Chapter Text
"So why does Gabe get to spend the entire day at the Pizza Plex while I have to go to school?"
"Lisa I've already told you why like four times." You flip your blinker on, pulling onto her elementary school's road.
"I forgot."
She didn't. You know she didn't.
You sigh, "Because he's not old enough for school and after what happened with the last babysitter," You send a glare to the backseat through your rearview mirror, "I just decided using the free service I get through my job would be much better than trying to find someone you haven't terrorized. That’s reasonably priced," You mutter the last part.
Your younger sister doesn't say anything for a minute, and you think you've finally ended this argument. For the third time this week.
"That's BS."
"Lisa!" You turn around in the seat, briefly, as you're pulling into the school drop-off line, "That is not appropriate language for an eight year old girl. Who taught you that?"
She shrugs, "Dunno."
You narrowed your eyes at her, "Lisa I swear if you're hanging out with Gregory again-"
"He needs me Y/N!" She falls back into the seat dramatically, "No one wants to be friends with him and everyone else at this place is so boring. Besides," The glint in her eyes is wicked, "The office officially made me the second-grade ambassador."
"Curse Mrs. Isley and her quest for goodness in all children," You swear under your breath. You straighten up, sighing, "Congratulations are in order then, Melissa Elise."
She scrunches her nose, "Ew. That's gross."
"It's your name, dummy." You take a sip of your coffee, pleasantly surprised you didn't mix Lisa's vitamin boost in this time.
"Why do you get to name call!" She screeches and Gabriel shrieks as well, out of joy however. You don't know why he did that. Maybe you should tell his doctor about it.
"As the oldest it's my job to make you miserable. And like love you I guess," You grin, booping her nose and she can't stop herself from giggling.
You turn back around once more as you finally make it to the front of the line, unlocking the doors, "Tell you what, to celebrate I'll let you pick a couple friends-not just Gregory-and you can have a small party at the Plex to celebrate your oh-so wonderful accomplishments. That fair?"
"Lemme think about it and I’ll get back to you on that," She says, trying to get her seat belt off.
"Need help?" You ask.
She shakes her head, "No! I got it this time."
But as you wait another twenty seconds you know she doesn't. Quickly, you hop out of the car and open her door, getting the buckle off no problem.
Lisa crosses her arms, "I said I got it."
You pick her lunch box off of the floor board, handing it to her as she steps out, "We all need a little help sometimes, there's no shame in that."
"Mhm," She starts to walk off.
"Melissa Elise," Your tone is stern, but not scolding.
"What," She groans, turning around.
"Say goodbye to your brother," You nod to in the car where Gabriel is happily devouring his newest teething ring.
She sighs, shoulders slumping, but waving, "Bye, Gabe."
You smile, shutting the door and hugging her goodbye. Waving at the parents behind you an apology you start to get back into your car.
"Miss L/N! If you could just wait a moment!"
Fuck. The woman of the hour.
You smile apologetically at Mrs. Isley, who's walking over to your quickly, "Sorry Mrs. Isley, I've been holding up the line too long."
"Oh don't worry about them, I came prepared," Out of nowhere she whips out a bright orange traffic cone, placing it on the driver side of your car and waves the cars behind you to go around. If you didn't know any better you'd say she pulled it out from the long, school supply themed skirt she was wearing. But you did know better. You think.
You exhale, putting on another smile, "How can I help you?"
"Well you can start by telling me how you are," She puts a hand on your shoulder, cheerful demeanor falling if only for a moment, "You missed parent-teacher night last week. Thankfully Lisa is such an outstanding student that I had nothing bad to report, but I have so much good to say."
"I know, I apologize. One of my teammates lost a file and I had to go searching through thirty different folders so we could meet our deadline on time." You get a headache just thinking about it. Fucking Tyler.
"Honey you're stressing yourself out. I hate to see a bright student such as you be beat down by the world in such a way.” She hesitates, “Are you, seeing someone?"
Aubrey Isley wasn't old enough to be your own elementary teacher, but she had been the teaching assistant for your sixth-grade class. You had liked her more than your own teacher that year. It had been nice to have some other adult to rely on while your parents were going through their divorce. As fate would have it, she wound up at your sister's school 12 years later, freshly married and full of energy to teach second and third graders. You admired the drive she had, because you certainly didn't.
"I-" You stop, you didn't want to directly say that you couldn't afford the time or money for a therapist, "It's fine. Really, taking care of the other two has kept me busy enough that I haven't had time to think about it."
"That's only going to get you so far, Y/N. You deserve to grieve. You need to." Man, stares like that shouldn't be able to work on adults.
You have to break eye contact so you don't shrink in on yourself, "I know, I know. I'm not trying to avoid it it's just, now's not the time. When things get settled, I can let it all out in one go."
Your joke must have landed, as she gives a slight chuckle, "Now that is something we definitely don't encourage in the second grade."
"I didn't figure. But I promise, I'm okay.” You nod, mainly to yourself, “I'll be okay."
She hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head, "If you say so, I'll trust it."
You break away, getting back into your car, "Thank you, now I hate to cut and run but I've got twenty minutes before my shift starts."
"Oh shoot! Sorry about that." She backs off, picking up the cone beside your car.
"No worries, oh before I forget, is it too late to pay the fee for the Outdoor Adventurers club?" You ask.
Another scowl, "Don't fret about that, if Lisa wants to join we're more than happy to have her. I'll send the meeting information home with her this week and add you to the email list."
You wave her off, "I'll send it with her lunch money tomorrow. Thank you, Mrs. Isley!" You pull out before she can protest, narrowly missing getting hit by the car that was going to pull around you.
You cringe as they lay on their horn, though after glancing back and seeing it was Katie Chase's mom you grin. You'd call it even after she rear-ended you at a red light and got off because her husband's a deputy.
The drive to work is busy but not terrible. It was only just turning 8 o'clock, your shift didn't technically start until 8:45. However anytime you could make it in early your supervisor was flexible enough to let you get off that much earlier so you could pick your sister up on time. It was a small fib to her teacher, but necessary so you didn't get any more pity-filled gazes in your direction from the other teachers on drop-off duty.
Pretty much everyone knew about your situation. It was obvious given that your parents, the two most supportive people around of their youngest daughter-went to every ball game with big signs and face paint, biggest donators to fundraisers, champions of the PTA-went radio silent all of the sudden last spring, there was concern. It's not like you could hide it, especially when you were switched to Lisa's guardian over them.
The support was great, you weren't ungrateful. It's just you have 3 months’ worth of casseroles in the freezer and enough sad looks and apologies to last you a decade. You thought summer break would have caused it to ease up a bit, but if anything it just reminded everyone when you didn't have time to host your parents yearly back to school cookout. Like you'd told Aubrey, if you could just get through this next month or two, it would be fine.
Pulling into the Pizza Plex you make your way to staff parking and pull into your usual spot. Not too far from the main entrance, far enough to avoid the typical traffic, and out of sight of David from accounting. That guy was a creep and was part of the main reason you were tired of people feeling sorry for you. The amount of times he'd tried to argue you needed 'someone to take care of you' because of your 'fragile state' over the past however many months made you feel you could get him in trouble for harassment. But with your big project coming to a head soon you didn't want to push your luck.
You glance back at Gabriel in the baby mirror, "You ready for your day, Gabe?"
You get a round of babble in response, he's still very much focused on the toy in his hands, covered in spit at this point.
You wrinkle your nose, "Oh, and I forgot your other carrier today didn't I?" Well, guess that meant you were getting who knows what all over the front of your shirt. Good thing it wasn't new.
You get out and open his door, grabbing the body carrier and putting it on. You situate your brother in it, after deciding you'd deal with the front of your shirt getting gross over the back. At least then you could see people judge you for it. Making sure you have his bag and your own, you lock your car and head inside.
It was a cloudy day. Humid, but not terrible. You were surprised that the place was still even active as it was for the middle of the week in September. At 8:15 am. Your only guess is that some kids were still on summer break or started the day later than your sister did. Lots of schools also rented the place out because it was great for school trips that required minimal effort.
You flash your I.D. to the employee at the till, who waves you on without glancing up from the new I-pad system they were using to check guests in. You maneuver your way through the lobby to your least favorite part of the entire place; Superstar Daycare. That was saying something too, considering you work in the basement and never saw the light of day.
You weren't lying to Lisa earlier; this was quite literally your last resort. You'd run out of babysitters who tolerated your little sister, and the remaining reasonably priced ones-aka, teenagers-weren't available during school hours. A nanny was out of the question and so you had no choice but to put your brother in the hands of an animatronic. Yay.
Let's be honest, you didn't trust Fazbear Entertainment for shit. Even though you work for them. You didn't trust their animatronics either. Even if you were part of the team that built them. Everyone knew about the bite of '87. The disappearing kids. Sure, it had been 25 odd years ago, but you remembered. You had no choice.
You'd feel more comfortable if you could just find out who were the ones behind the AI, given you were a part of the parts & infrastructure team. It was the weirdest thing; the people you thought you should be working the closet with weren't located on site. They weren't even located out of Fazbear Entertainment headquarters from what you knew. Every time you'd tried to contact upper management or the team directly about questions relating to their work you got ominous replies or just total radio silence.
You're thankful for the fact that the daytime security guard for the Daycare is someone you know, so you feel less apprehensive about leaving your five-month-old brother in the hands of a robot. She perks up when you walk in, looking up from her phone. You give a quick wave, starting to get Gabriel out of the carrier on your chest.
"Hey Bri," You say, standing by the desk so you can get yourself in order.
"Morning Y/N. Another battle with Lisa?" She takes your brother from your arms so you can get the carrier off and put in his diaper bag. She coos and talks to him as he giggles at the faces she makes.
"Why do you not sound surprised?" You laugh, double checking everything is where it should be before standing with the bag.
She shakes her head, chuckling, "I've seen that girl run around the Plex, I know a nightmare in the making when it hits me full force in the thigh."
You wince, "I'm still sorry about that."
"What for? We wouldn't have gotten to know each other otherwise." Gabriel is set to 'stand' on the desk, bouncing as your friend holds him in place, "Look how strong you are Gabe! You're gonna be a crawling machine before you know it."
"Oh please don't wish that into existence," You watch your brother, nodding, "But true. That's very true. Ironically that nightmare just became 'second-grade ambassador'. So now I need to pull a double shift so I can make sure a visit for at least five kids is covered by this Friday."
Bri stops entertaining Gabriel to scold you, "Why would you make a promise like that when you know the time isn't right?"
She meant to say 'Why would you do that when you're broke as shit and struggling to make ends meet' but that's considered a rude thing to do in most social settings.
You shrug, "Because I love her and she deserves nice things for her hard work?"
You take your brother back as she clicks her tongue, "I hope that stupid attorney of yours can find a solution in your parents' Will and get this sorted out. It's awful that a 23-year-old and their two younger siblings are forced to live like you are."
For context, your parents aren't necessarily your parents. Your mom is your birth mother, but Rick was your stepdad, Gabriel and Lisa being your half siblings. When they made their will, it was under the assumption that Lisa and Gabriel both would be adults by the time it would be enacted, and so the locks behind which your inheritance and theirs resided were incredibly complicated. It was meant to be a deterrent for your biological dad or Rick's family-who did not approve of you and your mother-should either outlive your parents, but it ended up making things much worse.
While the attorney worked to sort things out and find some sort of legal loophole for you three to live off of comfortably-you had to pay him for this, mind you-your family was stuck living off your paycheck and savings. Which after the cost of a double funeral, was significantly less than you were happy with. So far, the only thing that was for certain is that you got to keep the house. Which thank God, has been paid off years ago. If you had to worry about paying rent or a mortgage on top of everything else you didn't know how things would be going.
"Life doesn't always go as planned, we just have to make the most of it," You pull another face at Gabriel before giving him one final kiss, "I finally found a formula he likes, please make sure the Daycare Attendant does not try to give him the creamsicle flavored FizzyFaz baby formula. Again. Poor kid was pooping orange for a week."
Bri crosses her arms, "You realize you can just tell him yourself and he has to listen right? It's part of his programming to follow guest requests."
You look away, focusing on the large wet patch that's gotten worse across your chest, you hope you have a spare sweatshirt here, "I know, but, you know why I don't."
"Y/N..." She pinches the bridge of her nose.
"It's weird Bri!" You half whisper, in case it, is around, "It's weird to talk to something that I'm literally in the basement making CAD models of and whacking said models around like they're made of silly putty."
She scoffs, "That thing has been here much longer than you have. And besides those videos are the highlight of my day so you can't stop."
"I know, I know. It's just the idea of it freaks me out. Besides, I'm the one working on the new design updates they want to make. So I'm working on the newer version of, him." It felt weird to give the daycare attendant pronouns. It felt way too, human. Especially since again, you were the one that was building models for his-its latest slated upgrades. Which were a lot, mind you. All besides the AI that is. Apparently, it was advanced enough to learn on its own without the interference of being fed outside data. How that was even possible you didn't know at all.
"I hope you're right that they'll be giving you a promotion after this." Bri says.
"That's what they told me," You shrug again.
"But did you get it in writing?" You don't appreciate her tone. You may have been, flustered, dealing with school starting and bad lawyers and dead parents and traumatized babysitters, but you were fine! Finals week of senior year had totally been just as bad. You got through that with much less resources than you had now.
"Actually, I did. After the fact, but it still counts!" You show her the email from upper management, which was cc'ed with your boss as verification that after this latest project you'd move from junior to senior engineer. Might not sound like much, but the pay jump was massive and it would certainly beat spending most of your time organizing excel sheets and making powerpoints like you were still an intern.
Bri puts a hand on her chest, "Oh she's learning, I'm so proud."
You saw the time of the top of your phone, "Shit! I'm going to be late if I don't leave now." You scramble one last time to make sure everything was in order, give Gabe one final, final forehead kiss and hand him back to Bri.
Another look, everybody was just on your ass today huh? "You're really not going to stay and watch me hand him to the one that's actually going to take care of him?"
"Couldn't look him in the eyes if I tried Bri. Thank you, love you Gabe, bye!" You're opening the door just as you hear something land behind you beside Bri. Shooting a quick look back you see the tall sun-styled animatronic start fawning over your little brother.
For a split second it looks up at you and you can't tell what it's thinking. Not because you couldn't read his face, but because you quite literally, couldn't read his face. Right now, its face plate was just a painted on half-sun, half-moon. Decently done, but had to be repainted every two weeks or so because of how ruined it got with the kids. So, as a way to save money, the company ironically had to make the robot better by giving it an actual, somewhat functioning face like the other animatronics. That was your job.
You wanted to find a way to not only make it look as good as, if not the exact same as the stylized paint, but also make a visible difference between the 'daytime' and 'nighttime' personalities when they did switch. The company went through the effort of putting two AI into one bot, they should at least utilize it properly. If not, you were going to make them. For now though, it was getting the face and the other basic adjustments done so you could move to those possible steps if time-and your new position-allowed.
The door shuts, and the stare is broken. You shiver, at least he seems to like your brother. If the machine rebellion happened in your lifetime he'd be safe. Maybe.
You head for the staff elevator that would take you down to the engineering division. You had about ten minutes to spare which meant you'd have to make lunch shorter if you want to make sure you got Lisa on time. Not the worst thing in the world, besides it might make your day go by that much quicker. Just as the door is about to shut someone sticks their arm in. You groan internally when you see who.
"Hi, Y/N," David grins.
You nod, "David."
"Going up?" He presses the button for the fourth floor, seeing very clearly that the lower level button is lit up.
"Is that meant to be a joke?" You take another sip of your coffee and jolt, feeling the grittiness of undissolved vitamin mix against your tongue. Damn, you thought you had it this time.
He leans down in front of you, basically caging you against the back wall with an arm above your head. Barely, you might add, either you were tall or he had short-man syndrome, maybe both, "You look tired, another rough night with the kids eh?" God if you could spam that button you would, "As always, if you ever need any help, or perhaps some, company, I'm happy to assist."
Finally the doors open for your floor, you walk right under his arm, "Hard pass, David."
"One of these days, L/N! One of these days," Is what's called after you.
You stalk off down the hall, heading for your team's offices, "God, if you're listening, send me strength to not punch that man in the jaw."
Maybe you'd get lucky and today wouldn't be as bad as yesterday. All you can do is try.