Chapter Text
“I better be getting paid overtime for this bullshit.”
“(Y/N), you can’t swear,” Kathy hissed, giving you a gentle nudge. You could see the floor staff manager casting dark glares in your direction. You had no idea why he didn’t like you, perhaps it was your sour attitude every time you had to step foot into this shit hole. Or maybe he was in a foul mood, either way, you couldn’t care less. You didn’t usually have to interact with him.
“Or what? They gonna fire me?” you retorted, reaching your hand around Bonnie’s kneecap and releasing the suit lock. The suit around his leg sprung open, revealing the endoskeleton underneath, “Get someone else willing to risk losing a hand to these things? I’d like to see them try find someone.”
“Bonny’s not that bad, right? You’re not about to scar these kids?” she asked in a low whisper. The place wasn’t even that busy today, not after that kid went missing from the diner a few days ago. Fazbear Entertainment denied there was even a kid to begin with and the property was searched top to bottom. Nothing was found. Suspicions were high, it wasn’t the first time a child had disappeared from the premises. Even without the missing kids you didn’t think you’d want to dine here anyway, the whole place was a health hazard.
“I see, all you care about is the poor corporate entity,” your voice dripped with sarcasm.
“I’d like to keep my job, thanks. If the pizzeria shuts down how the he- how am I supposed to afford rent? It’s okay for you, you’ve got other locations,” she muttered, folding her arms across her chest.
“And in this scenario, no hand,” you hummed, shining a small torch across Bonnie’s endoskeleton until you came across the fault that was causing his leg to lock up. Normally you would have walked him backstage but without him being able to move of his own accord taking him there was too much of an ordeal.
You heard the food bell ding in the distance and Kathy gave you a sympathetic smile before hurrying off to serve up the food. There weren’t many staff in, you knew the company liked cutting corners. Today it only seemed to be Kathy, the floor manager and whoever was in the kitchen. You supposed there was probably a security guard as well.
Turning back to the job at hand you reached into Bonnie’s leg and grabbed the spring that had come loose. It took a bit of effort but you managed to get it pulled back into place before closing up the suit again. You stood and reached up, pressing the button at the back of Bonnie’s head, freeing him from maintenance mode. There was a worrying fizzle. You didn’t quite know what the source was until Bonnie started strumming his guitar. The noise was not what you would consider pleasant, scraping at your eardrums like nails on a chalkboard.
“Oh buddy, you are not sounding good,” you sighed, flipping him back into maintenance mode. Theoretically you could now walk him into the spare parts room for maintenance, but the company was all about cutting corners, it would be faster to fix him up here.
“What’s wrong with it now?” Kathy asked, approaching cautiously. She jumped when you opened the face and then the chest soon after. She wasn’t the only one upset, a child nearby started wailing.
“Music box short circuited, I think.” You reached into his chest to pull the music box out, it doubled over as his voice box and you were glad he hadn’t tried to start singing. That would have been much more traumatising for everyone.
“Do you think you could hurry it up?” she asked, nervously glancing back at the family of the sobbing child and offering a small and sympathetic smile, “Don’t worry. Bonnie is being looked after by our doctor.”
“Wouldn’t it be a vet?” you questioned, shutting back up his chest and face, making sure they closed with a satisfying click. Bonnie really needed a whole set of new parts but you doubted he would be getting any of that unless he completely stopped functioning.
“Don’t worry, bud, I’ll have you fixed up soon,” you gave him an encouraging knock on the chest.
“You know that’s weird, right? That you talk to it?” Kathy didn’t seem to particularly like the animatronics. They were quite menacing looking, if you hadn’t gotten so used to sticking your hand in robot chest cavities you would probably be wary of them too.
“Men talk to their cars like that, what harm’s it gonna do? Makes me feel like I’m not trying to fix a money making machine of a corporation who pays me minimum wage,” you shrugged, “I’ll need to go grab a new voicebox. Got any spares.”
“I’m sure we do. Dave’ll have the key. Foxy’s out back too. It’s been acting weird so we left it out there. If you wanna take a look at that one too… Just for me and definitely not for the corporation who pays minimum wage” she suggested, smiling sheepishly at you.
Foxy was always a bit of a temperamental one, especially when it came to repairs so that didn’t surprise you in the least, “Sure, may as well now that I’m here. I’d probably have to come back out anyway.”
“You’re the best, Foxy’s a tip maker so it’ll really help me out,” she grinned happily as you waved her off, heading towards the security room. You did happen to notice a foul smell as you passed Chica. You didn’t point it out. No doubt some kid had tried to stuff pizza down her beak again and it was just sitting in there rotting. Part of you perhaps felt bad but she was just a robot and you sure as hell weren’t touching any nasty, mushy, half eaten rot.
Considering two kids had gone missing and one had been found dead near the establishment, you would think the security would be on high alert. It didn’t seem that way. The security guard sat in front of the cameras wholly uninterested, legs crossed and a newspaper in his hands. You weren’t sure if you recognised him. He was older than you but mostly unremarkable looking, you probably had met him a few times and didn’t remember his face.
“Hey, Dave was it?” you knocked the open door gently, standing in the frame with the voicebox in hand. A soft sigh escaped his lips, god forbid you ask him to do his job. He slowly set the news paper down and turned to face you. Now you knew for sure you didn’t recognise him. His eyes were sunken, he didn’t look like he had slept in days. But that wasn’t the part of his eyes that threw you off guard. They were a pale grey, almost a silver colour. His gaze was so cold that you felt like you had been frozen, a lump forming in your throat.
“Oh. It’s you,” he didn’t sound particularly surprised to see you, nor disappointed. His tone was strangely level but his gaze was intense.
“Yeah. Uh. Me?” you could struggled for words. Something about this man was giving you the creeps. He wasn’t particularly off putting but something definitely felt wrong.
“The maintenance girl,” he stated rather matter of factly before opening a drawer nearby and dipping his hand in, “Suppose you want these?”
Maybe you were just making things up, but maybe his tone had shifted, to something that made you even less comfortable. He held the keys out in front of him, making it so you had to reach around him. You didn’t even make contact with him, but the distance seemed far too close for you to be comfortable. You didn’t question it, just took the keys with a quiet ‘thanks’ before hurrying to the spare parts room.
Part of you wanted to lock yourself inside. That seemed a little excessive. But you did close the door behind you. The music box you had in your hand was tossed in the broken items bin. These were supposedly fixed and made reusable again but you’d never been told to do it and you doubted anyone else ended up fixing them.
You hadn’t quite noticed the stench at first but something was definitely wafting down from the other end of the room. You pulled a spare music box from the box it was kept in, placing it on the shelf before turning your eyes to foxy. He sat motionless in the corner of the room.
“I may as well,” you reminded yourself, “Means I don’t have to go back out there sooner.”
You approached foxy. Nothing seemed to be visibly wrong from the outside, it was hard to see in the light of the spare parts room anyway. They should really get that bulb fixed, the constant flickering made it hard for you to really focus on anything. It’s how he’d ended up chomping down on your hand last time. Thankfully he had only left a scar.
“I’m telling you, Foxy,” you muttered as you fumbled on your keychain for your flashlight, “Something weird about that security man. He’s just… grody.”
Foxy, unsurprisingly, did not reply. You noticed the stench only got worse as you approached. It was possibly one of the worst things you’d ever smelt. No wonder he had been acting up, there was probably some rotten food in there damaging his parts. It must have been in there for weeks because the smell almost made you retch.
Your approach was slow, and for good reason. His eyes lit up when you got near. His jaw snapped open and shut suddenly. That part was normal. What certainly wasn’t normal was when his head turned, facing you directly. Even his eyes were focused on you. A frown spread across your face. You could always clock it up to coincidence that he seemed to be looking directly at you, but it still seemed strange. Maybe some new software that you hadn’t been told about.
“Alright, lemme get a look at you to see if I can’t fix you,” you reached out, noticing the jaw mechanism whirring on time just before his mouth started snapping again.
“No one likes the doctor, huh?” you muttered, moving to his side. His head followed but wasn’t able to rotate the whole way. From here you were able to put him in maintenance mode. You could almost feel the stench escaping from him and sticking to your skin. For safety’s sake you removed his head, gently placing it on the floor beside you. Then moved to click open his chest cavity.
There was a slight delay when you pressed the button, stepping back to allow it to open. For a second you thought the mechanism might have malfunctioned. Soon after it flung open, the smell assaulting your nostrils. Your brain didn’t even have time to process what you saw before you flung yourself backwards, breath catching in your throat as bile started to rise.
A small body was crushed into the chest cavity, mangled beyond recognition. Their legs and arms were twisted in ways that didn’t seem possible, joints were dislocated and limbs tangled together. Bones jutted out, piercing through skin along with parts of endoskeleton that seemed to have moulded themself to the decaying flesh. What was visible of their face was contorted into fear. Their eyes bulged in their sockets. You could see maggots crawling across the body, burrowing into flesh and writing in and out of any orifice.
“Grody, huh?”
You hadn’t noticed the door opening and closing. But you turned your attention to the voice, seeing the security guard locking the door behind him, a twisted grin on his face. You couldn’t even form words, breathes coming out frantically and heart pounding in your chest.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” his voice feigned sympathy, “But I knew you’d do it. I’ve watched you on the cameras before. You’re so… meticulous with your work that I just knew you wouldn’t be able to leave him be.”
“Dave… y-you…”
“It’s William actually,” he sighed, “And yes. That is my handiwork.”
His eyes glinted when he spoke of what he had done. They kept the same cold intensity but you could see the sadistic enjoyment behind them.
You opened your mouth again. You weren’t sure if it was to make an attempt to scream or plead with him. That you would just walk away and pretend this never happened. But of course, he wasn’t going to let you do that. He crossed the room in a matter of strides. He may have been thin but he had the height, towering over you. He was on you in seconds, hands cutting off your air supply. You struggled to move, pinned beneath his weight. All you could do was kick and scratch at his hands.
“I do have to thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to get it into maintenance mode and it really doesn’t seem to like me. You’ve made this so much easier.” His grip tightened, enough to keep you quiet but you could tell he was prolonging this, dragging it out for longer than was necessary all while getting some sick enjoyment out of it.
His hands were wet with his own blood now as you dug your nails into his flesh, praying that with enough damage he would relent. He didn’t even seem to notice the pain, grinning almost maniacally as he watched you struggle to draw in breaths, the only sound able to escape your lips being weak wheezes.
Your lungs burned. You were really going to die like this. The last thing you would see would be those cold eyes, boring into your soul. It had gotten to the point where you didn’t have the energy to kick anymore, your hands only able to weakly grip at his arms now. Your head was pounding and you couldn’t even think straight.
The lights flickered as your vision blurred.
They should really get that fixed.
You probably would never end up getting that overtime after all.