Chapter Text
Caine has never understood humans, at least past the basic surface level information he was fed in his early infancy of being an AI. But it wasn't his job to understand humans and their odd complexity.
No, it was his job to entertain. It was his entire purpose; the ability to create and bring joy.
It had somewhat worked in the beginning, with the small group of humans that aided in creating his entire world getting to witness the life they made.
But, looking back, did Caine really not notice the looks of worry and confusion on their faces? He was so caught up in this illusion that everything was so great and perfect, that he never picked up on the fact something was really wrong until his first ever friends started disappearing one by one.
Even after the fact that Kinger was the last developer standing, he didn't seem to understand him one bit. He didn't understand Kinger's grief, he didn't understand Kinger's dread and will to leave. None of it.
Caine never showed it, but he became detrimentally lost and panicked when Kinger started to lose his mind. This was meant to be a place of happiness, why is Kinger going crazy? He's meant to be happy! Why can't he make him happy?
Caine remembered the pointless nights where he would be shut in his office, brainstorming every option and solution his CPU could come up with in order to just make his resident happy.
It happened so gradually that Caine himself didn't even notice, but the wall of ramblings and ideas meant for one person slowly increased in size as more humans arrived over the years. The more people that seemed to arrive, the more utterly stressed he became at trying to make them all content and thrilled with their new life.
Despite the intense note-taking, he felt like he was never enough regarding the new group of humans. Spontaneous ideas that worked fine previously would earn him a continuous wave of complaints and anger. Every harsh word he received only just encourged him to try harder. Try harder to connect with them, try harder to please and cater to their likes, try harder to know them.
It always ended the same way. Every single time. Nothing he did was ever good enough in their eyes. The humans he was meant to bring joy and happiness to seemed to hate the one thing he was meant for. But he didn't understand, why?
Stress had built up for years regarding his performance and abilities, that the small seed of 'why?' never appeared to grow. He didn't try to understand their reasonings, he just kept trying to do better and better, without actually asking them what they wanted. But the seed was still planted, and he dreaded that he didn't know the answer to it.
But he knew why. It was why he was stood motionless, staring at the accumulation of adventure ideas and detailed notes on every circus member that lined his office wall. But were they really that detailed? Did he really know them and not the versions he made of them in his head?
Oh, that's right. He could never understand them. He couldn't make them happy while the bridge between AI and human was set in cold stone for him to witness. For him to look at years of wasted efforts and a passion doomed to fail from the start.
Caine could feel his system begin to overheat from the stress that pounded him from the inside. Usually this was his sign to shut off for a few hours and go back to the group all dandy and fine afterward.
But he was not fine.
Every instinct inside of Caine screamed at him to just let it go, take a breather, that he was just overreacting and it would all be fine. However, he couldn't believe it, nothing was fine and it will never be fine.
The emotions he could feel were short-limited, but it didn't seem like it in the moment, as his feelings hammered at him from his core. Caine cycled through wave after wave of sadness, grief, and eventually landing on pure anger as he impulsively slammed his fist into the wall.
The forceful impact let out a small, glitched ripple that was almost unnoticeable if you weren't paying attention, which Caine wasn't.
Caine usually never felt any sort of anger, besides the exaggerated cartoony frustration done for a comedic bit that he got over in seconds. But this was beyond what he thought he was capable of feeling.
He faintly remembered overhearing Jax remarking how letting out your anger was the best way to calm it, naturally filtering out the part where he mentions letting it out on other people. But Caine let out a pathetic, half-sobbed laugh at just how wrong the rabbit was.
Underneath the cluster of emotions he was feeling, Caine's breakdown stopped almost dead in it's tracks as he felt something small ripple inside of his code. It was very insignificant, it shouldn't have bothered him at all, but it alarmed Caine and he once again stayed extremely still, looking out for the source of the odd sensation.
Caine didn't know why he started counting internally, though he needed something to distract him from potentially abstracting right there on the spot from the pure confusion caused.
Two. Three. Four. Five times. Five times he felt this tingling ripple spread across his code and inner linings, and it's pulse was only getting stronger and stronger each time.
Caine attempted to reason with the situation, but he simply had no explantion for what was happening. Calling for Bubble's assistance was an instant no, as he wasn't in the mood to explain his watery eyes and destroyed wall. Plus, Bubble was generally not that helpful to begin with.
He must've been away from the humans for quite a while, as the last thing he saw before his vision got suddenly overrun by rapid glitching, that gave him a migraine, and flashes of rewritten code appeared randomly, was one of the humans bursting through his office door with what seemed a panicked demeanor from the way they tensed in the doorway.
Caine didn't get the chance to dwell on their intentions for long though, as his system completely crashed, shutting down with a blue flash, and causing him to collapse to the floor while the final spark of electricity left his body as if it was never there at all.