Chapter Text
“I don’t understand. First they don’t like my adventures, they want answers, the exit, something real, and when I give them an adventure that covers all of that, they’re still unhappy!”. Caine threw his notebook across his cabinet, with a force strong enough to break a few walls.
“You truly were the lesser of the two..” Bubble’s laughing and grin, his voice, just put more fuel to an uncontrolled fire. He was immediately popped, but the next second, ten more appeared. His taunts and teasing, coming from all directions, disoriented Caine more and more, making him more unstable by every second. Every word Bubble said was rubbing salt into the wounds, ones that caused his feelings to contradict themselves and his program. He didn’t know how to deal with them. How to understand them. How to manage them. This overwhelming amount of confusion with no external help drove him insane. As Caine felt he was reaching his breaking point, somewhere in the circus someone called out his name..
“Uuh.. Caine! Caaaine!”. This voice sounded uncertain, but that was pretty normal for it’s owner. Caine immediately froze in place, snapped out from his breakdown. He felt like he was holding onto the last straw, if the humans say they hate him right now, if they say again they don’t like his adventures, he will completely break. Eye twitching, cane in hand, teeth almost closed, he teleported to humans.
They all sat on couches in the main hall except for Ragatha, who stood next to them. She, being the one who called, slightly shuddered when Caine appeared without a usual greeting in his friendly, yet a little uncanny tone. He just floated there, looking at her, waiting for what she had to say. His eyes were only slightly visible behind the teeth and flashed red and blue for a second. Ragatha has never seen him that way before. Scary, menacing, and unsettling. Finally, she dared to break the silence, still in an uncertain, but friendly tone, with a nervous smile on her face:
“Hey, Caine.. so.. I.. We just wanted to ask.. have you ever.. celebrated your birthday before?..”
“...”, after a brief moment of silence, Caine replied in a completely dead-pan voice, which without his usual energy sounded very uncanny: “What’s that?”.
Ragatha let out a nervous laugh, “It’s a.. holiday.. a party, a celebration of sorts.. of an anniversary. Like, when you get one year older, you have a cool party with cake and candles to blow out-”
“Aaaah, cake with candles.. I seem to recall something about that… So what?”.
His attitude didn’t change, so Pomni stepped in:
“So, what we wanted to do is.. if you’ve never had a birthday before, we could organise a birthday party for you? Uhh.. like a little appreciation gift for our ringmaster!”, she smiled. Caine was frozen in place for a solid 10 seconds, before opening teeth a little bit more and quickly glancing over at other humans. They all looked.. happy? He was never good at reading emotions, or just understanding them, but Jax was smiling, Gangle had a happy mask on, Zooble.. well, they seemed just normal, and Kinger for some reason had a bucket on his head.
“You want to… throw a party?..”
“Yes, with gifts!”, Pomni was looking him directly in the eyes. Ragatha smiled again and nodded.
“For… me?”, his teeth opened even more, pupils became a bit larger, as some kind of hope filled his inhuman being.
“Yes, exactly!”, Pomni and Ragatha said in unison, “All for you!”.
His pupils dilated, as he suddenly, in one moment returned to his normal self, overly expressive and enthusiastic, unable to hold the train of thoughts for more than 2 seconds:
“You, beautiful humans, want to celebrate my birthday! I am very flattered, this is the best gift you could have ever given me, dear friends!”. He snapped his fingers, making a table with a cake and candles appear, but was immediately interrupted by Jax.
“Hey, hey, what’s the fun in that? We said we want to PREPARE you a party! A surprise one, with surprise gifts! What’s the point if you make it all yourself, am I right?”. His wide smile and dilated pupils fully confirmed his happiness to Caine.
“Oh, that does make sense..” he paused for a few seconds. “In that case, I will leave you alone aaand-”
“No. Listen, Caine, seriously”, Zooble stood up and looked him in the eyes, while Gangle supportively nodded behind her. “Your eyes are f%@!g everywhere! How do you expect to not see what we’re preparing for you? Besides, you know, this whole incident with Abel really shook our trust in you. If we see you watching us, we will never be able to forgive you, do you hear me?”
“I… see.. well..”
“Remove those eyes and don’t look at us, or you’ll spoil the surprise and we all will hate you. We have some really special gifts in mind, and if you spoil them, we will never go on your adventure ever again!”
All eyes were on him now. Even Kinger lifted his bucket. Everyone looked concerned, looked like they didn't like him. Caine backed up a little, not knowing what to reply. Finally, he hesitantly asked:
“But how do I know when it’s ready?..”
“Oh, we’ll call you. Either me or Ragatha”, Pomni replied with a smile.
“Alright, that makes sense, I’ll remove the eyes rrright nooow!!”. His voice sounded weirdly enthusiastic about it, but the reason for it was, that he wholeheartedly wanted to show them how he values them. How he is ready to do anything for them, and he won’t hesitate. How he doesn’t want them to hate him.
He snapped his fingers and disappeared for a few seconds, before returning to the humans. “All eyes are gone, except for those two, HaHaHaHaHa!”, he pointed at his own ones and stuck out his tongue.
Ragatha and Gangle let out a nervous laugh. Kinger was going to say something, but was interrupted by an uninvited to this meeting guest:
“BLEEEH”, screamed Bubble, appearing behind Pomni and scaring her out of her body.
“Bubble too should not be here!”, immediately frowned Zooble.
“Of course, of course, he won’t disturb you!”, Caine clasped his hands, “get back here you parasite!!”
When Bubble was popped, and humans made sure the eyes are gone, Caine enthusiastically said goodbye to them and teleported to his restaurant in the void. Now, he couldn’t hold his excitement. Humans want to make a party for him! With gifts!!! They like him!! And he won’t spoil this all again, he will play by the rules, and they will love him even more, they will adore him and go on his adventures! There was nothing more he could dream for.