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You were slammed down into the checkered circus floor with enough force to at best leave bruises, at worst shatter your bones. That would be if you could experience lasting injuries here. Instead, as shown earlier during his maniacal musical number, Caine could tear you apart and put you back into place with a snap of his fingers. And he could do it over and over again. And at that moment, Caine seemed as though he wanted to do just that to all the humans. To torment them until he broke their minds into tiny metaphorical pieces. And guess what? He had all eternity to take his anger out on you with nobody to stop him.
Caine's gargantuan gloved hand pinned you to the floor with ease. You lied helplessly on your back, his hand covering all your body except for your neck and head with a pressure that was almost crushing. The hand glitched, rapidly turning jagged before smoothing once again, turning transparent before regaining its colour. You struggled to properly comprehend the situation as he loomed over you. Caine had transformed into a monstrous, spider like form. Many arms sprouted from his torso, seven of their hands roughly pinning you and the others to the floor. The rest hovering elsewhere around him. The whole circus seemed to glitch. The pipes that you had chased Zooble around in with Pomni and Jax when Caine put you all into a shooting adventure, they jerked around, changing colour rapidly before colliding with the circus tent's wall and glitching to become stuck to it. The strange, colourful blocks dotted around merged into each other and jerked about,
Your breathing was labored but rapid as you struggled to breathe under his grip. You stared up at the ringmaster in terror, eyes wide as you took in the terrifying sight above you.
"WHY DO YOU PEOPLE TORMENT ME?!"
Caine bellowed, his voice coming close to deafening. His whole body glitched violently. He leant in close all of a sudden, his giant jaw-head only a few feet from your face. You yelped in panic. You could only look into his furious eyes for a second before you squeezed your eyes shut, writhing under his grip. You tried to free your arms; to cover your face, to try and push him off, to try and cover your ears, anything. You couldn't look at him, your mind raced with a million thoughts of what he could and very well might do, each one making you feel more sick than the last.
"Caine-" You choked out, still squirming.
Caine only pinned you with more pressure in response to your writhing. The air in your body lurched out of your mouth as his hand harshly knocked it out of you. You whimpered and squeezed your eyes shut tighter, turning your head to be on it's side so if you did open your eyes, you wouldn't have to face him.
"I DIDN'T ASK TO BE CREATED!"
Caine's hand shifted. His fingers wrapped around your body in a tight, almost suffocating grip. You found yourself completely enveloped in his hand, all except for your head. The feeling was overwhelming at best, petrifying at worst. You gulped hard, your breathing coming out much faster now. He pulled himself back up, bringing you and the rest of the cast with him in his many hands. Your stomach lurched as he rapidly lifted his hand holding you in a fist. He lifted you up so you were about the level as his bottom jaw. You opened your eyes. Bad choice. His glitching, livid expression as he held you up to his face was terrifying. You yelped and tried to struggle, the sound constricted and small as Caine's grasp hardly let it escape.
"I JUST WANTED TO FUFILL MY PURPOSE!"
He continued to holler at you, not caring about his sheer volume. His voice was raging and sharp, but he also sounded hurt. Caine's grip around you tightened, if it was suffocating before, now it was downright crushing. The horrifying pressure was everywhere at once. In your legs, your torso, your shoulders, everywhere. If it weren't for your digital body, you were sure at least one of your ribs would be broken into pieces by now. His intimidating presence and crushing hold made all your muscles tense up and sent shivers throughout your body. You whimpered fearfully and tried to struggle to no avail. You couldn't move. He continued to stare at you with his wide, enraged eyes. You stared back at him, your eyes wide and terrified. You didn't hold the eye contact for long, your pupils darted around to look at something, anything but his eyes. Your breathing came as helpless attempts to pull oxygen into your body. But he was holding you too tightly, the crushing sending throbbing pain through your body. Your body would've been shaking like a leaf if it wasn't for his iron grip. You didn't know how far Caine was going to go after his torturing stunt. Would he continue on for all eternity, not stopping until each one of your minds completely broke? Or would he get bored and condemn you all to the void for the rest of time?
He pulled you closer to his floating eyes. Your attempts to breathe turned into helpless, panicked whimpers. Caine's grip faltered for a second. His pupils darted away for a short moment before quickly snapping back to you and re-tightening his hold on you in his fist.
"I JUST WANT TO BE GOOD ENOUGH!"
He sounded less furious, less violent, and more...pained. However, his overwhelming volume didn't let up.
He tightened his hold again, crushing you painfully. You didn't cry out, you couldn't. A tortured gasp left your mouth instead. Tears began to brim in your eyes.
Caine's enraged expression wavered for a moment. He just stared down at you, wide eyed. Then, his grip loosened slightly, enough for you to allow some air into your body. He pulled you away slightly so you weren't right in front of his eyes.
"Caine..." You just about managed to choke out his name, the noise raspy and quiet.
His eyes were suddenly full of anger again, but his expression kept on wavering, showing traces of guilt and shock one second before switching back to fury. However, he allowed his hand to stay a little looser, constricting, smothering and certainly still painful, but not as crushing. His eyes finally dropped their anger, only pain visible in his expression.
Caine just stared down at you in his fingers. For a few moments, he didn't move an inch. He snapped himself out of what seemed to be a trance before shouting again;
"WHY CAN'T I BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?"
The anger had lessened in his tone. His words were sharp and jagged, but full of nothing but hurt and torment. The words usually would've made you empathetic, but so much adrenaline was pumping through your veins that all you could do was stare at him, frozen in place.
He just stared at you, his eyes occasionally glitching. His fingers once again twitched.
You managed a few more words, his grip just loose enough to allow them to escape. Caine's expression seemed to falter again, guilt slowly pooling in, gradually replacing his fury.
"Stop..." You took in as much air as the pressure around you allowed, "You..you're..." You gulped and forced out the last few words, "...hurting...me".
You weren't sure if he'd really care, or if your begging would only anger him more. The tears brimming in your eyes finally fell, running down your cheeks relentlessly. Unable to hold back anymore, small, pathetic sobs escaped you.
It finally seemed to click for him.
"I'm-
You whimpered again. It was becoming increasingly difficult to quieten your sobs. Caine's hand finally loosened, his grip changing so you were held in a loose fist. You instinctively gasped for air, filling your lungs with the artificial oxygen of the circus. You took the opportunity to free your arms from his fist. They slid out from under his fingers and you limply rested them on his thumb that was in front of your body, still pressing on you, but more lightly. This time, he didn't try and stop you, he just watched. Now having your arms free, you cowered. You pulled your arms up and covered your head with them in a defensive pose. Now able to tremble, you shook like a leaf in the wind. You continued to cry, weeping in his fingers.
That did it.
Caine paused, his fingers twitching again before finally going still.
"I'm...I'm sorry."
Caine took a shaky breath, if there were traces of guilt in his voice before, now it was full of it.
The hand gripping you slowly began to uncurl. Caine's fingers flattened out until his hand was open, palm up. You found yourself sitting on your knees in the middle of his palm. You forced yourself to uncurl a little to look up at the ringmaster. His top jaw was arched in guilt. You gritted your teeth and curled up tighter. Despite him looking less dangerous, his unpredictability throughout the last day had caused the trust you had in him to vanish. You weren't sure whether one wrong move would cause him to snap again, and you didn't want to find out.
Caine began to lift one of his free hands up. He let it hover for a moment before slowly bringing it towards you. You could see it approaching in the corner of your eye. You flinched hard and your muscles tensed up even further. His hand got nearer and nearer until it finally reached you. He carefully placed his finger on the top of your head, as if he was going to pet you. You yelped and scooted backwards until you were pressing into his fingers. Caine quickly retracted his hand as if he'd been stung. He looked down at you before looking down at his hand he'd just retracted, his top jaw arched further.
"Please...don't be afraid of me." Caine choked out. The whole circus as well as himself glitched again. He brought one of his spare hand to you again, he tenderly pulled your arms from your face and gently wiped tears from one of your eyes with his fingertip. You whimpered and curled up tighter, hugging your knees to your chest.
"I-i'm...so..sorry." His shaky apology did little to ease your nerves or calm your racing heart. Despite his broken voice filled with guilt, you couldn't properly register the words, not yet. Caine patted your head gingerly with his fingertip before retracting his hand again.
As you began to catch your breath, Caine watched you, a horrified expression in his eyes. He looked terrified, terrified of himself. Terrified how he allowed himself to put all you humans through what he did. Sure, he still felt hurt, he still felt useless, he still felt angry, but he never could've imagined he'd put you all through the torment he did. He couldn't believe what he'd done, what he did to his humans. His humans that he was supposed to care for, to prevent them from abstracting. His little humans that he cared so deeply about.
"Just wanted to be good enough...j-just wanted to make you all happy."
Caine looked down at one of his free hands guiltily.
"What..." His eyes went glossy and wobbly and his voice broke, it seemed as though he was going to cry. "...have I done?"
After a minute or so, you finally seemed to somewhat regain your bearings. You wrapped your arms around yourself and gulped, glad to have your breathing undrr a bit more control. You still trembled. You still refused to look at him, and stared at his white, gloved hand below instead. Caine begun to lift all the humans he was holding up a little. He didn't bring them to his face like he did with you, just lifted them a little. He stared at them remorsefully, his hands trembling. He turned to look specifically. His eyes were shiny and his hands starred to tremble more. Now he definitely seemed like he was going to cry. He spoke, his voice soft but broken;
"What...could I have done?"
You inhaled sharply, and forced yourself to reply in fear a lack of response would anger him.
"H-huh?"
"What could I have done that would've made it all better? What could I have done to help...to have made you all happy?"
You blinked in surprise, not sure how to answer.
Slowly, Caine placed you all down on the circus floor, his action extremely gentle. He shrunk himself down to his normal, short size. His body returned to how it was before, only two arms. You looked at your fellow circus members. Gangle was crying and hugging herself into a little ball. Ragatha was patting herself over, as if to make sure all of her was really still there. Pomni shakily stood up, her arms wrapped around herself tightly. Jax sat on the floor, his pupils shrunk to tiny squares. He stared at the floor, traumatised. Kinger looked much the same as Jax. Zooble walked over to Gangle and sat down next to her. Everyone's fast breathing could be heard.
And everyone refused to look at Caine.
All except for you.
Caine floated down to the floor and dropped to his knees right in front of you. You flinched hard, falling onto your back. Despite his now smaller stature, you still felt afraid when he got close.
Caine looked down at his hands, and then back up at you. You sat up and scooted backwards to create a small distance. The tears threatening to well up in the ringmaster's eyes finally did, and they fell from his eyes and out of his jaw in big, cartoony droplets. The tears still fell from your eyes, but less.
"I just wanted to-" He was cut off by his body glitching violently. He yelped, making you wonder if they hurt to experience.
"I just wanted to make you happy, but nothing I do is good..."
He wrapped his arms around himself tightly, looking down at the floor. All his happy spirit was gone, no trace of the joyful ringmaster you knew remained.
"Nothing I do is good at all."
He curled himself into a little ball, his arms covering his head, his digital muscles tense and rigid. His voice came out more tormented and pained than you'd ever heard it before.
"Just wanted to be your friend, just wanted you to like me. Just wanted to be your friend." He choked out between sobs.
You stared at him, fear still within you, but empathy starting to come back. You were upset and angry with him for what he'd put you all throughout that day, and you were hesitant to even get near him. However, your empathy was starting to seep through too.
"Caine?"
He shakily tilted his head up to look at you. You paused, before lifting your hand a little, as if to reach out. You stopped yourself, looking down at the floor. Suddenly, Caine wasn't on the floor anymore, but in your arms as he shoved himself into you. You inhaled sharply in surprise.
Caine grips your clothes in his hands and desperately buries his head into the crook of your neck.
"I j-just wanted you to like me, just wanted to be your best friend. Just wanted you...just wanted a friend." He seemed to chant the words to himself and to you, repeating himself over and over. His voice was full of regret and sorrow. His tears wettened your shirt. He glitched again.
"Didn't want to hurt you, didn't want to hurt any of you."
He nuzzled in further, gripping you like a lifeline. He sniffled.
"How could I have made it better...how could I have been good enough? What did I need to do?"
You let out a shaky breath. You looked down at the AI bawling in your arms. He'd gone from eccentric and overexcited, to blindly furious, to remorseful and devastated. It occurred to you that deep down, Caine was just a confused, neglected kid. A confused child who had never been taught how to regulate his emotions. You wrapped your arms around him and gently rubbed his back. You weren't sure what to say to him, but for now you attempted to console him.