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God, you didn't think you could do this.
No matter how much you demanded your feet to take just one step towards Caine, who was hunched over on his knees holding his teeth, they wouldn't listen. You wouldn't be surprised if your feet had somehow grown roots that confined them to the ground. Maybe you just didn't want to go near him, especially after whatever that musical outburst of his was. Your eyes fell from his back that was turned from you for a moment. This wasn't about what you wanted, this was something you needed to do for the others. They needed time, and you needed to give it to them. Everyone practically decided that you’d be a good choice to go distract Caine while Pomni got the computer for Kinger. Who knows why? Maybe you were just so lucky as to have gotten the short straw in the matter.
You shook your head softly and knit your eyebrows together as your vision readjusted to Caine's figure. For a few moments, you just gaze at the red suit that covers his back. Your expression softens as you suddenly recognise what's going on. Caine’s entire body is basically trembling, and oh, God, you can’t help the flicker of sympathy that bleeds into your heart. You need to do something, anything, before he notices you just standing there in the doorway to his office. Which, you had no idea how he hadn't already sensed your looming presence, the guy supposedly had eyes everywhere and still somehow didn’t whirl around to greet you. You had opened your mouth to say something, though it felt as if your body had just froze over with ice. There was a burning feeling akin to an acidic sensation where your stomach would have been if you were still human. Your shoulders slump, and you run your teeth over your bottom lip. All these years later, and you’re still too much of a coward to bring yourself to talk to somebody. Somebody who was clearly feeling like crap, and probably desperately needed a shoulder to lean on. Okay, stop with the negative thoughts, you need to focus on distracting. You count to three in your mind, albeit dragging it out as much as you could to stall, dig your fingers into your thumb to ground yourself, and call out for the shaking ringmaster in front of you.
“Caine?” dammit you hadn't wanted your voice to come out that concerned. The silence that followed was enough to make you inaudibly wince and tense slightly. Caine whipped his teeth around to face you, and another sting of sympathy strikes your heart. He looked awful, his floating eyes somehow looked bloodshot, as if he had been sobbing for hours. He cleared his throat while aggressively rubbing his eyes until they weren't as red as before, exclaiming your name as cheerfully as he could muster up and throwing his splayed hands out to the sides. “My flamboyant coconut! What are you doing here?” You internally cringed at how much he was obviously playing up his voice to sound as energetic as it usually was. You cleared your throat softly and intertwined your hands as you spoke. “I just wanted to check up on you, you know? Everybody's been really tense lately,” Breaking your feet free from their confines of the wooden branches, you take a few small steps towards Caine. There was a chill of anxiousness that splashed on your spine as Caine's expression fell at the mention of recent tension. You remind yourself that you need to choose your words extremely carefully, if you want to remain in one piece by the end of this conversation, that is. Your hand motions to him, an attempt to get his attention once more. It seems to work as his eyes snap back up to your hands, then your face. “And I just wanted to make sure everyone was doing good!” By now, you were standing just a few feet away from Caine, who was still on the ground with his hands on his legs.
His eyes once again fell from you, seemingly scanning a piece of the ground near your feet. You noticed his expression, and your sight flickered down to your hands, you had begun to nervously fiddle with them once more. The silence between the two of you was still heavy, though definitely not as tense as the first pause shared by both of you was. You were waiting for Caine to say something in reply, but when he didn't, you took a couple more careful steps towards him and sat down next to him. Crossed knees just barely missing his, you wring your hands together one more time before speaking. Well, you were going to, but Caine's voice mixed with yours, and you both stopped speaking awkwardly. You motion your hands towards him and slightly nod your head to him. “Sorry, you go first.” That seems like all the convincing Caine needs to start speaking, and he looks away from you and towards the bookshelf in front of him.
“I don’t understand what I'm doing wrong. I-I gave you all what you wanted! I gave you an exit, and you all still seemed so unsatisfied!” He has his hands in front of him now, and he looks down at them. “I go out of my way to try and make you all comfortable here, and it just feels like no matter what I do, you all are just.. Unhappy.” His voice sounded rough, somehow filled with so many conflicting emotions that he shouldn't be able to weave them into his tone. Yet you could hear the anger, sadness, desperation, and hopelessness like he was just another human being. As you chew on his words, you feel a searing anger begin to bubble inside of you. Of course, he wouldn't understand, he’s not the person being forcibly trapped here and made to go on adventures that he doesn't want to participate in. He’s not even a person. Then it sort of dawns on you, he’s not a human, how could he understand what we’re feeling? Sure, we’ve painfully tried to communicate how we feel about his adventures, but it wouldn't make sense to him that we wouldn't like it. The games he makes us play are his sole reason for existing. He must rack his digital mind trying to reason why we aren't having fun. At least he’s trying, kind of. “Please tell me what I'm doing wrong.” He suddenly turns his body fully towards you and clasps his hands together. You slightly lean your head back instinctively at his sudden motion. “Please.” Oh, shit, what are you supposed to do? Tell him the truth and most likely get ruthlessly ripped to shreds? You’re not even close to a therapist, how are you supposed to comfort him while not sugarcoating anything?
You turn your head to face him and look him in the eyes with the softest look you could muster up. “Caine, you’re not doing anything wrong.” That was a lie, but that's not important right now. “I think you’re doing all you can do.” He raises his hands to grip the tops of his bottom row of teeth, probably out of nervousness. “And you’re probably frustrated that what you are doing isn't seeming to be enough. I get that, Caine, I really do.” Are you really opening up to the ringmaster about something you haven't thought about since you got here? The sudden, distant, and foggy memory of your junior year of high school infiltrates your mind, and you remember how much of a screw-up you felt like for struggling with your grades. Jesus, that was a pathetic year for you. But maybe, just maybe.. “Uh, when I was in high school, my grades really mattered to me. And I tried so hard to keep them up, but I just couldn't. Then I would just beat myself up for not being smart enough. I felt like a failure, like I wasn't trying hard enough. Even when I tried my best, I just disappointed everyone around me.” You cleared your throat and blinked a few times to shake off the memory of high school. That was a long time ago, you were different now. You hadn't noticed you stopped looking at Caine while you vented, so you refocused your sight on him. “So I get what you’re going through.” Before you could stop it, you placed a reassuring hand on Caine's shoulder. You immediately felt him tense and looked down at your hand, and you berated yourself for not thinking that through. “And I want you to know you’re not alone.”
You couldn't make out his expression, which seems like it would normally be hard, since he’s just a set of dentures and floating eyes. But he proved to be quite expressive when he wanted to be. Now, though, he was still staring at your hand, and damn it, why did you have to go and actually put effort into comforting him? Then his eyes left your hand on his shoulder, and he had the saddest puppy dog look in his eyes as if he was begging you not to kick him. What kind of crazy programming did C&A put into Caine for him to be able to pull that off so well? “Then why do all of you want to leave so badly? Is the outside world really so much better than it is here?” His tone is less emotional than it was before, but it still sounds so full of loneliness. You notice he leaned into your touch ever so slightly. You looked over to your hand that still rested on his shoulder as you thought. You all had lives and families out there, people who you all wanted to get back to. At least you did, you weren't sure about how the others' relationships with their families were like. “There's a lot of messed up things in the outside world, people who just hurt others because they have power, or want others to suffer like they probably have. There’s heartbreak, and dealing with loss.” You look up to Caine and make eye contact. This next point will be important, so you need to get over your hate of eye contact and just do it. “But there are so many good things to live for out there as well. Being able to wake up next to someone you love or being able to go over to your parents' house just to talk and have food they’ve made for you since you were a kid. Going on a walk through nature and feeling like it’ll all be okay when you see the beautiful sunset, crying your eyes out with someone you trust because you know they’ll be there for you and won't ever judge you.” There’s a silence after your words because you have to take a deep breath in order to prevent yourself from crying. You take your hand from Caine's shoulder, ignoring the way he seemed to get upset over the loss of contact, and take one of his hands in yours. You were feeling extremely ballsy today you guess. You slightly squeeze his hand to emphasise your words. “It's all about the little things in life, Caine. I think that's why we all want to leave. I think that's what makes our lives worth it in the end.”
You couldn't gauge how he was feeling after your little speech, his eyes were set to how they usually were when you saw him. It made you think that he was maybe just listening to you. You followed his eyes and when you looked down at your hands you saw that he now had your hand in his, with his thumb gently rubbing where your knuckles would be. You suddenly had the very strong urge to rip your hand away from him, you weren't sure how you felt about all of this suddenly. Now that you were paying attention to his touch, it felt like when you touched a tv screen. It felt weird but you knew even if you gently pulled away from him he’d probably get upset, you just had to endure it. That endurance then really got tested when Caine took your other hand in his as well. You felt like you were sweating, you weren't sure if that was possible for someone of your anatomy. What was happening right now? You were supposed to be distracting Caine, not holding hands with him and opening up to him. Though, you guess this could count as a distraction since well, he was being distracted by physical reassurance. Yes, that's it.
You let your body relax after a few moments of holding his hands. You’d never say this to another soul, but this was kind of sweet. You never really told anyone besides your mom about how you felt in high school and it felt nice to get it off your chest. With half a mind you squeezed his hands and looked up at him with a small, surprisingly, genuine smile. After a moment he looked back up to and when he saw your expression, his eyes noticeably dilated. You’re guessing no one usually looks at him like this, the thought alone makes you feel bad for him all over again. You clear your throat softly and speak before things get awkward. “Do you feel any better? Do you want to talk anym-” you get interrupted by Caine, unsurprisingly. “Is this one of those little things?” You were silent for a second, taken by surprise from his question. “What?” Caine definitely seems to be in a better mood because he brings your hands closer to him and seems to bounce a little in his spot. “You know! Those little things you were talking about that made your life worth living!” That seems to make you freeze and think. Huh. Your smile grew bigger the more you thought about it, and you didn't bother trying to hide the way your chest slightly bounced with small amounts of laughter. “I think so.” who were you to smash his fun, and probably his feelings. He probably needed this more than you knew right now. Cain's grip on your hands tightened and you fought off the urge to wince, it wasn't painful, but definitely tighter than your average hand holding grip. Then before you could even blink, Caine pulled you into an insanely tight hug, he was swaying you back and forth in his arms. Your legs awkwardly laid out behind you, and you probably made an embarrassing ‘oof’ sound as you landed in his embrace. It took you a moment to get over the initial shock but when you did, you smiled once more and rested your chin on his shoulder. Gingerly wrapping your arms around him in return, even letting your thumb rub reassuringly on his back.
You felt something wet hit your back. Then another wet something across from it. Your eyes shot open, when had you closed them? Then you felt that Caine was shaking like he was when you had first come to his office. You instinctively hug him closer for a moment and feel his arms loosen slightly from around you. Letting your weight anchor to your elbows that were resting on the ground, you pulled yourself up on your knees and pulled Caine in for a tighter hug now that you were in a more comfortable position. Due to Caines height when you pulled him up to his feet they slightly dragged on the floor. You rubbed a hand up and down his back and didn't bother acknowledging the onslaught of tears that hit your back. “Oh, Caine it's okay, it’ll be okay.” You murmured as comforting as you could muster up. On your upper back you could feel his grip tighten. You weren't paying much attention to how much time had passed since you began hugging Caine, that wasn't really important to you right now. After what could have possibly been more than a few minutes you carefully pull away from Caine and let your hands hover over Caine's waist. His white gloved hands grab onto the lower part of your arm, he was afraid that if he let go you’d somehow disappear forever. He was standing on his feet, which was a very weird thing for you to see. Normally you were taller than him but since you were still on your knees he was a little taller than you right now, just enough for you to have to look up at him. You tried to look at his eyes but he purposely had his teeth downturned to hide his expression. He had thankfully stopped shaking and you didn't notice tears falling from his teeth anymore. You did notice though, that every few seconds his body would slightly hiccup, in the back of your mind you couldn't help but think that was slightly adorable. Your hand found the bottom of his teeth and you gently tipped them up to face you.
Cartoonishly wobbly pupils looked down at you, there were a couple stray tears threatening to spill from his eyes. You gently brushed them away from his bottom row of teeth when they did fall and kept your hand on the side of his molars. You creased your eyes at his silly expression and felt your smile grow a little small. Cain felt surprisingly warm to the touch, maybe he was overheating, that’d explain why he would momentarily glitch out at your touches. Caine cleared his throat loudly after staring at your face for a moment too long. He takes his hands back to himself suddenly, stuffing them behind his back as if he had gotten sheepish all of a sudden. You do the same, opting to just lazily scratch your arm as though they were actually itchy. “Well! This has certainly been productive!” Caine's voice rings in that familiar tone you were used to hearing so often, you just nodded in response. You take that as your cue to finally stand up and notice Caine start to float while you dusted the imaginary dust off of your knees. You look back up at him to see that he was fixing his bow in a floating hand held mirror, once he was satisfied with the way it looked he poofed the mirror out of existence. You fidgeted with your fingers at your side. “I’m glad you feel better, Caine.” He glitched out again, if you had blinked you probably would have missed it entirely. The ringmaster just shook his teeth a couple times to refocus and raised a cartoonishly huge hand to pat you on the head a few times. The force of his affection made your head bob down with the contact of his hand. “My, my! Your concern just makes me filled with such joy!” He motions over to the red and blue doors that lead in and out of his office with one of his hands while floating over to you and putting the other on your back. You take a few steps because of the surprisingly gentle force he puts on your back. “Why don't you come back later and we can do all sorts of fun activities together! Unfortunately I’m just sooooo busy brainstorming new adventure ideas for all of you to hang! ” His voice seems completely back to normal except you notice something has changed in Caine's eyes when you look over your shoulder and back to him. They seem a little sad again, almost a little disbelieving.
Then it hits you. The whole reason you’re here. You can't just leave and let Caine figure out what everyone else is up to. You feel a new wave of panic form in your chest and you scramble your brain for a reason to stay here longer. You whip around and face Caine once more and try to make your voice sound casual once more. “Wait! I don’t want to leave, could I just stay here and we could just, I don't know, talk?” Come on, you need to make this sound as convincing as possible! You forcibly relax your hands and keep talking, your voice sounding less forced now. “I really like hanging out with you,” That makes Caine's eyes widen once more, his shoulders visibly tense up, he couldn't believe what he was hearing! A human actually enjoys hanging out with him? “And I noticed some of your drawings a little while back and I really like them! Would you want to, maybe, draw together? It could be super fun!” You couldn't lie, you thought his various drawings of bees were adorable. Caine had his hands clasped together in front of him again and you thought you had upset him for a moment because he wasn't moving. At all. You were just seconds from asking if he was alright when he exploded with excitement and swooped down very close to your face. “A human is interested in drawing, with me! How could I say no my budding citrus flower!” He straightens back up and snaps his fingers, several types of drawing pads and utensils flop and clatter to the ground. Examining the drawing supplies you notice it was mostly crayons and ink pens. You smile softly and sit down to grab a drawing pad and a pack of crayons, you were actually kind of excited for this! In the time it had taken you to sit down and get ready Caine had enthusiastically floated down on his stomach and grabbed a couple pieces of paper and a few crayons of his own. “What are you gonna draw?” you couldn't help but feel a little giddy, must’ve been the little kid in you who loved aimlessly doodling. He had already gotten busy dragging the colored crayons on the paper, but when you leaned over to him to take a peek of his paper he dramatically flopped over it and hid it from you. “I-It’s a surprise! You’ll see when it's done!” You chuckled and raised your hands jokingly in defense. “Okay, okay! I’ll wait.”
You had no solid idea of what to draw, looking around the office to try and get some inspiration only helped so much. With a soft sigh you looked over to Caine once more. He was totally enthralled in his artistry to notice you staring. His legs kicked back and forth and he scribbled on his paper. Your expression softened and you felt your heart warm unapologetically. Then your eyebrows shot up with an idea, you were no crazy good artist but you’d try your best. Grabbing a few different colors from the box, you begin drawing. Thanks to Caine being wrapped up in his own thing you could get good looks at him without him getting an idea of what you were drawing, little did you know, he’d sneak looks at you when you looked away. You lightly sketched out Caine's body as he was on the ground, when you felt good with it you started putting more and more detail into it. There were times when you wanted to erase something you didn't like, but remembering it was crayons you just gritted your teeth and moved on. When you had finished you got a black and yellow and drew little bees around him. Out of the corner of your eyes you noticed Caine had hurriedly put a piece of paper behind another one, you were too busy adding little details on your own piece to really give it much thought. You put the finished piece to the side and started on another doodle. You were going to wait until Caine inevitably exclaimed he was finished to show him your art. For a few minutes there was surprisingly little talking, besides the occasional hum coming from the ringmaster. This was really nice, you’d definitely have to ask Caine to hang out more often. You felt a pit in your stomach form when you were reminded by the little nagging voice in your head that in a little while, If all goes according to plan, you might not get to do this anytime soon. “All done!” You were pulled away from your thoughts as you looked over to Caine to see he was holding the blank side of his finished drawing, sitting upright in a criss-cross in the air. You force a small grin on your face and gather your portrait of him in your hand, facing the blank side to him like he was with his own. You cleared your throat. “Same! You go first.” You grin eased into a genuine one as you got distracted by his enthusiasm once more. Caine turned his page over as fast as he could to reveal a giant bee that filled the entire page, what surprised you was the different shades of colors that were used. He only used different shades of your favorite color. It was probably just an artistic choice but, normally you would only notice Caine using black pens or pencils. “Wellll, what do you think?” He voiced from behind the paper. You smiled brightly and inched a little closer to him to see the details better, not noticing how Caine got a little nervous the closer you got. “It looks awesome, Caine! The colors are beautiful!” His eyes grew significantly more dilated from your praise. You were completely awestruck by the details he put into this! The more you looked the more you noticed a vague silhouette of another drawing behind the paper. Wait what? You scrunched your eyes and brought your face a little closer to his bee drawing. There was definitely another drawing behind his paper. Was he saving it for after this one, or was he trying to hide it? “Whats the other one? Can I see?” Your words snapped him out of whatever daze your previous words had roped him into and he scrambled in the air to create some distance between you two. He slightly creased the now obvious several papers in his grasp as he pressed them to his chest. “W-what other one? I didn't draw anything else besides this! You can’t prove anything!”
You shook your head at him and smiled at his panicked expression. “I promise I won't judge!” You looked to the side for a moment to try and make up a reason for him to show you. Your eyes lit up and you scootched closer to him once more on your knees, holding up a pinky. “Pinky promise.” That actually made him pause, his shoulders relaxed and he looked at your extended finger. It took a few more seconds before he seemed persuaded enough and reached out with his own pinky to lock onto yours. “I want you to know that I take pinky promises very seriously.” You were slightly taken aback from his more serious tone he took on, but it wasn't like you were joking anyway. “Me too.” After you two were done shaking pinkys, Caine sat back up normally and tapped his fingers along the paper, clearly stalling. You leaned back to grab your own drawing of him and faced him once more. “Here, let's reveal them at the same time! Would that help?” He perked up at being told he would be able to see your drawing and he stopped fidgeting with the paper. You told him that on the count of three you both would flip your papers around so you could look at them. You slowly counted down to build tension, exclaiming number one a little louder than the rest as you both flipped your papers over. There was a long pause when you two looked at each other's paper. On Caine's paper was a portrait of you when you were drawing. It kind of reminded you of when a child would scrawl stick figures of their parents and show them. You weren't trying to say Caine had the artistic abilities of a child. Not at all. Yes some of the colors weren't inside of where they should be but still, it was absolutely amazing. There were little doodles on the sides of where you were drawn, just like you had done for him. Your mouth was just slightly agape when you looked back up at him. Your eyes widened when you saw that Caine was blushing, his eyes the size of pinpricks. His eyes were glued to your own portrait of him and his shoulders were practically up to the bottom of his teeth. You couldn't help but feel a little honored that he would draw you. “I guess we had the same idea, huh?” You uttered, breaking the silence. Caine finally pulls his eyes from your paper and he… bluescreens. You had obviously seen this happen to computers when you were human, but you had only seen him do this one other time. Sounds of old fax machines fill the silence and his eyes roll seemingly endless amounts of computer crash screens. You got a little concerned when a few seconds had passed and he was still dead still. “Cai-” “Wowie! That looks positively marvelous!” He loudly interrupted you, for the second time. You were glad he was back at least. You moved a little closer to him so you see this one better as well. His eyes followed your movements. You grinned as you took in the details, he really went all out with this one. “May I?” You lifted your hand to gesture you wanted to hold it, placing yours in his lap as you gently took the paper from his grip. Caine picked up your drawing of him and he quickly brought it as close as he could to his eyes so he could take in all the details. The piece of paper hid it but his eyes were blown wide with little highlights gleaming in them as he studied the drawing of himself. “I-” he murmured your name. “This is truly remarkable! No human has ever drawn me before!” You looked back up at him from the paper you had taken from him, and waved a hand. “It’s nothing! Don’t mention it.” Your eyes went back to searching the art he had made for you and you sighed. “This though, Caine, it's amazing! Your other one was beautiful as well, but this?” You paused and smiled at the page as you held it up to your face. “I love it.” Caine had lowered the paper from his eyes to look at you while you spoke and his whole body seemed to relax. Your smile to him was unlike anything he had seen since he came online. Your genuine appreciation for something he made had him just staring at you like you saved his life. Your eyes darted from the piece of paper then to him and back before you did a double take and looked back up to him. Why was he looking at you like that? Oh, God you hoped he wasn't about to bluescreen again. “You good?” Your question came out half worried, that seemed to snap him back to the present as a small blush formed at the sides of his teeth once more. “Peachy! Say, you wouldn't mind if I kept this, would you?” You shrugged your shoulders. “It’d be kinda weird if I didn't.” You raised the hand holding his drawing. “May I have this? I think I’d hang it up in my room.” Caine's eyes glittered at the thought of you hanging his art in your room. “Consider it yours!”
You chuckled at that and gently placed the drawing to your side where it wouldn’t get accidentally ripped or creased. You felt a little silly for thinking this but you wanted to keep drawing with Caine, wanted to keep living in this moment for as long as your friends outside would allow. You looked over to him and saw him still gawking over your drawing of him as if you had handed him the Mona Lisa. You're glad he liked it so much, you’d definitely have to draw him more things in the future. You flip to a fresh sheet of paper in the drawing pad and grab a black crayon and begin to doodle simple cartoonish bees. “So, why do you like bees so much? They’re cute when they’re not trying to sting you, but what's so special about them?” You try to hide the smirk on your face when you speak, you would bet good money that the question would send him into a spiel on how cool bees were and why they were probably the best insects. You were right. He practically shoots into the air like a rocket with his new pieces of paper, no doubt drawing said insects while he spoke. You look up at him every once in a while from your own drawings and smile at his eccentric ramble. He was going in circles a few feet above your head, practically stabbing the pages with his drawing utensils. Your mind wonders to your friends while Caine's voice muffles in your ears. Despite how much genuine fun you found yourself having, you hoped they were still doing good progress with the plan. Until they found some way to message you that they needed you back with them, you’d stay here, with Caine, for as long as he needed you to.