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Caine rubbed his gloved hands together in anxious anticipation as he waited for the humans to finish the adventure. He tried really hard to make this one cater to everyone's interests this time!
Violent monsters for Jax to tear into, a bug-catching side quest for Kinger, "chill" time between waves for everyone else. He even tried to include an avatar customiser for Zooble, but they never ended up joining in (again) so he just disabled that section before the rest of the guests went in.
He shoved his hands behind his back when the humans emerged from the portal he had opened, but he immediately went back to wringing them, out of sight, when he saw their expressions; disgruntled at best and mildly dismembered at worst... Looks like he didn't catch that to fix it during the adventure. Caine braced himself a little.
"WELCOME BACK, MY ANIMALISTIC AVACADOS!" The ringmaster called out, wacky nickname coming easily to him, throwing his arms out with pseudo energy. Can't let the humans think he's unprofessional!
He inwardly winced at their barely concealed glares, energy faltering as he repaired any damage to their models with a snap of his fingers. Ragatha and Gangle bore the most damage, as they usually were, but torn seams and broken mask aside, everyone had fared... fairly well!
He floated in the air for a few moments, uncharacteristically quiet and twiddling his thumbs. It was, for once, silent in the circus. Geez, did they hate his adventure that much this time? He cleared his throat. "SO...? HOW WAS IT?" Caine asked the troupe hopefully, praying that his assumption on their answer was wrong. Jax spoke up first.
"It 
ing sucked, Caine." He spat, and Caine deflated, finding himself surprised (and a little upset) by the answer. Jax was the one Caine thought would like the adventure the most! Ragatha didn't even speak up to defend him, not even to try and disarm Jax. Silence followed the response, only broken up by Caine's quiet, "Oh."
The ringmaster continued to float a couple feet above the troupe, silence enveloping the room once more. There was the quiet sound of Zooble's shambling footsteps, but everyone had already started filing to their rooms, only Gangle sticking around to greet the abstract member before going to her own room.
Zooble looked up at Caine momentarily, puzzled, before leaving to sit at the couches, clearly not ready to turn in yet.
The circus was quiet today, Caine thought as he floated in place, arms wrapped around his torso. It was quiet, and he didn't like it. He could add the music back, like he usually did when it was just him, but it wasn't just him right now, because Zooble hadn't returned to their room for the night.
He didn't like the quiet, because it left him with his own thoughts, and he didn't want that. He needed to stay strong for his guests, not let troublesome emotions get in the way (he didn't even know why he was programmed with those, he would be much more productive if he didn't have any!)
If Caine didn't have emotions and personal preferences to deal with, maybe he would make better adventures for the humans. Heck, he would probably use the humans' suggestions more if he wasn't so dead-set on making stories up himself.
There were probably bucketloads of bugs that he hadn't got around to fixing, too. Time he could be using to fix glitches was being used to make adventures that he was sure he had presets for somewhere. Could he get any more useless?
...Though, to be fair, making adventures was his sole function. He wasn't created to fix collision issues or fight viruses or access corrupted code to real living beings that may or not be dead. (Who knows? Not Caine!)
But the developers had abandoned him years ago, so it was fine, he could do it. He had to, for the sake of his guests!
Caine hadn't even noticed the circus' textures start to flicker in and out of existence, or his model floating down to the ground. He couldn't breathe, he didn't even need to breathe so why did it feel so real, why couldn't he stop it?
He couldn't hear anything but the rumbling of the circus glitching around him, he couldn't see anything but the blurry, checkerboarded floor of which he was curled up on.
He didn't notice Zooble until they placed two mismatched hands on his shoulders, a little roughly but it made him look up at them with scribbled pupils. They just looked like blurred colours to Caine, unable to blink away the building tears.
Caine looked... unbelievably pathetic, and if we weren't choking on air he didn't need right now, he was sure he'd feel like it, too. No, he was pathetic, and he knew it.
Zooble shook him, snapping him out of his thoughts once more. He felt lightheaded, another feeling programmed into him that made his job infinitely harder.
He thought they were talking, but it was hard to tell. He could barely hear anything that wasn't the chaos his panic was causing and loud buzzing (it sounded like the first animals he programmed with the lacking information he had on them, not-quite-right digital buzzing from black and yellow creatures that were just a little too angular), and they had no mouth he could lipread – even if they did, he wasn't sure he'd be able to see it through the tears anyway.
Caine tried to focus on them, and the more he tried the more the buzzing faded, and their voice started to be audible to him. He could hear them calling for him, but he was right in front of them. His not-breathing didn't calm, but his eyes became less frantic.
" dude, you with me?" They asked, and he just gasped for air that he didn't even need, it just felt like he did in the moment, and his entire body shook. He looked up at them with big, pathetic eyes. They muttered another censored swear under their breath, humming in thought. "Okay, uh..." Would human techniques for grounding even work for Caine?
Only one way to find out, they supposed...
"Okay, Caine, try to... breathe." God, this was so weird. "Can you name five things you can see?" They tried, a little awkwardly if they were being completely honest, but that wasn't their focus right now. They watched patiently as Caine shakily looked around for things to list.
"Um... Y-you," He started, and Zooble's eyes softened slightly at how small he sounded in this moment compared to his usual boisterous persona. "My hands, t-the floor..." He stuttered out. Come on, come on, he could list things. He looked around, scouting for anything he could name. "The... The debris left from t-the adventure that I... haven't cleaned up yet." Come on, Focus, Caine. "The couches..." He settled on, voice quiet.
Zooble nodded slowly, this was surprisingly working, and they found themself glad. Whether it was because they actually cared about his wellbeing, or if it was just because the circus relied on him, they weren't sure.
"Good, now... Tell me four things you can feel." They said gently, less of a question and more of a request.
Caine lingered on this one for a little longer. "Y-your hands on my shoulders, the f-floor, my hands on my arms. Uh..." He thought for a few seconds, scrounging for more sensations. He didn't know what was happening, or if he was supposed to get into specifics with his answers like he was, but it helped. "I-I don't know, I'm s-sorry." He apologised, sounding like he was about to start crying again. (When had he stopped?)
"Hey, no, it's okay. You're doing great." Zooble quickly assured him before he could spiral again. They once again questioned themself on why an AI could have a panic attack. "Let's see... What're three things you can hear?" He seemed to be coming down from the franticness he had before, at the very least. The circus had stopped glitching, to their immense relief.
The ringmaster was about to list the rumbling, before realising it had stopped. Huh. "M-my voice, your voice... The buzzing?" It was still there, just on a much lesser scale now. He felt... Not good, but better.
"Perfect..." The toybox character praised softly. The mention of buzzing puzzled them, but it was safe to assume it was similar to the ringing a human would hear when mid-attack.
"You... Want me to keep going?" They questioned, pulling their hands back to rest in their lap, earning a small shake of the head from the AI, his mismatched eyes looking into their own.
"No, I'm okay now... Thank you." Caine replied, voice still having that slight bit of shakiness to it, much quieter than his usual too-loud showman act. Zooble didn't buy that he was okay, but they didn't pry, nodding.
"It's fine, anyone else would've done the same." They told him coolly, even though both of them knew it wasn't true. Caine looked down, and Zooble looked off to the side.
The silence between them bordered between comfortable and awkward, the entire situation was odd for the both of them for two different reasons.
Caine's jaws moved in a way that implied he was trying to word something correctly, something he didn't usually try to do.
Eventually, he broke the silence. "Why..." He started, "Why don't any of you like my adventures?" The ringmaster looked up at them, eyes big and teary. The look was odd on him – he always looked... borderline insane, but now he looked so... human. "You said nobody likes them, but you never told me w-why."
Zooble winced at that. They did say all that, didn't they? They were telling the truth, sure, but they were a pretty big hole about it. They were fed up, but... it wasn't right.
"Caine..." They started, before sighing. "I just think you should take everyone's suggestions more into account." They explained, shushing him gently when he tried to speak up. He was uncharacteristically still as he listened. "And I know you work really hard on them, and you try your best, I can tell. But it gets... A lot, you know? , I'm sure it does for you too, right?" Zooble tilted their head at him slightly, and he nodded in response, averting his gaze.
They smiled with their eyes, and continued, "I propose break days." They suggested, drawing his gaze back to them with curiosity. "A day or two of no adventures, so we can get a breather from them. Like a weekend."
"But... What if someone wants an adventure on one of those days, and they aren't stimulated enough, and then abstract?!" Caine fretted, gloved hands gripping onto his lower jaw in a cartoony show of anxiousness.
...At least that's back, even if it's tied to a negative emotion. Better than a panic attack, they supposed.
Even then, their eyes softened impossibly further. man, was he really worried about that? Just how much did this guy hide from them and the others? They sighed.
"Listen, Caine. We can't promise anything, but I can say that your adventures aren't the sole thing keeping everyone from abstraction. I don't join any unless I'm forced, and I'm fine, aren't I?" Zooble gestured to themself, and Caine nodded slowly. They let their uneven hands drop back into their lap with the sound of rubber against plastic. "Exactly. Everyone needs a break, including you."
The two drifted into silence, undoubtedly comfortable this time as they sat across from each other. It was times like these where Zooble was glad they couldn't ache anymore, because they knew in the real world, sitting on the floor for this long would break their back into pieces.
After a while, Caine spoke up. "How are you so good at this?" He asked, looking back up at them. They seemed to smile.
"Huh. My little cousin used to come to me a lot back before all this." They explained, looking up at the roof of the tent. "I guess I just had practice from them, even if I don't remember them now."
"Oh..." Caine hummed, frowning slightly. "Sorry."
"Huh?" Zooble looked back down at the AI, tilting their head to the side. "What for?"
He shrugged, curling his arms tighter around his knees. "I don't know." The ringmaster admitted. "For not being able to make an exit for you guys. I've tried, but I failed."
"Hey, man, you're fine. Don't worry about it. I don't think you'd be able to, anyway. Well, I mean, I wouldn't know, but I know you're probably not the reason we're trapped here, so..." They trailed off awkwardly, before sighing. "I appreciate you're trying, but you already have a lot on your plate. We'll find it eventually, and I'll make sure we'll find a way to get in contact with you, too." Zooble reassured, and Caine looked up at that, and seemed to smile, in his own odd way.
"Okay... Thank you, Zooble." The AI's words were genuine, and the other nodded. After a couple of moments, Caine lifted himself into the air once more, brushing himself down of imaginary dust and straightening his bowtie. He prepared himself to slip back into his usual persona. "ALRIGHTY!" There we go, all back to normal!
"I WILL CERTAINLY CONSIDER YOUR SUGGESTION, ZOOBLE! NOW I MUST GO, AND YOU SHOULD HEAD TO YOUR ROOM, THE LIGHTS WILL BE GOING OUT SOON!" He gave a half salute, and was about to leave, but Zooble started to speak. He looked down at them.
"Alright, thanks." They seemed a little exasperated as they stood and brushed themself off in turn, but there was a hint of fondness in their gaze now. They looked up at him, arms crossed casually. "Oh, and Caine? If it's just me, you don't have to keep up the act, I prefer the real you." They couldn't believe the words that were coming out of their mouth (or lack thereof), it was sappy as , but they found it were true.
"Take care of yourself, kid." And at that, they turned and shambled away to their room. He was right, it was around the time where the lights were going to turn off.
Caine hovered in place for a moment, but when he was about to respond, he realised they were already gone.
Oh well! "I will certainly try!" He said anyway, before grabbing onto his cane (which he noticed had been missing from the entire ordeal) and despawning his model with a confetti effect for nobody but himself to see.
He had to prepare his announcement for the break days!