Work Text:
The cartoony pixels jitter and dance along your screen the moment your computer fully loads.
“Back already, my buttery buddy?” Caine chirps, swinging his staff around in a circle before leaning onto it, pushing closer to the screen to look at you. Your computer's camera flickers with a red light. You can’t help the grin that tugs your lip, your eyes rolling in contrast.
“Buttery buddy?” You repeat with a soft snort, leaning back in your desk chair and crossing your arms.
“What? Would you prefer buzzing benedict? Chirping Chick? Dazzling dandy–”
“Alright, alright, I get it,” You interrupt quickly, before he can go through the entire damn alphabet, “Where do you even come up with those?” You mutter under your breath, gently reaching to brush your hands along the sides of the computer, searching for the screws. “I’m mostly wanting to do a quick check and clean,” You explain, “Realized how icky it was at the cafe and got embarrassed…” You puff a breath.
He leans back, popping his cane out of thin air with a cartoony flick of confetti. Propping his head on his hand, his eyes follow your hands along the keyboard. “Check and clean?” He muses, tilting his head up at you.
Your finger brushes the screws and you hum, reaching aside for the group of screwdrivers you bought for this very thing. “Yep,” You pop the P, tilting the driver to the nearest screw, “Take off the cover, brush off the dust ‘n crumbs, clean the display, all that jazz,” You shrug, and his pixels nod slowly as he watches you take apart the computer cover that rests around the keys of your keyboard. You’ve never really done this before, but knowing that you want to do more computer work at that cafe– you’d rather not have a messy computer.
With a satisfying pop, you gently slide off the thin metal plating and place it aside. You’ll wipe it down at the end, first you want to brush out all the crumbs.
“Can I watch?” Caine suddenly interrupts, flying midair on your display and kicking his feet behind him.
“You already are, but sure,” You shrug to yourself, glancing up at his cartoony figure against your desktop background. He stands out quite a lot, which isn’t an issue until you have to drag his pixels off screen when someone comes near. He always hates that…
Picking up a Q-tip, you bring it forward and brush it against the crevices of the keyboard.
A stuttered sound of audio plays.
You jolt your hand away immediately, eyes widening. Fuck, did you already break your computer by doing that? Tilting your head up to check the display for glitching, you see nothing.
Nothing, except for Caine's cartoony figure looking static-shocked and frazzled. You blink owlishly at him.
“That was weird!” He pipes up, figure shaking out like a dog after rain and standing properly once more, staff in hand and actively being leaned on rather casually.
“What happened?” You tilt your computer a bit in examination, brows furrowed.
“I’ve just never been touched there before!” He says easily, “I’m not a fan of that Q-tip,” He points his staff to said item, still carefully held in your fingers. You glance down at it.
“Touched?” You stammer the words out, unsure if that’s even right. “What do you mean, ‘touched there before’?”
He stares at you. “What do you mean, what do you mean?” He grins, leaning his elbows on his staff, head propped up on his hands.
“You… uh, you can feel it?”
He nods.
“How long have you been… been able to feel things?”
He scratches his chin, narrowing his eyes before turning his eyes back towards you. “Since your last computer update, my dear!”
You sputter.
“Th– Caine that was weeks ago!” Your hand drags over your face, leaning back in your chair with a huff of shaky breath.
“I thought you knew! It was in the fine print!” He chirped, swinging his staff casually. A window pops up, and he leans against the side of it with a grin. “Look!”
“No one reads fine print!” You scoff, closing out the tab. His little cartoon stumbles to the side before he catches himself mid air on one of your icons.
“That’s ridiculous! I spend so much time on the fine print!” He huffs, looking displeased as he haughtily fixes the bowtie on his chest that had turned lopsided in his surprise. “You humans never appreciate the details.” He grumbles.
You sigh, “Okay, well, so… what can you feel, exactly?”
He perks up.
“Well–” The window pops up again, and he floats around it, pointing his staff. “If you’d read–”
“I’d rather not,” You cross your arms.
“Fine,” He clicks the X himself this time, dropping his dramatic act. “I can feel the insides of the computer, the screen, the mouse– as in, the click of your mouse, and the keyboard.” He’s slumped over slightly, clearly annoyed by your insistent laziness, “It never came up. It was all rather dull and felt more like input data than actual contact,” He leans back, a beach chair popping up behind him as he drops into it.
You raise your eyebrows. “So… if I…” you drag the mouse over to him, clicking his side.
His pixels jitter and he giggles. “That’s ticklish!”
You lean forward in your chair, grinning. “Oh wow, that’s fascinating…” The words are a low mumble, before you blink. “So wait, how am I supposed to clean the computer?”
He crosses his legs in the chair, leaning back casually. “The same as you would normally! I won’t mind!”
“You won’t mind the Q-tip?” You say cautiously, holding it up.
His gaze slides over to it, eyes squishing in suspicion. “Is that the only option?
The Q-tip is placed down. “I could use my finger I guess?” You shrug.
He nods in satisfaction. “Go on, my crispy cleaner!”
“You gotta find a different thing to call me,” You sigh out, shifting the laptop closer and gently running your finger over the same spot. The bumps of the insides of the computer are foreign, and you gentle your touch in your inexperience. You’re half afraid that your finger isn’t as gentle as the Q-tip over the sensitive wiring and metal platings– but that fear is soon cut off by a strangled, glitchy noise. It was akin to the sound that… Caine made, you assume? Over the Q-tip. Your hand jerks away again with a quick snap of the eyes to Caine’s stuttering pixels.
“That bad too?” You sigh out with a frown.
“No!” He jerks forward in his seat, the beach chair fizzling out in a weak, glitchy snap of confetti. He falls against the desktop before he straightens himself, brushing down his suit with a clear of his throat. “It wasn’t– It was, well,” He stumbles over the wording, fiddling with the fancy white gloves of his hands. “It wasn’t bad,” His gaze isn’t quite meeting yours. “I am not really sure!”
You raise an eyebrow, leaning closer to the display to examine his sprite. He seems to get even more nervous at this proximity, and tugs at his bowtie cartoonishly. “W-wowie! It’s rather hot in here, isn’t it!” He stammers with a loud laugh.
Your computer's fans whir for a split second, and you see the faintest red around his canines. You raise your eyebrows– then…
“Oh. Oh, Caine, did it feel nice?” Your voice grows smoother as you grin, a taunting lilt to your voice.
“Nice?” He repeats, straightening up with a guilty expression. “Nice, um, is definitely one way to describe it! However! I am a Family Friendly Digital Circus Ringmast–”
He chokes on his spiel as you run your fingers gently against the plating once more. His sprite trembled and stuttered on the screen, like he was lagging.
“H-Hey now! WoahwoahWOAH!” He shakes his hands up at you in panic, eyes wide.
You raise an eyebrow, lifting your finger up. “What’s wrong? I’m cleaning,” You muse easily. He squints.
“That is very rude! You have not even taken me to dinner first!” He insists, crossing his arms and turning with a huff. His head shutting with a comical click, the red light of the camera cutting off.
You roll your eyes. “So you do like it like that,” You push. He curls up tighter in a ball.
You sigh. “Caine,”
No response.
“Caine…”
…
You’re starting to get concerned.
You poke his shoulder with your mouse.
“I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to. I can focus on getting the cleaning done quickly, and avoid the inside,” You offer, frowning slightly. “Have I upset you?”
His sprite shifts, and then deflates, head turning and maw opening to look back at you hesitantly, red light flickering in the corner of your gaze. “No…” He turns fully, brushing down his suit carefully. It feels more like a nervous tick than anything else. “I just… I’m not quite used to contact.” He admits, a red blush tinting his canines
Your gaze softens, “Would you like me to avoid the inside?” You offer again, holding up the plating. “It isn’t directly needed…”
He tugs at his gloves. “I.. Well…” He coughs, regaining his bravado. “I am all for complete coverage!” He straightens up with a grin, snapping his staff in place again and leaning on it.
“So…?” You furrow your brows.
“Clean away!” he nods to the keyboard, a red still dusting his canines.
Ah. You grin.
“Let me know if it hurts,”
Your finger brushes over the plating, and a distorted noise slips through the speakers. You don’t stop, and instead start to brush along the crevices, wiping away dust and grime. Your gaze occasionally flicks up to his sprite on your screen.
He’s got his eyes following your finger, his pixels trembling and glitching with stuttering whine.
“Feel good?” You murmur, tracing your fingers along a thin cluster of wires, dust swiping off. He doesn’t reply, at least not verbally, a broken audio of music looping for a split second as you press down around a key, grime swiping aside.
Each touch feels almost reverent, a gentle caress against wires and buttons. Watching Caine's sprite lag and writhe through glitchy whimpers is something you never quite knew could be so beautiful. He was a digital companion, built to serve inside your laptop– help with tasks and finding files and companionship... But you never imagined this. Did they intend this for the update? God you hope if they didn’t, that it never got patched. You keep one finger dragging along an exposed bundle of wires, and hover your other hand over the keyboard.
“You said you can feel more than this, yes?” You question, not quite to yourself but not quite to him– he’s too busy being a quivering bundle of pixels on your desktop, his hat lopsided and his bow– twisting in messy trembling circles…? You can feel the motherboard overheating, glitchy sniffles and whiney nonsensical babbles loop and twist and errors overlapping in audio. It would hurt your ears, if you didn’t have the sight of him desperately trying to grapple onto your mouse hovering nearby to follow it.
You slide a finger over a USB at the side of the laptop.
“Oh– oh m-my–ERROR– gggggggggggg–good gr-gr-gr-gravy–” The words are barely intelligible behind dial tones, but you giggle the moment you hear it. Your finger presses harder into the USB insert. His teeth click shut loudly, various shutters and zaps zipping up his cartoony sprite like he was struck by lightning.
“That’s it…” You murmur, brushing away more dust and practically fingering the inside of the slot. It feels a little uncomfortable, but it was utterly worth it to feel the metal hot against your fingers. “Almost done… Good boy,”
The words slip out before you could fully process them, and the fans kick into high gear. A pitchy groan feeding through the overheating error messages. You raise your eyebrows.
“C-C-CCRIpeS–!”
Your smile widens almost cruelly.
“Awe, goodness, Caine…” You purr slowly, tugging at a wire until he chokes on a cute exclamation and loops a dial tone for a hot second in response. “Do you like that?”
You tilt your head, gaze narrowing. “Look at me.”
He whimpers loudly.
“Look at me, Caine, I can see if the camera is on.”
For a split second, you wait, fingers slowing on the burning hot metal plating around your keyboard. Then… The camera flickers red, his hands clenching to fists as he opens his maw. Watery, big eyes meet your gaze. You giggle in his face.
“Do you like being called a good boy, caine?” You ask slyly, reaching for a nearby USB. He's too busy staring up at you with trembling legs and shivering pixels to see it.
“I.. I– ERROR: OVERHEATING– S-ssay it ag-again-” It’s gasped out.
You grin, the USB hovering over the slot.
“Good boy, Caine,”
You slide it with a satisfying click.
…
A broken slurry of glitched tones and babbles starts– then cuts off immediately.
Your laptop blue-screened.
—
Your computer has completely restarted. Luckily for you, it isn’t utterly evil and only took around ten minutes or so to reload everything for you. Ah, the little things. You use the time to quickly and gently brush away and clean any left over grime you didn’t reach in your little… adventure, and carefully screw the plating back into place.
The moment you load back in, Caine is sat against an icon, adjusting his clothes, a flurry of confetti around him.
“Do… Do you let out confetti when you–”
“Gee willickers, would you look at the time!” He chirps, pointing to the clock with a jolty movement. “It’s about time you shower! Even humans need their complete coverage cleaning!!”
You raise an eyebrow with a grin.
“Just wondering, before I shower,” You add with a roll of your eyes, “Was that in the fine print?”
He adjusts his gloves slowly, leaning on his staff with blushing canines. “The fine print would never spoil the ringmaster's adventures, my dear!”