Caine x F!Reader .☘︎ ݁˖ ݁
Premise: This is set in episode eight when Caine is PISSED at the circus members. You were always Caine’s favourite, but you begin to argue with him over his treatment of the others… leading him to take his anger out on you.
[ smut in part two, angst? ]
It all began after the last — er, real adventure you and the rest of the circus were subjected to. The last adventure Caine had put any genuine effort into, the last adventure that - to give your ringmaster some credit - had a thoughtful storyline.
If it weren’t for the fact that it was so painfully misleading and completely insensitive, you might’ve enjoyed the mystery behind the whole thing. C&A — the crooked corporation that kidnapped it’s own workers and put them in freaky pods. Abel — the mysterious ex-employee who was supposedly here longer than anyone, finally coming out from the shadows to help the rest of you escape…
it was really quite creative of Caine to reimagine… well, everything. It made you think about the disturbing amount of sentience that he has; he was capable of understanding that you all wanted an escape. Although, it seemed that his programming only allowed for so much of that understanding, as when it really came down to it, his brain rewired the crew’s genuine desires as an adventure, believing that would suffice.
It was quite the shock to him — looking down at all of your angry faces. He’d never looked so confused! It was odd to see him scurry off like he did, he was usually so upfront.
He left you all with a basket of soaps and lotions, which you knew was never intended to be the genuine prize, given that none of you even had any use for them. The real prize was probably meant to be staying in the circus. Staying with him.
He just couldn’t wrap his code around the idea that… perhaps your friends wouldn’t want to spend an eternity here. Their desire to return to the ‘macroverse’ as Caine called it, was ridiculously impossible for him to grasp.
Caine’s change of attitude began shortly after that, possibly from the realisation that none of you wanted what he gave.
…That was something that you sympathised with, you couldn’t help yourself! Despite the others, you had always liked Caine.
You always would giggle at his jokes and his strange little mannerisms ( you could have sworn he did these things more often after the first time he got a laugh out of you ). You’d engage with him after adventures — always! Even when the others would wander off sluggishly into the main area of the tent.
And boy was he delighted to have someone to talk to who wasn’t Bubble! A human nonetheless! You recall how he’d zip down to you from his high position in the air was you returned from an adventure, and how he’d try to act subtle over his rather blatant favouritism for you.
You remember the silly names he’d call you and the group — usually alliterations, a dumb play-on-words of some kind. It would always make you smile. In fact, it was strange thinking of it as a memory, considering it only stopped a few days ago.
He’d become colder. Intentionally menacing and malicious. And despite his new ‘hands-on’ and ‘in-your-face’ approach to handling his frustration, he was distant. He wasn’t attempting to engage with you all anymore, whereas before you knew he’d go to great lengths to entertain his guests. He’d stopped trying, and that was breaking your heart.
You remember him taking you to dinner, a beyond shy ask, much different from his usual boisterous self. You both sat at a table in a brightly lit cafe — an admittedly comfortable change from your saturated surroundings. He’d confided in you briefly, changing the subject in somewhat of a panic before you could dig any deeper into what he had said. He wanted to make everyone happy, and he found it hard to do.
You knew he had trouble admitting that, especially to one of his guests. To you. He, the dazzling ringleader, having… a crisis of confidence? Unheard of!
Though you also knew he wore his heart on his sleeve at times, any sort of criticism tended to drive him up the wall. He was a perfectionist after all. Sometimes it seemed like he was just as human as the rest of you.
It also seemed that he could doubt himself and get hurt just as easily.
Although, it wasn’t until he’d started hurting your friends that you felt your own frustrations bubble inside you, especially after a rather garish musical number he had forced you all into to announce his authority. Putting aside your undeniable soft spot for him, you thought he was acting totally irrationally!
He’d made his feelings very clear — humans are selfish, unappreciative, and above all, spoiled! This wasn’t the Caine you knew at all. Caine loved humans.
This change in attitude didn’t appear out of nowhere. It had been building up inside him, an underlying insecurity ( that an AI like him shouldn’t even possess ) which his guests had unknowingly nurtured until he finally burst.
You couldn’t at all blame him for feeling under appreciated — you always believed that he was to some extent — but you could blame him for taking out his pent-up frustrations on your friends! He could at least be more mature about it! Talk about being selfish!
The final straw for you was when you came back from one of his new adventures. There wasn’t much plot, but thats because his goal now was not to entertain. It was to hurt.
You all came back disheveled, which was the new normal, some of you being in literal pieces. You, on one hand, luckily only had a few light scratches here and there. You plucked a bit of stuffing from your head, sighing as you realised it belonged to Ragatha, who appeared to have been steam rolled at some point.
“Welcome back!” Caine greeted in his usual enthusiastic manner, throwing his arms up. It was reminiscent of how he used to greet you guys after an adventure if it weren’t for the condescending undertones.
“I can’t believe you didn’t pick up on the context clues! It was practically spelled out for you! What are you, stupid? Haha HA!”
You couldn’t help but scowl. Well, down at the floor, anyways — you didn’t want to risk giving him a dirty look.
Once more, you still couldn’t help sympathising with Caine, but right now all of those feelings were being challenged by your growing frustration with him. He was being unfair, especially to you! You had been nothing but nice to him.
You knew it was a little selfish of you to think that, especially since you cared a lot for the others — yes, even Jax who was notoriously difficult, but then again you often thought that they treated Caine a little terribly.
How the tables have turned, huh?
“Next one’s gonna be even crazier, hope you’re ready! By the way, Kinger, I need you for something. Come with me!”
Before a sense of doom could even settle in your stomach at the mention of yet another ‘crazy’ adventure, he whisked away Kinger who, bless him, barely had the time to react with a quick “Huh—?”
If doom didn’t settle inside you then, then it did now. You knew exactly what Caine needed Kinger for.
Recently, it seems that his new torturous adventures hadn’t been enough to satisfy him. There was something inside Caine that just wouldn’t settle, that couldn’t settle until he inflicted the punishments that he believed you all deserved.
You were left alone with the group, turning to Jax as he flopped onto the ground, his yellow cartoon eyes hanging drastically far from their sockets.
“I don’t know how many more of these new adventures I can handle.” He panted out before staring up at you with a glare, “Got nothing positive to say about this one?”
It’s true, you’d often come out of Caine’s adventures with a smile on your face. Not that they weren’t exhausting most of the time, it’s just that you did genuinely enjoy seeing what he had conjured up day after day. It always pissed Jax off to hell and back.
Though you suppose that now times have changed, you weren’t happy at all now. You couldn’t help but feel more betrayed by Caine by the minute! After all, you thought you were friends!
You huffed and rubbed your eyes tiredly, refusing to give him the time of day.
You saw Pomni flinch and roll out an extremely flattened Ragatha, who cartoonishly popped back to normal on the checkered floor. She panted, rather panicked.
“I can’t take this anymore! We gotta do something about this, or I’m gonna lose my mind!” She yelled, pulling on her hair noodles.
“I never should have antagonised him so much. I’m sorry…” Zooble gently announced, to the group presumably although it was mostly towards gangle who held their head.
If you were in the right headspace, you would perhaps find it refreshing hearing some take some of the blame off of Caine, although you couldn’t exactly blame Zooble for this in general. They weren’t shy at all in voicing their opinion, something which you generally admired, although sometimes you thought that they could be a little unnecessarily rude to Caine.
Even so, you were angry with Caine right now. Zooble could have slapped him for all you cared.
Speaking of, the ringleader had manifested himself back into the circus next you all. He had Kinger in an uncomfortably tight grasp with his left fist, which he was able to do now that he had quadrupled in size.
He must have thought it to be more threatening. You thought, however, it was more fitting to represent his huge, inflated ego.
Once he set down Kinger, it was clear now what he had done to him. He was stripped into literal pieces, neatly sectioned down the middle of his body and splayed out like sections of meat. No matter how ridiculous and non-gore-ish it was, it still made you angry. Angry enough to take a few aggressive stomps towards Caine without him noticing.
“Break time! Gotta brainstorm some new ideas!” He exclaimed before promptly vanishing — although before he did, you took hold of the end of his tailcoat, which caused you to vanish right alongside him. You didn’t think that he even noticed you, but you couldn’t really tell at the moment. The feeling of being teleported anywhere made you woozy, you would know since Caine liked to do it often.
Once your vision steadied from your dizziness, you could take in your surroundings properly. You recognised the shelves of glowing orbs instantaneously; you were in Caine’s office. You wasted no time to get his attention.
“Hey!” You had to tilt your head up to look at him — well, glare at him.
He was startled and turned around to you sharply, but once he realised who he was looking at, his expression softened with relief. He still seemed to very much favour you over the others.
“You! You’re not supposed to be in here, you naughty thing! Were you that desperate to speak to your good ol’ ringmaster?” He floated closer, batting his eyes.
Normally, you’d giggle over the odd appearance of eyelashes on him, but you were angry with him! So instead you merely scowled.
Caine wasn’t so good at reading the room, but it seemed that the expression on your face - which was usually upturned with a sweet smile - was enough to confuse him. “Uh, my dear?—“
“What are you gaining from this?” You cut him off.
His upper jaw formed something akin to an eyebrow raise, his eyes darted around, puzzled. “Huh?—“
“What do you think you’re gaining from all this, Caine? Is it more power you’re after? Is it just satisfying? Cuz’ if so, I think you’re being real selfish!”
Caine hesitated. He’d never heard you angry before. Especially not towards him! He’d heard all sorts from the others, Zooble came to mind most prominently. But you?! You were a sweet pea!
“No, Caine! What’s wrong with you! The new adventures are one thing, but torturing us individually is just another level of petty!”
Caine didn’t understand why you were upset about that of all things. “But I’ve- I’ve never layed a finger on you—!”
You scoffed. “You seriously think I’d be fine with you hurting my friends just because you haven’t hurt me?? You’re ridiculous.
His eye’s bugged out at that. You stepped closer.
“Well guess what! You have hurt me. You’ve hurt me by being selfish and immature! You could have at the very least communicated with us about your feelings instead of- instead of hiding behind a wall of confidence that you don’t even seem to have!”
His body glitched out of place, the faint machine-like humming grew into a louder buzz. You didn’t even notice he was growing larger. “S̰̭̺̦̉̏top that.”
“No! You’re behaving like a child, it’s pathetic! You—!”
You didn’t have the chance to finish your sentence before he swept you off the ground. He slammed you against the wall of his office and you gasped out. You looked at him with disbelief more than fear. Was he seriously about to punish you too?
Looking at him now, he had changed. His model had grown, far beyond it’s limits it seems, since pieces of his body were glitched and stretched.
Speaking of his body, new pairs of arms had suddenly sprouted from his broader torso, branching out and tangling in all directions. You felt as though you couldn’t even react, your eyes were scanning all over the place.
“Í̴̫̕’̛̫̠̀m̰̝̀̃ t̢̖͎̑hě̏̈́̈́ o͎̾̈̃nê̼̺̑ b̾̌̚̚ȅ̼̤̞ǐ̧̫͊nģ̾̂̊ s̝̥̗̃el̡̦̣̍fỉ̷͊͆sh̞́̐͌?̀̈́̿̚!̮̋̕̕ M̞̉̔̇E̸̍̀̽?̨͇͇̿?” He snapped at you menacingly.
You felt even more furious than before. He hadn’t listened to anything you said. instead of taking in, he took it personally. Now he was just trying to scare you?
“YES!” You shouted back angrily.
His malfunctioning jaw stuttered into a furrowed bow. “Í̓ D̰̓O̾̉ E̟̽V̘͉Ḙ̄R̿͋Y̞̤T̙͉H̵͂I͌̀N͉̽G͆̎ F̹́Ő̼R̡̈́ Y̧̖O̓̐U̝̓ P̲̓È̫Ó̗P̟̑L̄̂E̶̼!̸̎ Å̼L̜̓L̬͎ Ḩ̝U̦̺M̓ͅĄ̘N̥̮S̼͋ E̘͍V̻̚E̞̿R̄̓ D̙̙O̘̾ I̜̹S̤̈́ R̴̈́E͈ͅP̘̓A̬ͅY̖̥ Ṁ͇Ȩ̛ Ẉ̖I̷̿T̶̨H̢̹ Ḥ̍Ā̚Ț͊Ř̼E̸̡D̝̊!̡̦”
You scoffed. Is that genuinely what he thought? “Do you think that means you get to hurt us now?? Stop having a f***ing tantrum and snap out of it, Caine!”
“Y͇òu̱’̔re͎ j̈u̎s̢t likͅe̅ t̓h́e̋ r͆es̠t̾ o͆f̣ t̙h̜e̓m!̿ A͌N̤D̽ HER̀E̗ I T̼H́O̜ÙĜH̺T̤ ỸO̜U̅ W̤Ë́R̀E̦ D̢I̔FF̐E̠RE̮N̑T̏!̂ I͉ s͂üp̹p̀o̼s̷e͆ Y̩O̳U̺ w̮a̤n̿t̚ t̓h̑e̡ f̈i̷l̖tẽr̂ o̗f̵f̴ ţo̔o,͏ ḯs̖ t͆h̖a̢t̮ rig̏h̝ť?̳?͆ S̮ö y̢o̩u̩ c͊a̬n͎ c̀u̝s̭s͈ m̱ė ȍu͋t̓ b̓e̶t̊t̙e̜r̙?̝!̴ H̊u̥h́?̲?̆!̂
Your frustrated expression flickered to one of utter surprise. You didn’t usually swear, you… though you thought it was appropriate currently at the very least. But besides that, you didn’t exactly expect to be hearing the profanity. Did you really make him so angry that it overran his value for censorship?
“TH̅ÉR̼E͉!͇ D͈ḭd̗ ýou͋ ḽike̐ t̆h̾a̹ť?̝ S̟îńce̹ y͉őuv̰e͈ g̼ot̻ s̜o̻ m̬uc̛h̯ i͉n͂ c͏o̩m̳m̴o̩n̪ w̗ịt̹h̘ t̹h̷e r͏e̗st͆ o̓f̍ thẽm̵,̻ w̌h̆at̰ e̜l̇s̸e̩ d̈o̕ y̍o̽u̯ f̈́r̢ȇąk̷s̝ e̦n̄j̶o̝y̟?̚?”
Your undeniable soft spot for Caine flared up a little once again. He appeared genuinely hurt over the concept of you being ‘just like the rest of them’. You couldn’t have hurt his feelings that much, right? But before long, the insult caught up to you.
“D̠o̭ y̼ou̱ m̺i̪ss̞ SE̥X̼ a̗s̞ w̟el̽l̦?̮?͋”
You found yourself sputtering.
You couldn’t believe Caine had just asked that! Well, more so accused. You were guessing that he was referencing to the time where Zooble had mentioned the topic to him.
He had glitched out at the mere mention of sex back then, you never thought he’d bring it up by himself.
The experiences you’d had in the real world sometimes came to mind — though it was more of a late night thought if anything, you had never demanded it like Zooble had, but truthfully…
“You know what? Yes! I do!”
Now it was his turn to sputter. He didn’t really expect you to go along with his accusations.
“I find myself missing a lot of things, Caine! And I hate how I feel like I need to walk on eggshells around you, I-I can’t mention the things that I miss without you getting upset—! I wish I could have sex again! It felt good! I enjoyed it! It’s something that being here in the circus with you will NEVER be able to satisfy!” You shouted.
To be absolutely fair, you were trying to rile him up now. If he was going to get angry with you, he might as well hear the truth from you at the same time.
You felt his grip on your body get tighter.
“I-I—! You’re wrong! I’m— I̳ c̼a̴nͅ g̢i̍v̅e͉ y̵o͎ú A͍ṊY̘T̢H̓I̢N̓G̢ y̕o̟u̽r̼ m̨a̠c̪r̯o̟v̊e̘r̟s̹e̙ c̻o͂ûl̀d̴ bͅu̕t́ B̙E̊T̈T͎E̫R̦!̅”
You felt something in your stomach flutter. What… exactly was he offering you here..? Did he even… You had so many questions. You couldn’t really help the answer that came out of you. You weren’t sure if it was your anger that vailed your better judgement, or curiosity, or… something else.
“FINE! Prove it to me, Caine!”
…You both looked at each other in silence. Despite anger being plastered over both of your faces, it appeared like you both were waiting on the other to make the first move. (not to mention that part of you still presumed that he was perhaps bluffing).
You cleared your throat. “Do you even know how t—“
“Ÿ-̘ŶĒṢ!̺” He seemed to snap out of whatever daze he was in. “Of course I do!”
You raised a brow, which seemed to stress him out even more. It was nice having at least some amount of power, despite still being in his grasp. “You don’t seem too sure.”
Were you questioning his authority again? He did not like that. In his fury, he growled and spun the arm that held you up to the wall around. Everything around you was a blur, and you felt the force of the movements on your face as though you were being hit by hurricane level wind.
You shut your eyes as you felt him throw you, expecting the incoming impact of being flung into another wall in his office.
You did indeed fall onto another surface, although instead of a wall it was… a mattress. A big one, at that. You didn’t have the time to thoroughly inspect the room you were in, since when you opened your eyes, Caine was face-to-face with you in an instant.
Oh gosh, you thought. Was he really going through with this?
That’s when your multitude of questions kept pouring back into your brain.
Since he clearly wanted to be in control here, did he… know what to do? Would you have to show him—? You didn’t have the patience for that right now. You just—
Wow. Since when were you so horny for Caine?
You… suppose that you had always found him endearing. Before his ridiculous power trip, you recall you and him spending quite a bit of time with one another away from the group. You liked hearing what he had to say, you liked hearing him laugh, you liked seeing him happy.
You’d honestly never put much thought into liking Caine. Looking back, did having the occasional lunch with him count as a date? Did he see it like that? Is that why he sounded so betrayed by you earlier..?
Looking at him physically, well… he was a set of dentures. Although… weirdly, it didn’t bother you, nor had it ever bothered you. You always thought he was adorable.
Picturing him a different light was… surprisingly easy.
You concluded that you didn’t really care for the physical side of things, but speaking of it, you did have to admit that whoever modelled his broad upper body made a damn good job of it.
Ah, maybe Kinger wasn’t the only crazy one in here, after all.
Caine wasn’t as massive as before, but he was still bigger than usual. He had one set of extra arms (which protruded from his torso) rather than however many he had earlier, which he had on each side of you, keeping you there under him.
Meanwhile, his usual set of hands were clamped down on your knees. He stayed like that for a moment, collecting himself.
Looking at his face, you noticed him avoiding yours. His mismatched eyes scanning over your body. It was very clear to you that he didn’t have any clue where to begin.
You sympathised with him despite your frustration and… apparent arousal. He was way out of his comfort zone here.
It’s not like you hadn’t done this before. You knew the motions, he didn’t. It had to be at least a little nerve wrecking for him.
You sighed. “Caine, you don’t—“
“NO! It— It can’t be too difficult! I-I can figure this out..”
He muttered that last part to himself mostly.
HI GUYS!!!! I’ve been super busy with school lately T_T , and exams will be taking up so much of May… BUT PART 2 WILL COME!!! I just wanted ti get this part out before my exam start tomorrow.
