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Zooble almost fell off the couch when Caine popped into existence in front of them, desperately flailing his arms at them. "ZOOBLE!" he screamed, then folded his hands together politely and lowered his volume back down to his regular degree of incredibly loud. "Are you going to be joining the adventure today?"
They squint, hands still gripping the armrests from the startle. "No? Why would I?"
Caine's bottom jaw shook in a way that resembled that of a lip quivering.
"Really??" Zooble was not impressed. "Caine, I'm not going on an adventure just because you act all pathetic."
They startled again when Caine collapsed to his knees, bowing repeatedly while yelling "PLEEEASE, Zooble! PLEEEASE!"
"I- you- What?? -are you doing?" They scooted backwards, still holding onto the couch but now in a mix of discomfort and shock, instead of just shock.
He lifted his head off the floor. "You haven't left the tent and grounds in a full week! I'm- YOU'RE gonna go crazy!" He waved his hands at them to emphasize his point, as if that's how emphasis works.
They cross their arms. "I think you've already gone crazy... And you can't force me to-"
They jolted at the ear-piecing shriek that interrupted them. It mimicked the sound of a toddler beginning a tantrum, but also had a mania to it that made Zooble sure he would've clutched and tried to rip out his hair if he had any.
It shouldn't have been surprising, really, that Caine's crying would be just as loud and overdramatized as everything else he did. However, it was surprising, because they never thought he would do it at all. Maybe they should have? But now, here they were, watching him roll around. Back and forth, back and forth, screeching and wailing the entire time. It couldn't possibly have been comfortable, given the way his teeth clacked against the ground (which got wetter by the second from his cartoonish stream of tears), but he left his jaw spread wide open as he rolled anyway.
"Ehhh... Caine?"
As soon as he was addressed, he stopped moving, and his noises turned from screeching to crying, arms resting in the growing puddle of tears.
The sound was... strange? It had crackly static in it, occasionally glitched out, and had some weird breath pattern that felt in some way uncanny though they couldn't place how.
But it still would've been somewhat heartbreaking to hear, if it wasn't coming from Caine and clearly some sort of weird manipulation tactic.
"Wow." Their expression changed from wide-eyed to half-lidded. "This a new low."
A familiar voice came from behind them, approaching. "Oh!"
They turned to look at Kinger, who smiled compassionately at the pathetic ringmaster on the floor, who didn't respond with a greeting and instead dropped their head into their arms and sobbed.
"Hi, Kinger," Zooble rolled their eyes. "He started doing this when I said I won't go on today's adventure."
"Aww..." Kinger's hand slipped under Caine's top hat and patted his head, eliciting a purr, which Zooble wasn't sure they preferred over the wailing since both felt incredibly strange.
Caine sat himself up so he could move his arms from under his face to on top of Kinger's hand, holding it in there so it couldn't stop petting.
Zooble and Kinger watched as he continued to purr, teeth slowly closing over his eyes in contentedness.
"Really?" Their antennae twitched. "That's all it took to make him stop crying?"
Kinger smiled with his eyes, watching Caine rock back and forth with the motion of his pets. "Oh! Was he crying?"
"He- Ugh. Yeah." They pinched where their nose would be if they had one. "I said I wouldn't go on the adventure today and he threw himself on the floor like a toddler at Walmart."
"You haven't joined in a while! It might be nice." Kinger kept smiling.
Zooble's antennae twitched again. "I don't want to join." They crossed their arms.
A soft clicking sound came from Caine, and a quick glance at him showed that it came from his teeth clacking together as the bottom jaw quivered again.
They squint at him. "You better not start crying again."
"You haven't slept in a while, have you, buddy?"
"Huh?" Zooble turned to face Kinger again. "What does that mean?"
Not that Kinger ever made much sense.
"He can't sleep if any humans are awake inside the circus, just in case they need him."
Zooble fell speechless. If they had a mouth, their jaw would be agape.
Caine finally spoke again, even while looking extremely dozy from the head pets, "And someone always has insomnia. So I always have insomnia. And you never go on adventures so I never get to sleep." His teeth closed again as soon as soon as he finished speaking, clearly soaking up all the affection he could get from the head pets, still holding Kinger's hand in place.
They could not for the life of them find a response to that, frozen in place as Kinger stopped petting Caine and scooped him into his arms to cradle him like a baby instead, which the 'all powerful ai god' immediately melted and nuzzled into.
"AHH!" Kinger yelled. "Caine! When did you get here?!"
"M'always here, my syrup-soaked waffle sludge..."
"Oh."
None of that interaction made sense, though Zooble would've been surprised if a conversation between Caine and Kinger did make sense.
Kinger hummed happily, occasionally jumping in startle at seeing Caine in his arms; while the ai itself kept looking about one second from falling into a REM cycle, before glitching, growling, and repeat.
He really did have a sleep blocker built in, didn't he? Oh, what have they done?
He clicked his teeth together and grumbled to himself. It was somewhat cute.
Caine dramatically inhaled, flying upwards and adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. He snap-summoned everyone into the room and shook his head to pretend to be wide awake. "ALLLLRIGHTY, my superstars! Today's adventure is tamingshmeagurtles anridenig totheport angettingtradestuffstoshmshmmshmmggghugshmngg..."
Everyone stared at him.
Bubble spun around lazily behind him.
He shook his head again. "NEVER MIND the title and description; just go!"
A portal opened and they all headed through it, including Zooble, to which he reacted by immediately falling on the floor with his eyes fully black and hidden under his teeth until his wacky watch woke him up to say the group finished their adventure, much later than they normally would.
Replaying the footage later showed that the reason for that was that Zooble kept stalling everyone, much to their confusion and frustration.
He would have to make a special adventure just for them to thank them for their kindness!