Work Text:
You shot up to the sound of your alarm blaring. Your hands rushing to turn it off - the loud sound causing you slight panic.
You let out a loud groan of annoyance as you fought to sit up.
You swung your legs to the edge of your bed, debating getting on your uniform and heading to work - You didn’t really feel like going to work today. Wondering if you should call your boss and let her know that you won’t be coming in.
It’s not like your job is awful. You like it, and you hardly have to do anything. It’s usually the same old same old. Sweep the floors, restock the items, take over the register, help customers find the color floppy they want. Customers can be annoying sometimes but everyone is a little annoying sometimes.
But the worst part about your job is making sure that Pest guy doesn’t come in and steal anything. You always fail at that. Somehow, he sneaks past you like a god damn field mouse. He seriously drives you up the wall.
You ran your hands through your hair, then pressed them into your face as you dragged them down to your chin. It’s not like the pay is all that good. But you got up anyway because you needed the money. And hell, if we’re being honest you have the slightest teeniest.. well, actually a huge crush on your boss.
You think that it’s a little odd. You haven’t really told anyone about it since, she isn’t exactly human. Your friends would think youre absolutely crazy for crushing on a robot and you can’t imagine what your parents would think about it. As well as the fact she’s a CRT, that hardly even resembles a human at all. You don’t really know why you like her, you just do.
And that’s always your motivation to get to work on time.
You get up and do your normal routine. Shower, brush your teeth and hair, slide your uniform on, and head on out the door.
You park your car in your designated spot right up next to the shoppy. You took another quick look in the mirror before heading to the back door, and-
uhm
nothing?
You were met with nobody.
Scag’s usually there to greet you in the morning, right in front of the back door, with her big smile and corny small talk. She’d say something like “Today’s a great day to workmaxx!”
You guess she was just late. But after you dropped off your bag in the lounge and headed up to the main shop, she was right there, at the register.
She wasn’t awake. Her screen was off, black, claw unmoving. This was unlike her, she almost never turned her screen off, especially not during work hours.
You tapped the top of the tv, they turned back on eyes darting up at you.
“Oh, good morning… Do you mind cleaning up before we open?”
Her soft tone of voice makes your heart skip
“Yeah of course.”
The broom made a scratchy sound as it hit the floor in a timely manner, the noise filling the room.
Sweep…
…Sweep…
…Sweep.
You do this a lot. You used to be kind of bad at sweeping until you got this job, now you just sweep all the time. You’re basically a professional by now. You stopped your sweeping to look at Scag again, standing idly at their register. She was acting so- strangely? They’ve barely used any of their fun little suffixes. It’s been like 40 minutes since their last “-maxxing.” Well it actually hasn’t, it just feels like that to you.
you tapped her on the top of her head again, delicately, just like before.
“What’s up sweepmaxxer?” She said, her voice low; not as enthusiastic like it usually is, which is really starting to make you feel worse.
“You seem-.. different today. Is something wrong?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m pretty…er… tired-core.”
“You don’t need sleep, I thought?”
“Yes, this is truth-nuke. It’s just the closest human emotion I can thinks-maxx of that makes the most sense to you before really getting into detail about it. lowkey boringcore..”
You look at her with a confused expression
“Well, I don't think robots are supposed to feel tired like, ever. You guys are always energized and stuff. So, what's actually happening?”
She took a quick look around the shoppy before doing a dramatic sigh
“I just.. haven't seen a repairman in a while okay?.. I don't even remember the last time I got checked out. I’m, uh, embarrassed to talk about it.”
embarrassed?
“..Why not schedule an appointment with one right now?”
“Because I don’t want a stranger to handle me! That's weird-core!” She protested
“Bive got in my head a little bit when she was rambling about how robots would get their vital machinery devious licked by repairmen.”
“I could always look at your panel.. Y’know, to see what’s the matter with your whole system ‘n stuff.” you suggested.
Scag snickered, “I don’t trust that you watching YouTube tutorials is gonna help.” she said sarcastically and it kinda hurt your feelings.
“Actually, I’ve fixed a CRT before… My dad- he helped me do it, and I’m kinda confident that I could work on you…” you choked out - why should she trust you?
She stared at you,
and then the floor,
and to the side of her screen.
Then she smiled real big.
“You know what? Fuck it! There isn’t anything you could do to put me in a worse position than I'm already in. C’mon.”
She wheeled over to the employee lounge behind the cash register in the hallway, and you followed behind.
Once you were inside, she led you over to a bunch of drawers. She then pulled open a drawer with a large variety of tools inside.
“Use these. You are familiar-esque with some of these items right?”
you nod and take a few of the tools you think you’d need and sit down at a table. Scag wheels herself over to you, giving you permission to disconnect her from her trolley and place her on the table in front of you, back panel facing you. You take a screwdriver in hand.
“Am I alright to start?”
“Yes bruh.”
After you took all the screws from the back panel out and placed it down. You were met with a huge jumble of unorganized chaos, most of her chords in one huge knot. Everything was coated grey with dust. Some getting in your nose, causing you to sneeze.
“Gesundheit!”
you waved your hand in the air, covering your mouth and nose with the other. You grabbed your air duster and blew the dust off the wires, which earned a “hey! I was gonna collect that.” You giggled, ignoring the comment. You couldn’t really tell if that was a joke or not, so you didn't feel the need to humor it.
Once you were done, you tried to find an end of a wire to start untangling the cables. You eventually found one, grasping the cable tightly in between your index and your thumb. As you began grabbing another cable to feed the one you were holding onto through. Scag let out a loud gasp in response - causing you to immediately drop the cables. You were hoping, praying you didn’t hurt her.
“Scag! Scag are you- is everything okay? Are you uhm- hurt or anything? Should I stop?”
“N…No no! No, I'm okay-core..”
“What was that?”
“Uh.. Urm. I don’t kn- don’t know.. m’ just not used to my chords- them being touchmaxxed I guess.”
…
“You can keepgoing-core.”
You paused a little awkwardly before nodding, (even though she wasn’t faced towards you) picking up where you left off. As you worked the knot in the cables, the harder you had to pull on their wires. Like the way you would a necklace, except untangling wires was way easier, since they’re made out of rubber and not chains.
You could start to hear scag gasping and muttering curses under her breath the harder you tugged on her wires.. It was going on for a while, but you only started really paying it mind recently.
You would be working on a section of the knot, and as you began pulling you would immediately be distracted by Scag’s little noises of what seemed like pleasure.
You were starting to think that she was.. definitely getting off on this - or something.
You suddenly got the idea to test your theory out. As you were undoing the knot, you were way gentler. Barely using any force. It was like you weren’t even trying anymore. You could hear Scag do a small sigh of relief as you stopped, and you kept at it for just a little while longer and then - PULL. You carelessly yanked on one of the wires, like you would a non-sentient tv.
“O-OH FL0P-!”
You dropped her cables again in shock, and the room immediately went silent. The only sound present was the whirr of Scag’s fans. Your god damn internal gears all stopped and you were suddenly filled with nervous excitement.
You slapped your hand over your mouth. You could feel the warm warm blush on your cheeks, and the butterflies dancing around in your stomach. They were hitting every sickass dance-move known to mankind. You could really feel them fluttering around. As if they were as blind as a dozen birds trying to fly through a building made of glass. BANG against one window and BOOM! CRASH! against another.
All you could think to yourself was “why, why, WHY would I do that? WHY DID I DO THAT?”
The two of you bathed in the awkward atmosphere. Reeaaally letting it soak in, deep beneath each other's skin. (in her case, her hardware.)
“..Scag?”
Scag let out a shaky sigh before talking. “I-I have-filled no idea-core why-core I’m reactmaxxing like this-esque.. I’ve never feltmaxxed- any of these sensations before-core.”
She was stammering. You’ve never heard her use so many suffixes in one sentence.
“I think.. that, you’re just. uhm. enjoying it, yeah?”
you think?
“..This is s0 frickin’ #e# embarr4ssingcore. KILLmaxx me now. J-#Just @&&bash in my mother drive.”
you know she was genuinely frustrated by this, but a part of you really wanted to see how she looked when she was embarrassed like this.
“It’s okay. I can stop if you want”
“NO! no.” she exclaimed
“You’re the only person who I want to work on me. I can’t afford having anyone else fix me, and seeing me like this. Please don’t stop.”
Wow! ok, your face wasn’t even remotely warm anymore, it was red hot. Your jaw was clenched, hard. You’re eyes wide. You have never heard her talk with such sincerity in your entire time being employed at the shoppy. And suddenly you were actually really glad that she was facing away from you so she didn’t have to see the profound look of awe on your face.
Your heart was pounding now, your toes light. Okay, you had a crush on her but you never thought that a thing like this would happen as quickly as it did.
You felt nervous, you didn’t want her to see you as some pervert after all of this, even though you totally are. Coming into the floppy shoppy everyday and feeling like she’s constantly judging your presence.
The anxiety you had also came with your own sick fantasies. Since, you were basically like- jerking her off or something. It wasn’t on purpose of course, at least in the beginning it wasn’t.
You sat with your feelings for a little and the situation actually felt sorta sweet. Her letting you see them in such a vulnerable state. The little robot was putting all of their trust into you, they are trusting you to take care of her - to fix her. She’s in the palm of your hands. Any wrong move and she could be toast. They’re accepting that fact.
You turned the little CRT to face you.
She was fighting eye contact with every fiber of her being.
Their screen was a mess. Pixelated sweat, blushing profusely, furrowed brows, and pursed lips. Their whole face was tense; cringing hard.
You leaned in and planted a kiss on the top of her screen.
“I promise I’ll fix you.”
She was shocked by the kiss, but her expression relaxed. She looked at you now, with a mix of hope, faith, and anticipation; the assurance making her feel less weird about the situation.
“Aha ha.. yea.. just don’t ever mention this again. Ever. I’ll hurt you.”
“I get it.”
You made sure she was ready for you to continue working before turning her around so her back panel was back facing you. You took a deep breath, trying not to imagine what’s to come after this.
Or how she’s going to feel about you after this.
Or whatever the hell is going on right now in general.
You were gentler this time. You knew no matter how you handled the knots she was still gonna feel all of it, you just didn’t want her to think you were into it.
As you untangled the knot, you kept wondering how it felt for Scag. Because you can’t compare how a robot perceives pleasure the same way a human would. No reproductive organs- or any to be fair. So, where would they be experiencing it? Her.. head? Well, you guess she didn’t have a head. Maybe all over? How does a robot even know what feels good and what feels bad? What if the way robots perceive pleasure is like.. how humans experience feelings of hunger.. or something really weird like that. The fact that you are also basically doing surgery on her while she’s wide awake ran through your mind. Creepy.
You were snapped out of your thoughts when you actually started paying more attention to Scag. She was being.. waaay louder than she was before. Maybe they were less shy?
“Pu-Pull h#harder-core. N0w..”
-What.. Wait, what? Did you hear that right?
you sat up straighter, surprised by the command
“-What?”
“..Pl;-ease.”
Okay, well. She definitely wasn’t shy anymore.
“I thought that-“
“JUS7 D##-DO IT!” her voice glitchy and desperate
“Uh! Yeah okay!”
Your eyes widened and your palms were suddenly sweaty. Well, sweatier.
She has never barked commands at you like this before, not even when you’re working a shift, but you’ve also never seen this side of her before. You’re learning a loooott about her. A part of you wanted her to yell orders at you more, like the dog you are.
You looked down at the knot you were holding and obeyed her request. With more force, you tugged on the entire knot you were holding, leading Scag to shriek a very loud, pixelated shriek that turned into a small whine.
“AGh! hmn..”
“..Was that okay?”
“Don’t.. don’t stop tuggin’ them..”
You grabbed one wire and began slowly but firmly caressing it with your fingers, dragging it towards you.
You could hear Scag getting worked up as hell from it. Her fans were even louder, and they were whining like crazy.
You kept going, you traced a wire to where it connected and squeezed it at the very end, lightly digging your nail into the chord.
“PleASE-zzt ST#op teaz5maxxing me. I’m going to g$ go crazy-“
You grabbed the wire tightly, and pulled as hard as you could pull while making sure it wouldn’t break off of her.
“HmmMH!!- EmpLOyee!!-“
Scag suddenly powered off. Fans stopping.
Oh god oh god. You could feel your heart drop down to your stomach as every good thought you were having before quickly shot out from your mind. You were worried to the point of wanting to cry now.
You quickly turned her around and checked her screen.
[SYSTEM OVERHEATED] it read.
You relaxed, letting out the breath you didn’t know you were holding in. REALLY glad you weren’t the reason she’s in android heaven. Though that would be an awesome way to go
Turning her back around, you peacefully began to finish the untangling of Scag’s jumbled wires. It went by quickly since you didn’t have to stop and ask her if she was okay time and time again.
Once you finished up, you screwed her panel back on and put the tools back in their respective areas in the drawer and turned Scags screen back to face you. It still reads in that bold yellow text [SYSTEM OVERHEATED]. You guessed you’d just have to wait it out so you picked up your laptop and wasted time.
“DAMN gurl. Holyfilled smokemaxxer.”
You jumped at the sound of Scag's voice like someone waiting for their toast to pop out of the toaster.
“Hi Scag.. Are you okay?”
“More than okay! I feel rejuvenated as HELL.”
You suddenly started to tear up a little. Hugging the robot and sobbing.
“WhoaWhoaWhoa-core! What’s got you blue?”
You sniffled through your words “I w-.. I was just scared that I k-killed you..”
“It’s- hey it’s okay. I’m doing even better because of you.”
She talked softly like she did this morning, it made your heart flutter again. She was making sure to comfort you, wanting you to be okay.
The two of you sat there, enjoying each other’s company in the quiet.
Then, a very important thing crossed your mind.
While you and Scag were in the back of the shoppy, nobody was watching the front.
“..Nobody was watching the cash register.”
“Oh my god.”
You dashed out of the lounge with scag in arms and peeked out from the hallway to see a line of people standing in front of the register.
Scag sighed, “Fuuuuuuuuuucckkkkkkkkkkkkk”