Chapter Text
Fire! FIRE! Ow, it’s hot! Ow, ow, ow! Get out! GET OUT! It’s already too late! It’s too hot to even function! Going dark, darker!
“Shame what happened to that place,” Kurt says, handing her coffee over while she sits cross-legged on the floor, tightening a bolt to what appears to be a metal arm.
“Mhm, yeah,” Phoebe replies hastily, taking her caffeine and quickly handing it back, too engrossed in the task at hand to really acknowledge him. He sighs, staring down at her for just a moment. Her hair is tied back with a red ribbon, and it seems she took the time to touch up her dye job recently, not letting go of her signature blonde and blue split, and certainly not letting it be ruined by any unsightly dark brown roots. Even if she’s a coffee-addicted freak who hardly sleeps, she still cares about her appearance.
“Were you ever a Fazbear kid?” he asks, trying to pry her away from this.
“Most students in my program were, nostalgia and all that.” She shrugs. “I couldn’t get into it, those bots gave me the creeps. They stunk too.” She finally sits upright and stretches. “Besides, I want my bots to be useful . Not just little playthings that sing stupid songs.”
“I’d say keeping kids from screaming their heads off is useful.” He chuckles. “Those new characters in the Plex, they were pretty slick. Artificial intelligence, hell, maybe even their own kind of sentience, all sorts of marvels.” That got her attention. She looks up to him, feverishly, her brown eyes alone demanding to know more. “Yeah, they had all sorts of neat stuff packed in them. It’s a shame they all burned.”
“It would be so cool to get one of them up and running again,” she mumbles, taking her hair down.
“You’re a talented student and all, but I think that would be over even your head,” he replies, praying to whatever power above that him discouraging her would work and he won’t someday come home to a glamrock robot standing in the kitchen.
“Whatever. It’s late. I’m going to bed.”
“It’s… two PM.”
She smiles, telling him all he needs to know. He wants to tell her that she really needs to stop doing this to herself and get some real rest, but he knows well enough she won’t listen and will keep staying up until she beats even the sun. She claims it's because it’s quiet and she can work undisrupted, and he believes it, but in reality, she only likes to watch the stars.
She puts her robot arm on the coffee table and takes her cup, heading to her bedroom. Behind closed doors, she opens her laptop, searching hastily for any information she can on the Pizzaplex and how it was burned to a crisp. One photo shows a blue, metal dumpster meant for temporary cleanups filled with parts and she can feel her heart skip a beat. She knows Kurt is right, and she could never fully repair the bots back to their former glory, but if she could get her hands on some of that tech she’d be over the moon.