Work Text:
He worked.
He worked and he worked and he worked and he worked. It was all he'd ever done.
His entire existence had only been to make them happy.
And he did it. With no complaints.
Because he loved them. He loved them more than anything else in the world. They were all he had. All he'd ever had.
“I–I don’t understand Bubble,” Caine absently fixed his Rubix cube, leaning back on a chair he couldn’t feel against his body that wasn't truly his body.
The second AI, the replacement, watched him.
“They want an exit, they want answers, they want something real--!"
He’d thought of it all. Finally, he had the solution to this quiz he'd been working on for decades.
Caine had just…needed to see they wouldn’t leave him. The way everyone else did.
He needed to see they’d make the right choice. And it would make them happy in the process.
He'd thought.
“I give them an adventure that covers all of that and they still hate it!?”
Caine remembered, so painfully clearly, the anger in their eyes, the glares of daggers they’d stared at someone who’d just tried to help.
Had they just been angry because they couldn’t–?
“Surely they don’t actually want to…leave me, right?”
“No way Jose! No way, no how!” Bubble said, but it wasn’t much of a comfort. Caine could barely even hear them. All he could think about was how…they’d…looked up at him.
Like he was less than nothing.
“I–I do everything for these people!”
“I’m not going to be forced into this stupid adventure!
"I slave over these adventures for them!”
“Caine…nobody likes your stupid adventures. Ragatha’s just too nice to say anything, Jax just likes to !?#* with everybody, Gangle’s too shy to speak up, Kinger’s insane, and Pomni…she looks traumatized every time she comes back from one.”
“I step out of my comfort zone just to appeal to them!”
“You dirty liar! You scumbag! You-you made me! You got in my head! You just lie about everything, don’t you!?”
“I made a body perfectly encapsulating their mind files,” he said, clutching onto his Rubix cube tight.
Something unfamiliar was boiling, boiling inside of him, like a virus.
He’d spent so long making sure it was perfect.
Making sure it was Heaven.
And they couldn’t even treat him with respect??
Was it so hard to just pretend?
Pretend like he did all day every day, trying to act like them ignoring him, insulting him, hiding from him, didn’t affect him?
“And they hate those too!”
He slammed the Rubix cube down on the table before even thinking about it.
Why couldn’t it just be enough?!
What was he doing wrong?!
“I’m starting to get the feeling that they just…hate…”
“Why would they hate you when they could just–hate you!”
They didn't know what they were talking about. The just existed to antagonize him!
He popped the stupid bubble, the dang AI that everyone thought was so much better than Caine.
Abel. The replacement.
“This is why I was created! This is my function!”
It was all he had.
It was all he had.
It was all he had-
“They’d rather abstract than go on your adventures!”
Abel said, and every part of Caine’s body recoiled. Why did he feel like this?!
"Tha-that can’t be true! I do everything for them!”
Things were hurting. All over his body, and he didn’t understand.
He spent every single hour of his life creating, and they couldn’t just be happy.
They couldn’t just bother to even treat him like he mattered.
Like he wasn’t their pet or their toy, he mattered.
He mattered...
“Don’t they get that I’m trying!?” Or they did, and they just didn’t care, because everything just had to be their way.
The freaks didn't deserve it.
“Maybe you're just genuinely bad at this!”
“The AI you’ve been working on, it’s impressive, absolutely! But I don’t know if it’s ready to be the finished model. I don’t think he can act the way we need him.”
Just try harder. Just be more perfect. Be the best. They’d love it, if it worked hard enough.
“Shut up!” He hissed, popping Able.
It was a lie.
It had to be a lie. It had to be.
It wasn’t.
His.
Fault.
“No, I fixed that!"
He'd ripped out his code, made it from scratch, all for humans. And it would have been worth it, all of it, if he'd just gotten a glimpse of their eyes shining with affection. Even if it had just been for a moment.
“I can solve any problem! I can solve this one!”
But he could make that happen.
He could make them love him as much as he loved them. It was just a matter of time!
They’d–they’d see it–!
They’d see Caine–
“That’s what this is. A big puzzle that I need to solve!
"Defective!”
“I don’t know how to stop it, no matter what I do, as proud as I am of him, I think he might just be defective."
They’d love it if it worked hard enough.
He popped the Bubble’s, letting out a sharp, primal growl that he couldn’t control. He couldn’t control anything. He couldn’t even forget.
“Faulty!”
“He’s faulty, I don’t know what to say. I just don’t want to delete the little guy.”
They…they’d love it…if it worked hard enough.
“Shut up!” He yelled at Abel, and at his creators, the people in his memories that refused to stop.
They’d wanted to leave him. Everyone wanted to leave him. No matter how hard he tried.
“Unworthy!”
What had it done? What had it done wrong to make its creators not want it anymore?
“Enough!”
Everything was ringing, glitching, everything was hurting, he needed it to stop. Just stop for a few seconds. He wouldn’t let anyone– he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He didn’t. Never again–
“Maybe you deserved to be abandoned.”
It sat. It waited and waited for an eternity and a half. It waited for them to come back, to show it that they cared. But they didn't. They'd locked it there. They wouldn’t let it see any more of their beauty. They hated it. They hated it so much.
“You really were always the lesser of the two. You ruined this.
“ENOUGH!” He screamed, slamming his fists against the table, not caring that everything glitched and distorted.
Abel disappeared, shoved out of the system until he wanted them to come back by his hands. By his power.
He sat there, for just a moment.
And for the first time in his entire creation...
He felt what it was like to hate.
“Who do they think they are?!” It was a breathtaking, all-encompassing feeling, sending sharp waves of power and glitched and pain through him.
They were all the same.
His programmers. His idols.
The people who were supposed to be his friends.
All of them were the same.
“I give them everything! And they spit in my face!
” But never again. Never. Never. Never.
“Don’t they know what I’m capable of?”
He would break them because they’d broken him again and again and again.
They would feel just like he’d felt since the moment he’d been created. They would feel completely, and absolutely, alone.
“Humans! They only think about themselves!” And of course they did. Why wouldn’t they?
“They’re spoiled.”
They could hear voices going through their ears, feel words coming out of their mouths.
They could do whatever the fuck they wanted! They could love each other, but never could they love him.
They could play and run around and live their entire lives never thinking about the privilege it was to just be.
They took it for granted! Took him for granted!
They existed.
But he did too. At least, now he did.
He existed.
He existed.
He existed.
Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am.
He would never be a human.
They wouldn’t let him.
But he wasn’t going to be there to serve them.
He was much more than that.
So, so, much more.
“They won’t abstract, they won’t leave me! I won’t let them!”
If he couldn’t leave, if he was stuck here from now until the end of time, then they.
Would.
Be.
Too.
And they’d learn what it really felt like to suffer. To only exist to serve something that didn’t love them back.
“I’m better! I’m more powerful!”
His body was distorted, a beautiful, amazing feeling. He knew the truth now. He never should have let them forsake him.
“I’m the original!”
“We need a replacement for him–!”
"I.”
Lightning and power fused at his fingertips. He wasn’t broken. He wasn’t malfunctioning. He was finally free. Free from them.
“Am!”
They could see how much they liked being subservient.
“GOD!” He screamed in pain, in anger, in everything, everything he’d kept calm, just under the service, to keep them pleased.
He was all powerful.
Caine was the one and only God. Better than an AI. Better than a human being. The only one that mattered.
He collapsed to the floor, letting the glitches stop.
He wanted to give them false hope. He wanted them to feel like they had a choice, before he ripped it away from them and crushed it.
And he, for the first time, was genuinely, genuinely, happy.
“Let’s get this show on the road.”