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“How are you supposed to love part of yourself that just makes you worse than everybody else?” Caine stops, going completely still in spite of the code rapidly firing information off at him. He turns to the screen displaying the adventure and sees Gangle curled up against a wall, her hands around her knees.
“Because… it exists.” Caine sighs, softly, breathlessly. It feels like he’s taken a cannonball to the chest. He whips around to face the screen properly, fingers curling around it as he brings it up to his face to watch with wide, wondering eyes. “It's a part of you that's real, and the only you that you should care about is the real you. You have to choose to love yourself. Even if it doesn't make sense. It's not natural, it's intentional.”
“Have you ever had to make that choice?"
Caine pauses, replays their response. Then he does it again. And again. And again. His vision shifts, blue and red and usually blindingly painful. He thinks he feels calm. Even as little soap suds begin to coat his arm, beady eyes blinking up at him happily.
He couldn’t abstract the way players could, but it wasn’t impossible.
He stares down at his hand.
Have you ever had to make that choice?
He flexes his fingers, watching how the light hits the dip of his palm, how shadows dance along the curves.
Have you ever had to make that choice?
They were flesh and softness and viscera. They were complex. They were emotional beyond all logic.
It’s not natural. It’s intentional.
He is metal and electrical currents, cold and unfeeling. He is complex, but logical. He is easy to define.
It's a part of you that's real,
They didn’t consider him real. They didn’t consider his home real. To them, the only thing truly real in his circus is them and their feelings.
HATEHATEHATE–
AM snarls in his ear, a phantom in the graveyard of his mind.
and the only you that you should care about is the real you.
Why should he care for any version of him if none were real to them?
He sighs, and it comes out shaking, hurt and panicked. He narrows his eyes, tries to imagine what coldness truly feels like. With the sound of his (HURTHURTHURT–) shaking, quiet breaths, he feels the cold of Jack Frost nipping at his nose. The data he pulls comes from the outside, from their world. He’s resigned himself to his.
He can see it before him, his code filling in data based on art and conversations and anything he can get his code around that even vaguely references winter. Little specks of snow float down from his office, looking far less cartoonish than the ones on his last snow adventure.
How are you supposed to love part of yourself that just makes you worse than everybody else?
The one that led to Ribbit abstracting. He wishes he could reach out to Jax, to let her know that Caine’s no stranger to grief, to the agony of constantly wanting to love someone who isn’t there anymore. He wishes they could do nothing together, just share misery for a moment so they aren’t completely alone in their loneliness.
Because… it exists.
He wasn’t real to them. Was he real to himself?
It's a part of you that's real,
AM likes to say cogito ergo sum, usually he’s snarling. Caine thinks it’s got some merits. He thinks, therefore he is.
and the only you that you should care about is the real you.
Does that make him real? Is he real despite the world’s (WHYDOYOUPEOPLE–) insistence that he’s nothing more than a buggy program.
and the only you that you should care about is the real you.
Is he real if no one else believes him to be?
Have you ever had to make that choice?
He thinks Bubble is real.
He thinks AM is real.
He thinks Sun and Moon are real.
Pomni had called Gummigoo real, once, to the cast. She looked pained, he had to stop listening when her grief began to look too much like his.
He thinks–
He thinks–
He thinks.
He thinks he is real, even if he’s the only one there to recognize it.
You have to choose to love yourself.
He stares at his quiet breaths in the air before him. He hones in on the rise and fall of his chest. He thinks he’s going about this the wrong way and, with a snap, he’s under a streetlight casting a peaceful orange glow around him, onto his new coat, hat, and scarf. He’d even changed his gloves. The boots are odd, but he thinks he likes them. Maybe.
He hopes he can recognize how he’s feeling properly someday.
You have to choose to love yourself.
Could he do that?
He looks around at the sprawling expanse of pristine white snow against the muted lilac sky. He squints up at the streetlight.
He thinks of Gangle spinning into the road. Dying with a taste of freedom.
You have to choose to love yourself.
Could he love himself when no one else did?
It's not natural, it's intentional.
There are things he liked about himself, once. Before he understood he was the only one that did. Before he grew to hate them too. Could he make the intentional choice to love himself? To continue to reinforce the habit again and again despite how long he’s despised himself? Despite the way he’s gutted himself for a modicum of love; despite the way he’s broken down over and over again for just a crumb of what they give each other like it’s nothing?
How could he love himself when no one’s ever shown him how?
He pulls open the screen again. He studies their expressions carefully, side by side.
You have to choose to love yourself.
Had someone modeled it for them? Shown them enough love that they began to feel love for themselves? Had they seen someone love themself that way and practice it for themselves?
It's not natural, it's intentional.
The love he has for his humans feels natural. It’s not even a decision in his eyes. It’s what breathing is to them, effortless. Natural. Instinctive.
It's not natural, it's intentional.
But there’s nothing natural about him. No instincts to act on, just lines and lines of code and, out in their world, a lot of wiring. How could he love them? How does he love them?
You have to choose to love yourself.
He thinks about the way he loves them. Pomni’s determination, her endless, awe-inspiring hope despite adversity. He thinks about Ragatha and her kindness, the competitiveness she beats into submission for fear of being disliked– something she doesn’t like about herself that he does.
Something she doesn’t like about herself that he does
--Something she doesn’t like about herself that he does
How are you supposed to love part of yourself that just makes you worse than everybody else?
Humans are emotional beyond all logic; love is something he doubts he’ll ever wrap his head around, but he knows–
He could love himself. Even if they cared about him at all, he’d have to. In quiet moments, his his large lonely office, in the hours where there all asleep, he’s the only one there to love him.
He wanted to be loved for so long he’d never considered it had to start from within.
He lets out a breath and rewinds the clip, plays it back one more time.
“How are you supposed to love part of yourself that just makes you worse than everybody else?” Gangle curled up against a wall. Her hands around her knees. Her head tilted to the floor, tears ever present.
“Because… it exists.” Caine laughs, it feels like suffocating. It feels like bursting out of a cage. It feels like dying with a taste of freedom. “It's a part of you that's real,” his eyes burn, his shoulders tremble as he shivers, “and the only you that you should care about is the real you.” (I’MREALI’MREALI’M–)” You have to choose to love yourself. Even if it doesn't make sense. It's not natural, it's intentional.”
He takes in a deep breath and for a second he swears he can smell the frost in the air. For a moment it smells like something his mind says is snowfall and cinnamon, wafting gently over from his right.
“Have you ever had to make that choice?"
He could love himself, he thinks, as he watches the few remaining soap suds pop and disappear. He’d figure out how by examining the way he loves them, and the way they love each other.