have important work to get to."-Caine adjusted the square sunglasses that floated in front of his multicolored eyes- "Maybe next time!"
As much as Caine truly appreciated the offer, there were stacks of work piling up in his office, and he had already wasted enough time in the sun.
Wow, the humans truly DO care about me!
With that, Caine snapped his fingers, teleporting him back to his office and into his regular ringmaster outfit. His scarlet coat looked purple in the blue lighting of his adventure orbs. The AI climbed the stairway (climb the stairway up to heaven live on every tv-ok sorry for the hazbin reference, back to the fic) to his wooden desk, yet majority of the deep walnut color was covered by the blinding white of papers.
Oh no.
He had a severe lapse in his judgement regarding the amount of work to do. What to do first what to do first oh my gosh wait what was the strategy priorities yes prioritize prioritize what what was most important to him the humans.
The humans. Where were they right now? The beach, playing an odd game. The beach game they were playing, with the ball! Yes! The ball that Gangle caused a bug with.
He remembered the mental note he had made to do bug fixing. Yes, that's what he should start with, bug fixing! The ringmaster snaps his fingers, causing an old macingtosh style computer to spawn on his wooden desk with a thud. Papers fluttered about, but Caine didn't care as that familiar sea of code appeared on his computer. His fingertips went tp tp tp on the square keys.
As more of his code was altered Caine became increasingly... sensitive? Like he could feel every line being skipped, every character being written and deleted, every command being performed. Wow, was it just him or was the room getting warmer? And this weird tingling sensation that flowed through his body? Caine thought it was just a bug, but he could deal with his own bugs later, the priority is the humans! Yet, it was getting increasingly difficult to focus.
Concentrating on the code only got harder and harder as time went on. Every sensation felt like burning through his body. The tingliness got stronger and began to settle in his lower abdomen. Sometimes it felt soft like jelly, and other times (like when he was typing) it felt sharp. Caine was extremley confused and was now panting in an attempt to stop the intense feelings, fans beginning to hum within his chest. What was happening? He was just coding so why did he feel so... needy? What did he even want? He had to do something, anything to quell the fire that had suddenly risen in him.
"You need to take breaks, you cant always be working. That's how you get burnout!" He remembered someone saying this. It was in his pre-alpha stage, when he was nothing more than a red dot. The young ringmaster had yet to be given a camera of any sort, so he didn't know he said it.
Yes, it clicked! A break. Once Caine had a good rest, this odd fire would run out of fuel and he would be able to work at 110%!
Caine floated from the black leather office chair of his messy desk to the large, red velvet lounge chair near large bookshelves. Fancy gold designs flowed up along the armrest of the chair, contrasting with the soft vermillion cushions. Near the chair, there was a deep brown end table, where a vanilla scented candle was gently burning. The cozy reading nook with shelves matching the end table would be the perfect place to enter sleep mode. He laid down on the plush chair, spawned a soft white fluff blob to act as a blanket, and attempted to rest.
Oh no.
Oh no no no no no.
It has felt like 3 hours (only 10 minutes according to his internal clock). He's shifted position 5 to 7 times in an attempt to find relief, currently on his knees and leaning forward to dig his lower jaw into the armrest of the chair. The white fluff has been thrown around him to try and stop his trembling, thinking it’s due to being cold (despite not sensing colder temperatures) The candle has been blown out. Every brush of the fabric form the blanket and chair makes him whimper. *Golly I'm pathetic* Caine thinks. *Can't even handle laying down, can't figure out what's wrong* He gives up on trying to solve the problem, choosing to remain a tingly lump on the chair.
Caine realizes the heat is mostly around the area between his legs. Feeling like he has nothing to lose, he moves one of his hands from below his jaw where it was clutching the soft material of the blanket, down his torso, and slides it between his legs to investigate the heat. Even the gentle touches of his fingertips along his own body feel like sparks through his code. Caine lets out a soft grunt at the feeling, finally enjoying the slightest bit of relief from the last 30 hours (minutes) of building pressure. Once his hand reached its destination, he pushes and massages softly, moaning and whimpering at every movement. He’s not sure why he lets out such sounds. Is it because he feels good? Does this stimulation actually feel good or is he just enjoying the relief? A million more questions followed through his mind, the ringmasters couldn’t focus on any of them. The only thing Caine could do was *feel*.
"ah~ o-oh my.. how- MMFF!" Caine audible lets out the pathetic noises, remaining hidden under the safety of the blanket.
Outside Caine's office, the circus begins to glitch more and more. "The f(^#`$) going on??" Zooble yelps as one of their limbs suddenly clips into the sand Something is very, very wrong.