Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The man in the bunny suit hit a child in the back of the head with a lead pipe.

He pulled off the head of the Spring Bonnie costume he'd taken with him when he first left and turned to the 17 year old girl standing next to him, who looked as though she was about to vomit.

"There we go! That should make your first kill much easier. I figured you would hesitate and there's far more room for error when the victim is unconscious," William said with a satisfied grin as he turned towards the girl.

The two of them had gone all the way out to Hurricane, to an old, closed down location called 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria'. Every night there were kids who came to explore the pizzeria.

The reason it closed was due to the fact that the previous owner, Henry Emily, could no longer manage two locations and preferred to keep Fredbear's Family Diner open instead, even if it was less profitable. The reason the pizzeria was often occupied by kids, however, was due to rumors it was haunted by the vengeful spirit of William Afton, Henry's business partner who disappeared two years ago.

They weren't entirely wrong, William could easily be said to haunt the place when he was feeling particularly bitter about being cast out of the company by his previous friend, but he wasn't dead. He simply killed the children he saw and stuffed them into the animatronics.

Tonight, he decided to bring his adopted daughter Vanessa to help. Teach her the family business, in the event that he could never get those he considered his real children back on his side. For now, he figures Vanessa would do.

"Come on now, we don't have all day," he said impatiently as he double checked she has brought the knife he'd given her. "Wouldn't want to be caught, would we?"

Nessa shook her head slowly and examined the knife in her hand. "I don't think this is right."

"Interesting opinion. Note that I did not ask for it. Are you going to kill it or not?" William asked with a sigh as he nodded his head towards the unconscious child.

"That's a child. Not an 'it'," Nessa said, though her voice sounded more distant, as though she was disassociating.

"I would highly suggest not arguing with me anymore." William regained a wide grin, not that it was real.

"I'm not... I don't want to be a murderer. I can't be a murderer."

"Disagree!" William said as he pulled out a small remote that Nessa had come to recognize. "This is your last chance, Vanessa."

"W-wait, why do you even want me to do this in the first place?"

"Too many questions!" William replied, almost with a tinge of glee in his voice as he pressed a button.

Nessa instinctually winced and placed her left hand on her right arm. She would have thought she would've gotten used to the controlled shocks from the chip William injected into her arm nearly a year ago. They didn't hurt as much as they used to, but she wasn't as numb as she wished she was either.

"Are you ready to stop being a fool now?"

Nessa didn't say a word as the knife in her hand took the life of the child in front of her. How old were they? 12? 13? She didn't know. She didn't want to know as William showed her how to put the body in an animatronic suit. She forced herself to disassociate. She used to wonder if she had any empathy, now she cursed what empathy she had as a weakness, a danger.

William hummed as he finished his gruesome work. "I'd say well done, but quite frankly I'm disappointed in your performance," he began as he stood. "Nonetheless, I can't say I expected too much from your first time. In fact, I have a gift for you." He opened up the duffel bag he'd brought with him, the one the knife and lead pile had been in. He pulled out a gray rabbit mask with red eyes and brown patches. "Congratulations, Vanny."

Nessa took the mask carefully and studied it with a blank expression.

"You wouldn't want to get caught if you're ever in a place with security cameras, now would you?"

Nessa opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by a shrill beeping that got louder and louder—

Nessa woke up a slammed off her alarm clock. She was tired. Tired of reliving the same memory every night. Tired of having each detail imprinted on her brain. Tired of the way she had forced herself to disassociate every time she thought of it until she no had to put in a conscious effort. Tired of all the guilt and seeing all the faces of all those she killed. Just plain tired from never having a good nights sleep.

Couldn't even bear to be called Vanessa and told everyone her name was simply Nessa because her real name reminded her of the Vanny moniker. Hmph. Pathetic.

It occurred to her that she shouldn't waste time wallowing in pity, her work for the new company started today and being late would make a horrible first impression.

Nessa glanced at the new uniform she had gotten a few days ago. Of all the colors in the world, of course it was purple. Just another thing that was permanently ruined for her. Childhood dreams of owning a bunny and dying her hair purple be damned.

Speaking of childhood, she thought about the Afton kids. The real Afton kids. Sure, by law she technically, and unfortunately, had the last name of Afton, but that didn't mean she was an Afton. Could they be counted as her siblings? Should she try to talk to them again?

Nessa scoffed. Not likely. She'd made a terrible impression by turning them over to their father and then sort of losing it and stabbing their father. Besides, it'd been two years and it would just be awkward at this point.

"Focus. New job, it could be fun," she muttered to herself as she took a deep breath.

Chapter Text

Nessa walked up to the reception desk with a fake smile plastered onto her face. "Good mornin'—"

"You must be the other new employee!" the receptionist said with a large smile on her face. "My name is Susan, obviously I'm the receptionist."

Nessa merely nodded. Susan was far too energetic and upbeat in her opinion, but nothing to be done about that.

"So, what's your name then? System glitched and now I'm having to re-enter everyone's name. Such a hassle."

"I go by Ness—"

"Great! Ness it is." Susan had already typed it into the computer at her desk before Nessa had a chance to even consider telling her of the extra vowel she usually had at the end of her name. No big deal anyway. "So then, Ness, it turns out we need an additional developer on the team, and we've had to move back beta testing. According to your profile you have some experience with computers?"

Nessa shrugged. "It's more of a hobby. I learned quite a bit back when I was a teenager."

"Perfect! Your office is right down that hall and there should be instructions to get started. Beta testing will begin next week. We do need you to sign this contract though."

Nessa scanned the pages of it, seemed like a pretty standard contract. She signed it.

Susan grinned even wider. "You'll be working under Dave. Hope you enjoy your first day, I believe you'll be scanning in some of the hardware the client sent us."

"Client? Who is the client anyway?"

"Oh, you didn't already know? I'm surprised no one told you anything given your background. It's quite the interesting task that our client gave us—"

Susan's rambling tangent was cut off by the red telephone on her desk ringing. Her large grin dropped slightly, and she twitched back even more subtly as she frowned at the phone. "Ah, apologies. Ignore that. It's an old phone from some closed down building the company got cheap."

The phone ringing seemed to grow louder, but that would be impossible. Nessa gave it an odd look; it seemed vaguely familiar. "Shouldn't you answer it?"

"Nah. It's haunted," Susan replied casually.

"Haunted?" Nessa repeated.

"Mhm. Some poltergeist or something has been in there since before we got it. It will ring at random times and the oddest messages come in. Some say it's simply a prank caller but mark my words that this thing can hear us even when we're not using the phone. Not to mention the same voice that calls at the oddest of times can also sometimes be heard while on calls with other people."

"Uh-huh," Nessa said dubiously. This woman was clearly a nut case. Hearing voices and making conspiracy theories at the oddest of coincidences. "Anything else I should know?"

"No. Except do not ever use the phone lines. The poltergeist is best left alone as much as possible, right? You should use the email system or better yet go talk to people in person. I'm sure you know that having connections inside the company can be invaluable. Down the hall, to the right."

The phone quieted, almost as though it had suddenly given up despite being so loud only moments before.

Nessa gave it one last strange look before giving Susan another false smile she attempted to make genuine. "Thank you."

——————————————————————

Scanning in the hardware was no difficult task. After a quick meeting with her new boss Dave, a brief exchange of greeting with Jeremy, and being introduced to about half the dev team, Nessa was left alone to scan the old junk in.

Circuit boards and other similar junk. It seemed like an odd request from whoever the client was, but she didn't exactly care to judge a decision that seemed so trivial. She let her mind wander to who the client could be.

Whenever she asked, some event would always keep her from finding out the answer. A phone call, another employee with a question, and things like that. It was a bit amusing, if not a tad ominous.

It was nice to do work like this. It did require some thought, but it was such a repetitive task that Nessa felt herself be able to zone out and let her mind wander.

It was peaceful.

"Nessa! Glad to see you took the job offer."

Peace had an enemy, and their name was Jeremy.

Nessa carefully set down the circuit board despite wanting to slam it down and turned to Jeremy with the fakest smile she'd put on today. "Can I help you, Jeremy?"

"Just heard that my previous co-worker had taken the job I mentioned and thought I ought to say 'hi'. Apologies if that's a crime."

"Hi," Nessa said tiredly before turning back to her work. "Don't you have stuff to do?"

"Nope!" Jeremy didn't seem her less than subtle attempts to get him to go away. "I have less experience with technology, more of a people person so they briefed me on the game we're making and since it looks like we can start beta testing in a couple days the client wanted to check up on the progress we've been making."

The thought occurred to her that if she asked him about the client something would come up and she would once again be left in peace. That would be more than ideal, at the very least it was worth a try. "I've heard so much about this client the company is making a game for, yet I still don't know who the client is."

"Wait, really? I thought you'd know who the client is by now!"

"Yup. Really. Guess you'll just have to tell me." Nessa desperately hoped her attempts in getting him to leave her alone again would work. It wasn't that she had anything against Jeremy as a person, except maybe his extroversion and lack of an ability to read the room, she just wanted to be left alone.

"I suppose I will, but I'm genuinely surprised no one told you who the client is, thought that'd be a bit more important than everyone else apparently think it is." 

"Strange indeed."

Jeremy glanced down the hall and Nessa grinned to herself. It seemed that the trick had worked in her favor at least one more time. "But it seems as though something's come up and I'll have to find out some other time. Darn."

"No no no, quite the opposite. The client is already here!"

"Eh?" Nessa peeked out of the office and into the hall, immediately pulling back not a second later. "You have got to be kidding."

William Afton paused just before he walked right past them, turning and walking into the office. "Vanessa! What a surprise to see you here!"

Nessa resisted the urge to run out of the room and even hide under the desk. "You're the client then?" she asked, in a deliberate monotone.

"That would most certainly be me!" 

Dammit.

Chapter Text

Nessa took a deep breath. It was fine. This was fine. This wasn't real and she was simply an observer. She has no emotional connection, neither negative nor positive, to the man in front of her. Nor memories connected to him. He was just a client.

William Afton was nothing more than the client for the company she worked for. "Wonderful," she said flatly. "Now if you and my co-worker will excuse me, I have lots of work to do." Keep fake smiling. Everything is fine.

William feigned a look of shock and disappointment. "What? Not the least bit surprised to see me? No reaction from me being here at all? I'd expect something more from my daughter."

Well, that certainly triggered some internal, bitter laughter despite Nessa fighting to keep any thoughts down. She had gotten quite good at it, but after two years of not really needing to use it often when conversing with people she'd fallen out of practice. She'd need to fix that.

"I'm busy." A slight shaking in her tone. Pathetic.

"Busy messing with some old junk used to cut costs? Come now, I just talked to your boss, and he said you would be on your coffee break in less than five minutes!"

Nessa sincerely hoped that Dave stepped in a puddle with a fresh pair of socks because she certainly felt he more than deserved it. "Did he now?" Her voice was strained. Weak. "I don't need it. I'll take it later."

"You've been plenty more efficient than anyone expected," Jeremy cut in. "Take a break, you deserve it.

Curse Jeremy and his lack of ability to read the room. May he hit every single traffic light while it was red on his way back home for the rest of the week.

"Exactly!" William gave Jeremy a friendly pat on the shoulder. "No harm at all in taking a break. Though I am pleased to hear I raised such a hard worker."

"I was a hard worker before I ever knew you existed." Flat monotone again. Good. The one good thing she could say about Jeremy at this moment was that her irritation at him made it easier to focus on not reacting strongly to anything.

"Maybe you were. But I certainly didn't ruin your work ethic," William said, unbothered.

"Fine. But said work ethic is currently dictating that I continue to work."

"That's deeply unnecessary. There's such a thing as too much work you know."

"Thank goodness I haven't reached that point." Slight voice crack at the end. Hopefully it would go relatively unnoticed.

Nessa and William glared at each other while Jeremy stood there awkwardly before deciding to break the tension. "Nessa! Can I talk to you for a moment?"

William looked amused as he stopped glaring. "Nessa? Is that what you by now? How interesting."

Her eye twitched ever so slightly and she turned towards Jeremy, ignoring William. "Why yes, Jeremy, you can talk to me for a moment."

"Wonderful. Um, Mr. Afton, sir, could you step outside the office for a moment?"

William smiled and nodded. "Of course! I'll be right outside." He stepped backwards and closed the door without turning.

Jeremy turned back towards Nessa. "So... what was that about?"

Nessa turned back towards her desk. "Nothing important."

"Uh-huh. That was an awful lot of tension for 'nothing important." Jeremy crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

Of all the times he could have possibly been anything resembling observant, of course it would have been this one time. "Nothing that concerns you. How's that?"

"Considering I'm working customer service for that guy for who knows how long, you're on the team developing a game for that guy, and also you're my friend, it does seem that it will at least somewhat affect me."

Nessa looked back up at him. Since when were they friends? As far as she had been aware they were co-workers. Acquaintances. She just figured he blabbed about his life to everyone.

"If it does end up affecting you, I doubt any information I could give you would help." Lies. Knowledge is power, even if it can be a curse. But she wasn't exactly sure how to explain that William was a murderer and would absolutely murder Jeremy if he thought it necessary.

"Okay. I accept that knowledge may not be helpful but is there anything you need to talk through?"

"Nope." Nessa turned back to her desk. "Aren't you supposed to be talking to him about the product or whatever?"

"Technically, yes." Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck. "But the original reason I came to see you wasn't actually just to say 'hi' though."

Nessa resisted the urge to slam her face onto the desk. "Do tell." Her fake smile was so wide it hurt her cheeks.

"This is going to sound silly, but I find Mr. Afton to be a bit-- how do I say-- off-putting? Yeah. Off-putting. I was kind of hoping you could help me talk to him, especially since we've both only been here half a day and you're more knowledge than I am."

"If you lack knowledge then why do they have you on customer service?"

"Something about cutting costs and not having available employees? I get if you don't want to help though, given how you seem to have..." Jeremy trailed off and gestured vaguely as he tried to think of the right words. "Familial issues?"

"We're not family."

"Right, right, right. Of course. But he seems to think you two are and, well, you know. So, I'll leave you alone now. I don't want to pressure you since you seem anxious and all that."

"I'm not anxious!" Noticeable irritation in her tone. That was fine, it was simply getting her point across to a co-worker. Besides, she wasn't weak enough to have anxiety over talking to a client. She could be normal. She was normal now.

Although, Nessa did feel a bit bad at her words resulting in Jeremy having a 'deer in headlights' look. She took a deep breath and returned to an even tone. "I'm not anxious. I'll come with you to talk."

Jeremy still looked concerned. "Are you sure? I don't want you to feel pressured into this because of my poor choice of wording."

"Today was probably the worst day for you to develop emotional intelligence," Nessa muttered under her breath.

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Sounded like you said something under your breath."

"Weird. Well obviously, it wasn't important otherwise I would've made sure to enunciate, right?"

"Yeah, you're right." Jeremy shrugged.

Perhaps he hadn't suddenly developed emotional intelligence after all.

Chapter Text

"Alright, so, if I'm understanding correctly, this is a state of the art virtual reality game—"

"Experience," William interrupted Jeremy before taking a sip of his tea. "Virtual reality experience."

Jeremy paused for a brief second. "Right, my apologies, Mr. Afton. The purpose of said virtual reality experience is to dispel rumors and restore the good name of Afton robotics, correct?" 

"Precisely correct. I hear that with my contributions it's quite close to being finished?" 

Jeremy nodded. "Beta testing should begin either today or tomorrow. After that it's only a couple months until it's done!" 

"Wonderful to hear! I hear that the two of you are the primary beta testers?" 

Jeremy took a sip of his coffee and nodded again. "We are indeed. That's actually why we were hired for the job." 

"Is it really? How intriguing." 

Nessa had a strong suspicion that William already knew that fact quite well, but chose not to comment on it. She simply sipped on her own cup of tea. It was certainly a surprise the office had her favorite green tea in the break room, but she figured she wouldn't question it. Jeremy and William had been talking for the past ten or so minutes and she had managed to get away with not saying anything. 

William tilted his head. "I saw that the hardware I sent in was nearly all scanned in."

Nessa nearly spat out her tea. "That was from you?" An exclamation of shock and surprise without a second thought. She really had to get better at controlling her words. She had been told the hardware was from the client, but she hadn't yet made the connection of it being from William Afton. 

William sipped his tea with a slight smirk. "Yes, of course. Inventions of my own to speed along the process as well as cut costs all around. Rather proud of those things if I do say so myself."

Nessa furrowed her brow. On one hand, no way there was no sort of ulterior motive behind that scrap metal. On the other, why motive could he have for wanting to interfere with something he was spending money on to make himself look good? Maybe it was just because he didn't want to unlikely. 

She'd have to be careful. Not that she wouldn't already be careful in the present circumstances, but extra careful. Maybe she could find a way to examine some of that hardware by herself. 

"Vanessa? Are you quite finished staring off into space?" William asked with a slight hint of impatience. 

"I am indeed. Do you have any questions for me?" Calm, collected, professional and as though she had never met him before today. Perfect. 

"Well, I don't have any further questions about the actual development of the game, given how helpful Jeremy has been, however I am  very curious as to what you know about the game." 

Taking a deep breath was supposed to help people stay calm, Nessa had been taught that, but taking a deep breath was also a noticeable action that might make her look weak. 

"Not much. Mostly just what's been said during this meeting. Silver Parasol has been very secretive about it." In hindsight, the secrecy should've been a glaringly red flag, but Nessa had just figured all companies were that secretive about large projects.

"How odd! I would've thought they would be less secretive with employees. I suppose they don't trust you not to blab to everyone you see about the game. Although you've never been a social person. Nevertheless, this new technology is revolutionary! I am quite certain both of you will very much enjoy beta testing it."

Jeremy again nodded politely. "I'm sure it'll be a pleasure, right Nessa?" 

"Hm?" Nessa had zoned out again, blankly staring at the beige wall in front of her as she took a moment to process what had been said. "Oh. Right. Yeah." Mentally, she slammed her head into the wall. 

Why was she even still here? Not just at this meeting, but working for this company. She could leave right now, couldn't she? She could walk away. Why shouldn't she? It wouldn't mean she was weak, it would be the smart decision. Perhaps it would be a tad unfair to Jeremy, but really, what good would her presence do? She'd probably only make things worse. After all, if whatever scheme William had in mind involved her, than surely leaving would make things better. Then again maybe it was some form of reverse psychology showing up, to make her decide to quit. Or reverse reverse psychology to make her stay. Well now she just had a headache. 

"... but the real highlights of game are the brand new headset and the AI! Now, the AI doesn't come up too often, but when it does it's rather impressive." 

It seemed she'd missed William rambling about the stupid game. How sad. 

William glanced at his watch. "Oh dear! I'm so very sorry to have to cut this meeting short, but you know how it is. Places to go, things to do, people to see! Goodbye for now." 

And just like that, he was gone again. Nessa slouched into the chair. "That was terrible and I'm never doing any favors for you again," she grumbled without a second thought. 

Jeremy gave her a somewhat sympathetic smirk. "I tried to tell you it was fine, that you didn't have to come. You're the one who insisted on it." 

Nessa simply sighed before glancing at the clock. "Looks like it's about time for us to head home ourselves."

——————————————————————

The next day passed quietly and calmly with no further visits from William, which Nessa was deeply grateful for. Today beta testing would start. 

There was a headset and a manual on how to operate it on her desk when she came in, the office chair having been removed. There was also a small message in the suspiciously fine print saying to take a break if she felt any nausea, dizziness, or headaches so that was comforting. 

After a moments of reading, and rereading, the instruction manual and messing with the headset, she'd managed to set up the game. "Okay... let's see what horrors wait in store," she mumbled to herself. It was a game to make William's stupid company look better to the public, how bad could it be? 

"Welcome to the Circus Baby Virtual Experience!" An annoying voice greeted her as she pressed play. Off to a terrible start, but it could be worse. 

"Afton Robotics is excited to the digital age..." Nessa ended up zoning out for the better portion of the intro, vaguely looking for any sort of bugs that may have been missed by the development team. 

A fake contract at the end of the intro, cute gimmick but it wouldn't mean anything in a courtroom so there was no need to scan it too closely. 

"... you acknowledge that Afton Robotics is not responsible for accidental digital consciousness transfers, real world manifestations of digital characters, nightmares, night terrors..." 

Haha. What a wonderful joke and not at all unnerving. They were taking the whole 'prove how absurd these rumors are by getting the audience to laugh at them' thing a little too seriously, or maybe not seriously enough. 

Still, while it did cause her a bit of anxiety about thinking of what was to come, it wasn't exactly enough to send her running for the door yet.

Chapter Text

Nessa scrolled through the options for mini games. Instead of the more linear experience she has expected, the game, which apparently was called Help Wanted, was comprised of various mini games, and even included characters from Fazbear Entertainment. 

Being in VR was disorienting enough already, but this felt too realistic. It wasn't fully realistic, of course, but this felt too advanced. Not even non-VR games were supposed to look like this. It was unsettling, but it seemed like it was supposed to be a creepy experience anyway. Nonetheless, she'd be putting that in her notes. Even if it wasn't relevant, she was there to make notes, right? Who knows. She'd been given irritatingly little information beyond 'let us know how the game performs'. Should be relatively fine, since they'd already gone through alpha testing, but who knows what she'd find. 

Seeing all these characters again was a mix of nostalgia and that delightful dread that was far, far too common to her. 

Ness decided to explore the main environment before playing any of the games. There was a button labeled 'prize counter'. She pressed it curiously. 

She blinked as she was suddenly transported to the aforementioned prize counter. As much as she hated this game, she had to admit it was seriously impressive. Not that that made her like it anymore. 

Nessa looked around and saw a gum-ball machine. There was something strange in it. A purple glow. It looked... glitchy. It probably was some sort of glitch. 

She reached out to touch it curiously, despite fully believing nothing would happen. Maybe the game would crash or cause a bigger glitch, but nothing else. 

To her surprise, it simply seemed to disappear at her touch. How strange. 

Nessa shrugged and turned towards to the counter itself. After a moment she quickly found that there was a basketball available simply from the game being opened. She pressed buttons until she eventually got a hold of it. 

She turned it around and inspected it for a moment, nothing strange about it. 

There was another one of those odd glitchy things behind the counter. She glanced at the basketball and threw it at the glitch, hitting it first try. As she watched it disappear she firmly decided that it must not be a glitch, but a feature. 

No need to make note of it then. 

She played around and inspected the prize counter for a few more minutes before returning to the main station. 

Nessa flicked through the mini games, none of them sounded very appealing and some of them she very much wished to avoid, despite that she knew she'd have to play it all by eventually. Might as well rip off the bandaid right now and get the worst ones over with. 

She flicked through the levels. 'Night Terrors'. That'd be a good one to start with. 

She glanced around the room, totally not trying to delay the inevitable of having to play this. She glanced to the right. 

"What the heck..." Nessa muttered, stepping back, though that movement wasn't reflected in-game, disorienting her further, while simultaneously reminding her this wasn't reality. 

It was a strange figure, it seemed a bit rabbit-like, or rather like a human in a rabbit costume. It was yellow, it certainly had rabbit-shaped ears, and she could just barely make a vest and bow tie. They appeared to be purple, but it was hard to tell. 

It reminded her far to much of the Spring Bonnie costume. She wondered if William still had that in his basement from when he stole it a few years ago. Probably. 

Nessa tried to gesture for the weird rabbit costumed character to shoo, before realizing how silly that was and turning back to the selection menu. 

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "It's not real. It's just a game. None of this is real. None of those memories are real and none of them should affect you. None of them can affect you. You're safe. You're fine. Everyone around you is safe," she whispered to herself before opening her eyes. 

"Here goes nothing." 

——————————————————————

Nessa pulled off the headset and shook her head. She'd only been playing for a couple hours but could barely stand. It wasn't that she felt sick or even had a headache, it was simply that the game was much more than she bargained for. 

She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. It'd been three years since she'd had to deal with the nightmares, yet she couldn't get through some silly game that was created to make light of rumors of nightmares Where had the rumors even come from?

 Nessa sat on the ground underneath her desk as she tried to remember. It was childish and cramped, but it was cozy and it wasn't like anyone was going to walk in without knocking. Small spaces were nice. Out in the open, anything could come at you from anywhere. In a small space, it was easier to see where things came from. 

What had she been thinking about? Oh yes, the rumors. Some newspaper article. An interview done with the Afton kids and their adopted father. What was his name again... Henry… Henry… Henry Emily? That sounded right. Hurricane was a small town, so the news about the whole situation had spread like wildfire. The fire had been so strong it spread outside of the city into a few of the nearby towns. 

It hadn't been too long ago, only a couple years ago when William was arrested. It was a shame he was rich enough to have only spent less than two years in there. 

It seemed as though this game had been started while he was still in jail. Most likely before. 

Maybe he'd anticipated rumors would eventually spread. Maybe this had been his backup plan for if kidnapping just kids had gone wrong. 

What would they think of this stupid game? They'd probably find a way to stop its production in its tracks. They'd certainly hate it. Yet here she was, play testing it. Ever the person to end up aiding William in one way or another. 

But what could she do? She'd signed a contract. She had to stay and help finish this game. Besides, surely people would realize how stupid this whole concept was. Maybe if her name was on it she'd end up in jail and William would go back to jail. 

A false, dim hope, that much Nessa knew. Still, she hasn't stayed alive and somewhat sane this long by accepting reality for what it was. 

She took a deep breath and stood back up. She placed the VR set back on her head. 

Maybe her false, misguided reality would help her through this, it had before. How bad could this possibly be?

Chapter Text

Nessa woke up the next morning from even worse nightmares and an even worse night's sleep.

She'd played through about half the game and nearly quit right then and there. Who cares if she signed a contract, they could sue her for all she cared if the creepy rabbit didn't stop getting closer.

Nessa was still barely awake after three cups of black tea and the drive to work. Maybe she'd indulge in some coffee later.

The receptionist waved at her as she walked in. Nessa searched her tired brain for the name of the receptionist as she walked up. "Good morning... Susan." Thank goodness for name tags.

"Good morning! I was wondering if you could show the intern around? I know you're busy but she's just starting today and everyone else is so busy as well and I never even got the chance to ask anyone else—"

Susan might have rambled on and on forever if the red telephone hadn't interrupted her. She frowned and picked it up to answer before putting it back down. "Alright... alright... I do think you see my point by now, yes?"

Nessa nodded and held back a yawn. It would end up dragging out her work, most likely, but she'd take an easy excuse to not have to play that stupid game. "Yep. What's this intern’s name and where are they?"

"Cassidy. Cassidy Fitzgerald. I believe she's in the employee break room."

"Alright, thanks," Nessa said as she started walking. Fitzgerald, huh? The last name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.

Probably she'd just seen the last name somewhere unimportant or a case of deja vu.

Nessa pushed open the door to see a sixteen year old girl standing in the break room and pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"Cassidy?" Nessa asked tentatively.

The girl didn't even seem notice her at first. She simply finished pouring her cup of coffee before turning and sipping on it, not bothering to add milk or sugar. She stared at Nessa for a moment and tilted her head slightly. "Vanny?"

Nessa barely managed to avoid a noticeable reaction, although her face almost certainly changed at least a little bit. First this girl had a familiar last name, then her face looked vaguely familiar, now she was calling her Vanny? Too strange. "What did you just call me?"

Hopefully the confusion was convincing. She certainly was confused as to how this child would know that alias.

The girl continued to stare at her coldly. "You remind me of someone I saw once. I suppose I don't need to know that right now though. You were correct in your assumption that I'm Cassidy, why were you asking?"

Nessa laughed awkwardly. "Nice to meet you, Cassidy. I'm Nessa. I was told you were the new intern and I was supposed to show you around."

"Do you even know how to do that?" Cassidy asked bluntly.

Nessa opened her mouth to speak before closing it, realizing that Cassidy had a point. She really didn't know how she was expected to show Cassidy around. "Not really."

Cassidy half-smirked, the closest thing Nessa had seen to an emotion on her face. "So you're new here as well?" Cassidy asked before sitting down with her coffee.

"That's right. Just started a few days ago," Nessa replied as she poured her own cup of coffee, adding plenty of milk and sugar.

"So I suppose you know about as much as I do about what's going on."

Nessa sat down across from Cassidy. "I wouldn't say that, I know a decent amount about what's going on."

"How much?"

"Huh?"

"How much do you know about what's going on?" The question was asked calmly, but Cassidy seemed to care more about this answer than she had cared about any other words exchanged with Nessa.

"About what? The game? The company? Oh, I suppose I don't even know if you're here to work on the same game as I am."

"Help Wanted. That's why I'm here. Tech work is why I was hired, but I'd be willing to bet I end up mainly the errand-girl. I suppose I want to know about everything. The company. The game. The client. Your role in all this."

Nessa avoided the urge to shift uncomfortably. She found Cassidy to be somewhat unsettling. The way she spoke, almost as though she was probing for information, combined with the uncomfortable familiarity did not make for a delightful combo. "I can't tell you much about the company, I'm sworn to secrecy so I'm not sure how much I can tell you about the client, and I'm just working as a beta tester."

Cassidy set her mug down carefully. "It's odd, isn't it? That someone would try and get rid of rumors by making them even more public. It's not the worst strategy though, I suppose. I wonder if it'll work."

"You're quite interested in this game then?"

"Absolutely. One might say I have a personal connection with the whole franchise." Cassidy chuckled dryly. "You do as well, don't you?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," Nessa responded, she decided to revert to the calm, flat tone she always used to try and cover up emotions she didn't like.

Cassidy tilted her head ever so slightly. "I suppose we don't need to talk about it all yet. I must say, I'm a bit surprised you don't remember."

As much as Nessa wanted to ask what Cassidy was talking about, she had a feeling she would only regret it if she took the bait. "How much do you already know about that game then? Sounds like you already know the basic premise."

Cassidy seemed unbothered by Nessa not asking for clarification. "Not too much. As you referenced earlier, Silver Parasol isn't exactly offering a ton of information to just anyone. I know the client is named William Afton. I know it's meant to dispel some rumors of him and his company doing terrible things, such as murdering children, using some sort of gas to give his children nightmares, not to mention the possessed animatronics."

"Yeah. That's basically all the important stuff," Nessa said, half-zoned out. "Why were you asking me about it?"

"You're the beta tester, aren't you? There's something more to this game. At the very least the rumors it has the reckless audacity to mock are true. But there's something else, what is it?"

Nessa drank the rest of her coffee. "I don't know, Cassidy. Maybe you're right about it being something more. Maybe you're not. But..." What was she doing? Trying to warn Cassidy? It was probably nothing that would hurt anyone, she shouldn't try and spread her paranoia. Especially not to someone too young to be worried about this sort of thing.

Plus if anyone found out she had said something, Cassidy would be in even worse trouble. Both of them would be.

"But what?" Cassidy prompted.

"But it's probably nothing. Just some paranoia from someone not used to playing scary games," Nessa replied with a weak grin.

Cassidy scowled as she downed the rest of her own coffee and stood. "Nothing to worry about? Either you're an idiot or a liar. But I suppose I ought to let you get back to work, Vanny," she practically spat before turning and walking away.

Chapter Text

Back to work. Nessa had to get back to work and resume playtesting the game. No time to dwell on a strange child. A strange child who seemed to know a lot about her. A strange child who hopefully wouldn't poke her nose in places that would get her killed. Come to think of it, Cassidy was kind of already doing that.

Nothing Nessa could do about that except try and convince her that everything was fine. Maybe she could even convince Cassidy to quit the internship? Probably not.

Nessa shook her head and took a deep breath. Playtesting time. She wondered if Jeremy was enjoying the game, might have already finished it. He used to ramble about how much he enjoyed speed-running various kinds of games so she wouldn't be surprised if he had already finished.

She put the headset back on. One of the mini games she had yet to complete was labeled 'Five Nights at Freddy's 2'.

"Here we go. Back into the madness," Nessa muttered as she clicked on it.

Oh.

Oh no.

She should've fully expected that this location would show up, especially given how vocal that night guard had been about the animatronics apparently trying the murder him. Actually, that was wrong. Nessa had fully expected this place to show up, more of just hoped that it wouldn't to the point she had almost convinced herself that it wouldn't.

Yet here it was, the place where she'd been taught to murder in all its virtual reality glory.

What a fantastic day this had already turned out to be.

Just as it finished loading and Nessa was about to play, the phone started ringing. Not an in-game phone, a real phone, a phone that happened to be sitting on her desk.

She pulled off the headset with little hesitation and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Vanessa! I'm so glad you decided to pick up the phone. How is the play testing going?"

Nessa pinched the bridge of her nose and resisted the urge to slam the phone back down onto the desk. "It's... fine. How did you get this number?"

A slight pause on the other end before William answered. "Unimportant! Just wanted to ask that once you finish the play through of the game, or whatever, that you go check on Ballora. Apparently, she's been disturbing guests and employees by singing creepy songs she shouldn't even know. Something about 'this location has blood on the walls', I've been told. None of the technicians understand it and I think you might be able to take a look."

"Why?" Nessa asked, taking great care to keep how deeply annoyed she was out of her tone.

"You helped me build them, didn't you? I'm quite busy and I'm the only one who knows more about those things than you do."

"No, I mean why would I?"

"Why wouldn't you! That's the better question. No need to answer now, just remember once you finish up. I suppose if it doesn't get done until tomorrow that's fine. Do call once you get it done though, yes? Yes. Good."

"I'm not going to— you already hung up, didn't you? Yep. I'd say I'm surprised but that's to be expected. Now I'm talking out loud. To myself. With the phone still next to my ear. Like a crazy person. Because I'm procrastinating. Maybe I am a crazy person. Alright, time to shut up." Nessa promptly set the phone back down and picked up the headset.

She decided she'd never play VR again once she was done with this job.

If she played like her life depended on it, maybe she could avoid seeing any of the animatronics too closely.

Seeing Toy Bonnie again nearly made her rip off and smash the headset, but she managed to get through all the nights first try.

A couple vent repairs later, and she had finished every level for each mini game. Both hard mode and normal. That opened up a new level, a new Night Terrors one. This one was labeled 'Pizza Party'.

Fine. She could get through one more level. It's not like she had any sort of negative emotional connection or horrid memories associated with any of this.

Nessa waved at the weird bunny creature, who hadn't stopped getting closer. Nothing she could do about that, it didn't seem that bad anyway, it was almost like a friend to her at this point anyway. Much less creepy than some of the other things.

"Let's do this then, will you be joining me?" she muttered jokingly to the creature. To her surprise it tilted its head, almost seeming to have heard her. Creepy, probably just a coincidence though. That's fine.

As expected, the level was dark and ominous. Less expected but quite frankly not really surprising were the creepy messages and arrows painting on the wall in red. How fun.

The level wasn't much worse than the others. In fact, it was pretty easy and not too creepy. It asked which cake flavor she preferred; she chose chocolate. It also asked which pizza she preferred; she chose cheese.

Nessa felt almost relieved when she came to the room with the pizza and cake. This really wasn't so bad. The pit of dread and anxiety in her stomach had clearly been wrong. So why was it still there?

She took a deep breath. Thank goodness none of this was real at least. She picked up a slice of cake and threw it across the room.

In front of her, the curtains parted. The creature from outside of the mini games gestured for her to come forward.

"Come to join the party?" Nessa asked, pointedly ignoring the fact that the pit of dread got worse as the creature disappeared.

"Ah... what the heck. Why not?" She moved forward in the game before it went dark, and the music cut out. "Hm?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, Fazbear Entertainment would like you to put your hands together for the one, the only— the only— only— only..."

It seemed that the character she was playing as had suddenly become... Freddy Fazbear? That was random.

Wait, was this meant to parallel the rumors that the bodies of the children murdered were stuffed in the animatronic suits?

Nessa watched the credits roll and the creature dance around the room with a sick feeling in her stomach. "Nope. I'm done. That's it. I'm done," she very nearly shouted as she yanked off the headset one last time.

She sat on the floor. She was shaking. So what? Who cared about trying to disassociate from the memories anymore, any normal person would be disgusted by this. If they really were absurd, fictional events it'd by fine. But this was real.

She'd watched a real child be murdered and then stuffed into a Freddy suit. This wasn't some sort of silly joke!

"Guess you didn't enjoy the game?"

Nessa looked up and nearly jumped six feet into the air before violently shaking her head. "Oh great. Now I'm hallucinating."

"...you acknowledge that Afton Robotics is not responsible for accidental digital consciousness transfers, real world manifestations of digital characters... I'd say I count as a bit more than a digital character at this point. Nice to finally get out."

The rabbit creature she'd seen in the game was now stretching— no wait it was cartwheeling. Why was a video game character laughing and doing cartwheels around her office.

"Yes indeedy! Nice to finally get out of the digital world. Bit of cartwheeling always feels nice, no room for it in the digital world though, you know. Quite lonely and boring in there!"

Nessa noted that the creature sounded vaguely like a British male. "This is it. I've officially gone insane. I'm completely mad now. An irredeemable case." She laid on the floor of the office and stared up at the ceiling, shaking her head ever so slightly and certainly less violently. "I thought I lost it long ago but nope, just lost the last of my sanity now."

"Aw, don't say that! Just because you can see a 'real world manifestation' of a 'digital character' that no one else can see doesn't mean you've gone insane! In fact, I would venture to say that you've got more sanity than I have!" the creature exclaimed, practically throwing its hands above its head.

"This is just wonderful. I'm hallucinating some game character. A weird creature. I hate my life," Nessa sounded completely detached as she stared at the ceiling, not even bothering to look at the creature anymore.

"A WEIRD CREATURE?!" it gasped in shock and horror. "I suppose I haven't given you a name. HMMMMM... what about Glitchtrap? That has a rather nice ring to it!" Glitchtrap nodded and turned a few more cartwheels.

"This is just wonderful. I'm hallucinating a weird creature name Glitchtrap."

"It IS wonderful! This is going to be so much fun. You and me, my friend, we're going do what we want. Let us go out and seize the day, Vanny!"

Chapter Text

Nessa sat up and stared at Glitchtrap. "Why would you call me that?"

By now Glitchtrap was sitting on a beanbag chair that appeared to be made out of purple glitches and floating midair. "Why wouldn't I call you that?" it asked in genuine confusion as it stared at her.

"Various reasons. How do you even know that name?" Nessa noted that there was a slight panic in her tone. It was absurd, really, to be monitoring exactly how she spoke to some stupid hallucination.

The beanbag turned into a flat platform that Glitchtrap backflipped off of before standing on the ground. "Intuition, one might say!"

Nessa flopped back onto the floor and resumed staring at the ceiling. "Are you going to answer all my questions that vaguely and never give me an actual answer?" she asked in a somewhat defeated tone.

"MOI?! Vague? Now why would you accuse ME of such a crime?"

"You're doing it right now."

"It's called being dramatic for comedic effect. Hast thou no sense of humor to be found, Vanny?"

"Stop calling me that," Nessa asked, raising her voice slightly.

"It's your name, innit?"

"No!" she replied sternly.

"Come now, it's more your name than 'Nessa' is. In fact, I think it sounds quite nice, Vanny. Vanny, Vanny, Vanny," Glitchtrap repeated a few times, seeming to enjoy saying the name and even more so enjoying Nessa's enraged reaction.

"I said, STOP CALLING ME THAT!" Nessa shouted, standing up and storming over to Glitchtrap.

Glitchtrap snickered and teleported in a haze of purple glitches behind Nessa. "Why should I?"

"Because—"

"Because you asked politely? Because little Nessa is scared of who she is when she puts on the mask?"

"First of all, you're shorter than me—"

"I am NOT short!" Glitchtrap interrupted. "This is simply a less intimidating form that I am able to take."

"Can you not interrupt me? Wait... does that mean you can take on different forms besides... the weird creature you are?"

"STOP CALLING ME A WEIRD CREATURE! YOU'RE NOT ANY LESS OF A WEIRD CREATURE!"

"You can't take on any other forms, can you. You're just stuck being short," Nessa remarked. Turns out taunting it was a great distraction from all the dread and wondering how two people— sentient beings? Yeah, that seemed right— knew enough about her to call her 'Vanny'.

"I'm a digital entity! I don't need to be tall! I'm in your brain! I'm a terrifying force!" Glitchtrap practically wailed.

"Sure. Why exactly should I be scared of you when you're just a hallucination?" Nessa asked with a scoff.

"I am NOT a hallucination. Nor am I a WEIRD CREATURE. Could a hallucination and who is a weird creature do THIS?" Glitchtrap reached into the screen of the VR headset and pulled out a Spring Bonnie plush, tossing it to Nessa, who instinctively caught it and was astonished to find that it was completely solid.

She turned it over a few times in her hands and inspected it. "How did you do that?" she questioned suspiciously, looking very concerned.

"With my hands!" it exclaimed gleefully.

Nessa placed the plush on the desk and buried her face in her hands. "Fine! You win. You're real," she said sullenly, somewhat muffled by her hands, which she then removed. "Why do you exist?"

Glitchtrap seemed very focused as it began walking while in a headstand. "You should know. You did create me after all!" It seemed rather gleeful to know something it thought she didn't.

Nessa took a deep breath and looked down at Glitchtrap's face. "It was that old hardware junk I scanned in that did this, wasn't it?"

"Why, it was the hardware that YOU—!" Glitchtrap deflated and fell over mid-sentence once it realized Nessa had already figured out how she aided in its existence. A mess of purple glitches and it was standing again, looking slightly less cheerful. "Uh-huh. It was the hardware you scanned in," it admitted with evident disappointment.

"Great. Since you seem to take so much joy in telling me things I don't know, I still don't know why you exist. Is it just to irritate me and make stuffed animals appear out of thin air? Because that seems awfully pointless," Nessa pointed out as she crossed her arms and scowled at Glitchtrap, purposefully going back to her even, calm tone.

Glitchtrap pulled out a basketball from the headset and spun it on its finger. "Why DO you need to know, anyway?"

"You're apparently in my head and I would very much like to know why. Also how, but first of all I'd like to know why," Nessa replied, somewhat impatiently.

Glitchtrap tossed the basketball behind itself, before it disappeared into purple glitches. "See, the thing about enjoying knowing more is that, if you tell everyone..." It then proceeded to teleport behind Nessa again, closer this time. "... you won't know more than them, right?"

She flinched ever so slightly and turned, stepping away from Glitchtrap. "I suppose. Then what would you be willing to tell me?"

"There's nothing I need to tell you. In fact, this has been ENTIRELY too much talking!" it exclaimed before proceeding to continue to cartwheel around the room.

"As much as I hate acknowledging the situation I am currently in, I would simultaneously like to know more about it. So, if you expect me to give up on the whole situation just because you started..." she took a deep breath and sighed, as if she couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth. "Just because you started cartwheeling around my office, then you'd be surprised."

"Perhaps I should leave your office then," Glitchtrap responded with a smirk as it began to somersault and hum an unfamiliar tune.

"No! Don't do that. People are going to see you and freak out and who knows what'll happen after that! You'll cause mayhem in the streets," Nessa was nearly shrieking at this point. Deep breaths weren't helping anymore.

"Oh, calm down you anxious little rabbit. You're the only one who can see me, I BELIEVE I mentioned that earlier, did I NOT? I live in your head, no one else's," it replied with a snicker.

"You're not in Jeremy's head?" Nessa asked in surprise and not without relief, electing to ignore it calling her an 'anxious little rabbit'.

"I suppose I TECHNICALLY am, just not for much longer. Rather useless, that one!" Glitchtrap exclaimed as it danced around the room, clearly expecting Nessa to act like this was a completely normal thing to say.

"He's not use— I take that back. So that means there's a way to get you out of my head as well? Or do you just choose to leave?"

"That's for ME to know and for YOU to find out! Besides, don't you just LOVE surprises?" Glitchtrap paused and glanced over its shoulder at Nessa before resuming the somersaults.

"I hate surprises," she replied bluntly.

"Then I'll do you a favor and let you know someone's about to knock at the door, surprise ruined and earned myself some brownie points. WINS ALL AROUND!"

True to Glitchtrap's word, there was a knock on the office door. Nessa considered telling it to hide, before reminding herself that no one else could see it. At least that was hopefully the case. She opened to door and blinked in surprise. "Cassidy? What are you doing here?"

"Apparently you've been talking to yourself rather loudly. Long enough to where people are concerned but apparently not concerned enough to go check on you themselves so they sent me," Cassidy said, with a hint of sarcasm and an eye roll.

"Oh." Nessa glanced back at Glitchtrap, who waved, and back at Cassidy who certainly wasn't acting like she could see anything.

"So, you all good? Because Susan probably won't let me get back to work until I report back whether or not you're fine," Cassidy asked with a raised eyebrow. Despite her earlier questioning, it was evident she did not want to be around Nessa.

"Actually..." Nessa began. Maybe it would be best to tell Cassidy something was up with the game. Maybe she would tell everyone else and then that would fix the problem?

"Don't tell her," Glitchtrap interrupted her train of thought as it walked up to her. It was strange to see it move around by walking so normally.

Nessa promptly went to ignore it. "There's something I need to tell you."

Cassidy suddenly seemed a bit more alert, perhaps more cautious as well. "I'm listening."

That's when Glitchtrap disappeared and suddenly Nessa was no longer in control. "This game has been shockingly fun! I honestly thought I wouldn't like it, but I've just finished and I've been talking out loud to myself, good way to think, you know!" The words weren't her own. They sounded as though they were from her voice and they came from her mouth, but she wasn't the one that put them there.

Cassidy glared at her, looking unnerved, even more suspicious and certainly more uncomfortable at the sudden change in Nessa's demeanor. "Yeah, whatever. Shouldn't have expected anything else from you," she said before turning and walking off.

Glitchtrap slumped into a purple, glitchy office chair that had appeared out of nowhere and started spinning. "Thank goodness, that was quite close!"

Chapter Text

Nessa flexed her fingers experimentally as she stared at her shaking hand. Good, she was in control again. Now to test whether or not she could talk. "Glitchtrap?" she asked quietly, paranoid that if she was too loud Cassidy would come back and she would lose control.

Glitchtrap spun in the chair faster. "Finally stopped calling me a WEIRD CREATURE, HM? Good,' it said bitterly.

"That's not important right now. What is important is that—"

"It's important to ME!" Glitchtrap interrupted loudly as the chair it was in stopped spinning, disappearing as it stood up flung its hands in the air dramatically.

"Then we can cover that later, because to me, the fact that I temporarily lost the ability to move and talk is just a tad more important than whatever I call you," Nessa replied, fighting to keep an even tone.

"You know what I think?" Glitchtrap asked, leaning forward.

Nessa made a pained face and looked at it. "No, Glitchtrap, I do not know what you think."

"I think that YOU are being overly dramatic about this whole thing. I mean, honestly, you should be JUMPING for joy right now. You have ME around AND you don't have to make as many hard decisions anymore!" it declared, clapping its hands before beginning handsprings with a laugh.

"Hold on, back up a bit, what do you mean about not having to 'make as many hard decisions'? Can you at least explain the whole thing about me not being in control over myself temporarily first, now that I think of it?"

Glitchtrap began to do back handsprings the second Nessa said to 'back up a bit'. "Really? You want me to monologue to you?" it questioned gleefully.

Nessa clenched her fists behind her back. "Sure. Monologue to your heart's content so long as I get some answers," she said, with a slight crack in her voice due to frustration.

"I'm afraid it won't be TOO long of a monologue, got to keep some secrets, you now!" Glitchtrap stopped the handsprings and two purple, glitched cushions appeared on the ground. It sat on one and patted the other. "Sit down, sit down, it's STORYTIME!"

"You're not going to give me any answers until I sit down, are you." Nessa phrased it like a question, but it was really more of a statement.

"I AM NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU ANY ANSWERS UNTIL YOU SIT DOWN!" Glitchtrap shouted back, looking deeply pleased.

"I am so going to sue this company for psychological damages," she grumbled as she sat on the cushion, which was surprisingly comfortable for looking as though it would glitch away if anyone else so much as looked at it. "There, happy?"

"VERY MUCH SO! Monologue time?" Glitchtrap asked, practically bouncing up and down on the cushion with glee and anticipation.

"Yep, go ahead," Nessa urged impatiently.

"You're so funny when you're annoyed. Quite easy to annoy too! Oh, stop giving me that look. You KNOW I'm right! But I suppose I did promise you answers. Not that the promises of anyone should EVER mean anything to you unless said promises were threats... BUT I DIGRESS! You were questioning your previous lack of autonomy, yes? Yes. Very good. You see, I exist in your subconscious and I JUST SO HAPPEN to have the ability to hippity hoppity my way on over into your conscious brain, which also allows me to control your conscious brain! Oddly, and most unfortunately, I lack the ability to control your subconscious without the possibility of causing you to black out and the longer I'm in control the more likely that is and then I could do whatever I wanted without you knowing, but then you would have no memory of what happens, and I couldn't talk to you, and you would trust me even less, and WOULDN'T THAT BE A SHAME!"

It watched as Nessa blinked, trying to process it all. "Was that coherent enough for you, Vanny?" Glitchtrap asked with a slight snicker.

"I told you to stop calling me that but yes, mostly," Nessa replied flatly as she blankly stared at Glitchtrap. "That means I'm stuck with you in my brain. For how long will it last?"

"PERMANENTLY!"

"And there's no way to get rid of you, is there?"

It tilted its head and stared at her curiously. "Why would you want to get rid of me?"

"You have got to be kidding me," Nessa said, sounding more confused than Glitchtrap.

"No, my words were not a red HARE-ing to make you think I don't know something that I actually do know. Get it? HARE-ing? Because—"

"Yes, yes, I get!" Nessa snapped, rubbing her forehead. "You seriously have no idea why I would want to get rid of you?"

"Obviously. I'm quite wonderful, no? Besides, there are advantages in it for you as well!" Glitchtrap folded its hands, placing its chin on them and leaning forward on its elbows onto a small table that appeared in front of it.

"I highly doubt that truth of that. But back to why I would want to get rid of you. No one wants a mind virus in their head that can take control of their bodies at any time. You could quite literally make me stab myself and there be nothing I can do about it. Plus, you can probably see everything going on in my head," Nessa responded, sounding as though she was talking to a small child.

"Like I said before, you're being rather dramatic and honestly I'm OFFENDED you would automatically go to worst case scenarios! I absolutely have plans on assisting you in stabbing others, like that annoying child who was at the door a few moments ago— oh don't give me a horrified look as if you don't already realize she hates you and will poke her nose in dangerous places anyway!"

"I'm not going to kill anyone, that includes Cassidy," Nessa said sternly.

"Boo. Don't be so boring, she'll have a nice funeral and it's a good reason for her family to get together! Plus, then she can see her twin brother again and we're rid of her and who knows, maybe we'll kill off his other brother a few months later because he certainly has caused a lot of headaches..." Glitchtrap tapped its chin as it talked, occasionally nodding thoughtfully.

"No. No killing anyone! You don't even know if she has siblings, how could you?" Nessa stood and backed away.

The purple cushions and Glitchtrap disappeared, though Glitchtrap quickly reappeared next to Nessa. "Oh DEAR, are more mini monologues are necessary? As much as I enjoy knowing more than you, the fact that you're this clueless is quite irritating. First of all, we have the fact that I am a DIGITAL ENTITY! Which means I have access to the entire internet. Some VERY strange stuff there, if I do say so myself. Quite fun though. Additionally, we have the fact that I am, if you recall, in your subconscious."

Nessa shook her head as she turned to look at it. "How would that last part help? I never met her today."

"Come now, Vanny, I know I found the memory in your subconscious, but I didn't think it would be buried that deep! Surely you remember her? She certainly seems to remember you."

"I mean... I met her earlier today... but I don't see what that has to do with it," Nessa said uncomfortably. "I'm sure I would remember if I had talked to her some other time."

"That's the kicker, innit? You didn't talk to her; she simply saw you. You saw her. You decided not to tell your father there was another child in the building. She lived to be murdered another day!" Glitchtrap smirked knowingly.

Ness crossed her arms. "You're making this whole thing up."

Glitchtrap's smirk grew bigger. "I can prove to you that I'm not."

"Oh really? And how's that?"

"By pushing one of your memories to your conscious brain so that you can experience it again, of course!"

"Wait—"

"HERE WE GOOOO!"

Nessa was seventeen years old. She was standing inside Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria and here for one specific purpose. It was the day she realized she was nothing more than pawn in some sort of horrid scheme.

William wore a Spring Bonnie suit as he silently walked up to a child, a young boy, striking them on the back of the head so that they fell to the ground, knocked out cold. "There we go! That should make your first kill much easier. I figured you would hesitate and there's far more room for error when the victim is unconscious," William said with a satisfied grin as he turned towards Nessa.

William looked down at the boy after he talked. Nessa noticed something out of the corner of her eye, another child. A girl who looked rather similar to the boy, most likely siblings. Maybe even twins. A girl who looked identical to Cassidy.

"Come on now, we don't have all day," William said impatiently.

Chapter Text

It wasn't even halfway through the day and Cassidy was already sick of everyone's bullshit.

First of all, she'd had to deal with an annoying and far too talkative receptionist who kept trying to convince her that the phone lines were haunted. Then she'd had to deal with idiot who murdered her brother failing at giving her a tour of the workplace. After that it was some beta tester who had the same first name as her not-dead brother rambling about guillotine paper cutters. Finally, she'd had to deal with the murder lady again.

That was all without even mentioning how annoyed Cassidy was at herself. For some reason, she was in a constant state of anxiety being here. She was used to being on guard, but the anxiety was new and incredibly irritating.

Caution was good, caution was fine. But anxiety causes people to act irrationally and there was no need for her to act irrationally. So why did she get stuck with anxiety? This job sucked. 

No one had even bothered telling her what work to do, but at least she was getting paid to sit in the break room and listen to rambles and occasionally check on a psychotic murderer? Ironic that they all claimed to be so busy and then wouldn't give her any real work. Not that she had come here because she wanted to work, but it was harder to try and snoop when she was stuck in the break room, waiting.

That interaction earlier had been strange, one moment Vanny— the receptionist had called her Nessa, but Cassidy had a hard time thinking of her as anything besides Vanny after all these years— had seemed as anxious as Cassidy felt, the next moment she seemed weirdly happy and definitely acting different than she had before.

Cassidy thought back. Vanny had flinched slightly just as her behavior changed, or maybe she was just imagining that. Vanny had also seemed to want to say something this morning but hadn't acted quite as strange.

Vanny was also a beta tester for the game and the headset looked like it had been tossed frantically on the desk, perhaps something strange had happened with that?

Obviously, the game had some sort of malware or mind manipulation, or even just stupid psychological tricks meant to drive the player to insanity or whatever.

While trying to restore public image was a good excuse, Cassidy figured William Afton was too much of a jerk to do something that simple.

Still, it'd be nice to know what it was that he had done. She could try asking Vanny again, but that seemed like a dead end. The other beta tester just seemed depressed and antisocial, despite everyone talking about how friendly he was, so she didn't have high hopes for trying to talk to him either.

Might as well try talking to Vanny one more time today, worst come to worst she would end up stuffed in an animatronic suit and haunt everyone who ever upset her for all eternity. Nothing too terrible could happen.

So, somewhat against her better judgement, Cassidy knocked on the door to Vanny's office again, it sounded as though she was pacing and talking to herself again before opening the door.

"Cassidy? Again?" Vanny asked, blinking in confusion.

Cassidy took a brief moment to note her surroundings before replying. Vanny looked even more distraught than earlier, somehow, but at least she wasn't still doing that creepy cheerful thing. There was a Spring Bonnie plush on the desk, but Cassidy was fairly sure that had been there earlier. It was odd, none of the other employees had personal items on their desks.

"I've been thinking about what you said earlier, I don't know why you expect me to believe that you were just shouting to yourself about the game. I'm also not sure why you acted so cheerful all the sudden either." Maybe she was coming on a bit too strong. Oh well, too late now.

Vanny glanced back into the office and shook her head, looking as though it was aimed towards a specific person, despite there being no one there. "I'm... not used to having coffee and it's been causing some mood swings," Vanny replied, cringing, as though even she could tell how bad the lie was.

"You're not going to answer any of my questions, are you?" Cassidy asked scornfully, before looking thoughtful. "Do you even know what's going on? You seem pretty distressed."

Vanny forced a laugh and rapidly shook her head. "Everything's fine!" She paused and glanced back at the same corner of the office she had looked at a moment ago. "Completely normal," she said, with evident panic in her tone. A look of fear crossed her face, and she took a deep breath. "Completely normal," she repeated in a normal tone.

"Are people in danger?" Cassidy mentally banged her head against the wall. That was a terrible question, obviously people were in danger and obviously Vanny wouldn't want to tell her about that.

Vanny looked back into the office and shook her head again at the same spot. "I... no. I mean, why would they be?" Vanny grinned weakly.

"Why do you keep glancing back into the same spot? Are you hallucinating someone there or something?" Cassidy pressed.

Vanny's eye twitched. Whether it was from irritation, frustration, or even fear, Cassidy couldn't say. "Look, kid, just... just go home, okay?" Vanny pleaded, looking almost desperate.

"I'm not a kid and I'm not going home until I find out what you're hiding. I know you know more than you're telling me. In fact, I'm even starting to suspect that you're very much in on whatever scheme William Afton has come up with this time. What I can't figure out, is why? Have you come to enjoy people getting hurt? Have you come to enjoy killing people?"

"SHUT UP!" Vanny yelled.

Cassidy flinched back, fear temporarily outweighing anger. Though not for long as the fact that she flinched only made her angrier.

"No, no, no, I'm sorry," Vanny said, sounding truly genuine in her apology. "I wasn't talking to you, I just-- go home. Don't come back." She flinched again, just like she had last time her personality changed. "Until tomorrow. Don't come back until tomorrow, lots of tension in the office and it's been messing with my head, ya know? Everyone's SO busy with their own thing, I'm sure you've probably been stuck in the break room doing your own thing!" Vanny shoved Cassidy away from the doorway. "Or, hey, if you really want to be helpful, go clean up the break room?"

Cassidy stubbornly stayed in place. "I'm not leaving until I get some answers. You can't get rid of me as easily as telling me to go clean."

Vanny grinned and leaned over her, despite only being a few inches taller. "Oh? I suppose I shall have to find some other way to get rid of you!" She chuckled and slammed the door in Cassidy's face.

Right. So that went bad. Caused more anxiety but that's fine. Sometimes she did her best thinking when she was terrified. Not that she currently was terrified, she very rarely got terrified and would never admit to being terrified to herself.

Cassidy paced up and down the hallway, it's not like anyone was walking here anyway. She could talk to Jeremy, but she was pretty sure that that would go even worse. She snapped her fingers as she thought.

The entire scheme most likely revolved around the game. So, if she could get a look at the game code, maybe she could figure the rest of all this out? Her parents had bought her some office supplies because they were proud of her for starting an internship. One of these was fairly new, but it would work perfectly.

She snapped her fingers one last time and ran to the break room. She grabbed her bag and ran into the office of a game designer, after checking that they weren't present, of course. "Okay... let's see..."

Cassidy smirked as she realized that they had the entire game file on the computer. She dug through her backpack and pulled out a USB drive. "Time to pirate some game code."

Chapter Text

Nessa's breathing turned ragged as she blinked and realized Cassidy was gone, the office door slammed shut. "That was the blackout you mentioned, huh?" she asked weakly, trying to stop shaking in fear. 

"No, it was the purple-out I mentioned," Glitchtrap replied, barely paying attention as it stared at the door it had slammed shut.

"You completely lack the ability to take anything seriously, don't you?" Nessa asked, attempting focus on being annoyed.

"Well done, you've caught me," it still didn't seem to be paying attention to her. 

Nessa went and stood in front of the door. "You're ignoring me now? What's your problem?"

Glitchtrap chuckled and motioned for her to shush. "Be quiet, Vanny, I'm trying to figure something out over here. Let me think."

"As if you've given me a moment to think since you popped into existence. Why should I extend you that courtesy?"

"Because! If I want, I can force you to blackout again, so shut up," Glitchtrap said before humming softly. "Isn't that supposed to be the intern?"

"Yeah, why?" Nessa asked, forgetting the first half of its statement. 

"Well, she's not," Glitchtrap muttered, almost to itself. 

"You're going to wait for me to ask you to elaborate, aren't you?" Nessa grumbled with a sigh.

"Huh?" Glitchtrap blinked, before shaking its head and staring at Nessa as though it had genuinely forgotten about her. "RIGHT! Yes! It seems like her brother was actually supposed to be the intern, not her. IN FACT, it almost seems as though she managed to hack into the system and change it to her! Brilliant thing. It's a shame we'll have to kill her instead of recruit her." It began to do cartwheels again, though still humming and looking slightly thoughtful. 

"No! We do not have to kill her!" Nessa exclaimed. 

"Hmm... aren't you supposed to be checking on Ballora?" Glitchtrap asked, pausing in a handstand. 

"No. That's not what we're talking about right now," Nessa insisted stubbornly. 

"I'll ONLY discuss this situation if it's on the drive to Circus Baby's," Glitchtrap sprang out of the handstand with a flip and regained its smirk. 

"I have to at least finish my shift," Nessa protested. 

"Uh-huh. As if you wouldn't be pacing around or laying on the floor for hours talking to me. Besiiiiides, I'VE already arranged for you to take the rest of the day OFF!" 

Nessa stared at the gleeful entity, trying to think of literally any another excuse. "There's no reason for me to go anyway." 

"There's PLENTY of reasons to go! Besides, if you go TODAY, you could end up saving someone's life!" Glitchtrap declared with a wink. 

Her face darkened. "Is that a threat?" 

Glitchtrap waved its hand dismissively. "NO, not at all! I'm very open about when I want someone dead. It's just that one of your brothers is rather STUPID is all!"

"What are you going on about now?" 

It smirked at her. "Why don't you go find out?" Then it disappeared, for the first time leaving her in peace and quiet, though Nessa knew it was still lurking in her brain. 

She considered her options for a moment. At this point, no matter what she did, she was a pawn. If she went, it would most likely serve some greater purpose. Then again, Glitchtrap wasn't forcing her to go, so it couldn't be that important, could it? 

Nessa paced as she thought. Granted, it could also be a trick to get her there and trust it more. But at the same time, what was she accomplishing by staying here? Most likely Cassidy hadn't gone home, so getting as far away from the one person Glitchtrap had stated it wanted dead would be a good idea. 

On the other hand, doing what both Glitchtrap and William wanted her to do seemed like an objectively terrible idea. 

At the same time, Glitchtrap basically had said that one of the Afton kids was in danger if she didn't go. So there was that. 

——————————————————————

Nessa slammed the car door shut and glanced at the passenger seat where Glitchtrap was already sitting. "Finally going to give me a few more answers now?" she asked, sounding annoyed as she began driving. 

"Yes, yes. Not a long drive but you DID have some questions, didn't ya?" Glitchtrap frowned at the seatbelt before making a glitched purple one, despite not needing it. 

"Obviously. Let's start with why you're so determined to kill Cassidy?" Nessa began, ignoring its antics. 

"Why wouldn't I be? So incredibly nosy. She'll certainly get in the way. Probably already on some sort of vengeance mission. Her older brother should probably get killed off as well with all the rumors HE spread. Not that they were wrong, mind you, but they were TERRIBLY inconvenient." 

"So, basically, because you have no morals and both you and the child have a personal vendetta against each other, with the child's being infinitely more reasonable?" she questioned bluntly. 

"Don't say it like THAT! Besides, do you HONESTLY disagree with the fact that killing her is a necessity at this point? Oh, unless you'd rather torture her into staying quiet? I mean, you do you but that's more sadistic than I expected from someone like you!" Glitchtrap chuckled as it pretended to drink out of a purple tea cup, not seeming to notice Nessa's horrified look. "Ah! Would you look at that! We're at Circus Baby's already!" It teleported outside of the car and stretched before launching into its usual gymnastics routine. 

"Can we agree on three rules before we head inside there?" Nessa asked, frowning at it. 

"That HIGHLY depends on said rules, but go on and suggest them!" Glitchtrap paused its routine and teleported to sit on top of the car. 

"First of all, don't physically appear or talk to me while in there so that I don't end up looking like a crazy person. Secondly, no taking over my brain. Third and final, no murder and definitely no torture," she said sternly. 

"HMMMMM... first one? Fine! Third? Most likely fine! Second? Fine as long as the situation doesn't call for it!" it said with a nod. 

"Not good enough. What do you mean with those last two answers?" Nessa demanded. It was strange how quickly she switched between fear and frustration with it. 

"Third one it is QUITE unlikely murder is necessary! But you never know, what if it's in self-defense? Second if you start talking about me to strangers or something that could make things... complicated. Ya know?" 

"I can take care of myself and self-defense is something I very much doubt you're worried about. So long as I avoid talking about you, the game, or saying anything about William that the person I'm speaking to wouldn't already know, would you agree?" Nessa considered the fact that she was literally bargaining for her own autonomy with a mind virus. Here she thought that working a night shift at a rest stop had been miserable. 

Glitchtrap shrugged. "I suppose! If another sort of situation happens unexpectedly I'll give you a fair warning before doing to whole mind control thing, does THAT seem fair enough to you?" 

"I suppose that's the best I'm going to get. Fine then, Glitch. I suppose we have a compromise." 

It gasped. "'Glitch'! That's a nickname! Nicknames mean we're the BEST OF FRIENDS now! My nickname for you is Vanny and yours for me is Glitch!" 

"It's more of just a faster way of saying your name—" Nessa paused as she watched it turn cartwheels around the parking lot. If something that wasn't sadistic or involving murder and was as simple as only using half its name made it this happy, then so be it. She would call it Glitch. "Yeah, okay. I guess it sort of is a nickname." 

She glanced up at the sign hanging above the door as Glitch disappeared. "Let's do this then," she muttered to herself before walking in. 

Chapter Text

"There he is! Guy on the left in the purple shirt!" Glitch exclaimed, though not physically appearing, seemingly having decided that would sufficiently fulfill their agreement. 

"How do you even know that?" Nessa mumbled under her breath as she walked through the doors. 

"Simple. The second we got within five feet of the building, I was able to access the computer system with the employee database, he IS in there under a pseudonym, BUT I was able to trace back where all the information came from AS WELL AS pull up security footage from when he first came in AND ALSO how long he's been here today!"

"Hm." Slightly impressive, even if mildly concerning how he was able to find that so quickly. 

"Also, when he was turned towards us earlier, I could see his name tag. THAT helped slightly! Not to mention the fact that that’s one in the faces pre-installed in my software," Glitch added. 

"Ah," Nessa muttered. That made more sense. 

Now, how to handle the situation? Maybe just walking up and asking Michael why he was working here in the first place, perhaps give vague warnings that he should leave. Couldn't go that badly, right? Worth giving it a shot, and what better way to do it than diving in head-first with barely any plan. At this point it was more of a 'what did she have to lose' situation anyway. 

"Are you just going to STAND there? Staring? Here you were the one calling me a WEIRD CREATURE! Wow. Just wow," Glitch interrupted her train of thought bitterly.

"You are weird, I stopped calling you that, get over it, and be quiet so I can actually have a conversation without looking like a madwoman, as per our earlier agreement," Nessa muttered in reply. 

To her surprise, Glitch didn't respond. Thank goodness for that. She walked over to Michael. "So, you're the new employee..." Nessa glanced at his name tag. "Mike Schmidt?" With any luck he wouldn't recognize her. 

Michael looked quite shocked that someone was speaking to him at all. He stared at her for a moment until she could practically see a lightbulb appear over his head. "Nessa? Vanessa? Whatever your name is? What are you doing here?"

Okay, so he did recognize her. That's fine, she could work with that. "Nessa is fine. I'm supposed to be checking on Ballora. What are you doing here?"

"I'm surprised you don't already know." Was that bitterness? Nessa honestly couldn't tell. 

"I don't technically work here. It's... it's complicated. But why would you want to work here?" she asked, squashing the irritation that threatened to come through her tone.

"Also complicated. Why are you here if you don't work here?" Michael asked, very obviously suspicious at this point. 

"Like I said, complicated. But I'm pretty sure you have less reason to be here than I do."

"I'm pretty sure I have more reason, actually. I'll consider explaining my complicated reason if you explain yours." Michael crossed his arms and glared. 

"It's a long story and you probably wouldn't believe me," Nessa insisted. 

"Oh yeah? Try me," he said, almost smugly. 

"Now you're just being petty," she grumbled. 

"Guess if this conversation isn't going anywhere, I should get going! I'll be starting my shift a bit early, but nothing wrong with that, right?" Michael was definitely rather smug at this point. which was incredibly annoying, especially since he had the upper hand. 

"William asked me to check on Ballora, okay? Said she was acting weird," Nessa admitted before he had the chance to walk off. 

"That doesn't sound long and complicated. Just sounds like you're still under his thumb and he holds surprisingly little grudge against you. Given that you stabbed his arm.  Isn't he in jail?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that, but I can't tell you the whole story. The no grudge thing is, admittedly, very strange. As for jail, well, he's rich." Nessa grimaced. It would certainly sound like she was avoiding most of the questions.

To her surprise, Michael shrugged, and his face became a bit more sympathetic. "Point taken. Do you need somewhere to hide out?" 

Glitch snickered in Nessa's head. "Funny little bloke, he seems the most fun out of your two brothers."

As much as she would like to point out that Michael and Evan were most certainly not her brothers, and that Glitch was easily shorter than Michael, she couldn't exactly say that out loud. Instead, she just shook her head. "No. I appreciate it, but no. I'm fine. It's just that he's a client for the company I'm working for and Ballora started acting up, so it's probably best if I fix her instead of him potentially making her dangerous, right?" Not that Ballora wasn't already dangerous. "I've told you my side of the story, so why are you here?" 

"Don't get mad, but it's complicated and you wouldn't believe me," Michael said, looking a bit amused at his own response. 

"I'll suspend my disbelief just this once," she replied dryly. 

"Okay, no offense, but I don't exactly want to tell you, given the fact that you're working with William." He did seem almost apologetic for not wanting to tell her. 

"You know what? It's not that important anyway, I suppose. What is important is the fact that you need to get out of here," Nessa said, reverting to a more direct tone.

Michael immediately reverted back to suspicious and defensive. "I disagree. But I am curious as to why you'd say that."

Nessa gestured to Funtime Freddy, preforming for a horde of obnoxious children. "Because you'll probably die," she replied slowly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which, it was pretty obvious.  

"It's just as likely that either you or William is plotting something and trying to get me away from here before I uncover either that or some sort of secret the two of you are trying to keep buried," he protested. 

"For all I know it's both! But you were hired in the first place, so it's most likely that it's not trying to cover up some sort of secret."

Glitch cleared its throat. "So! I was SORT OF lying when I said I was in the database earlier. I only got into it just now AND it turns out his situation of whether or not he was actually hired is the same as Cassidy's! Oh, he's ALSO on as the nighttime technician if that means anything to you! Shift starts in ABOUT an hour."

Michael was staring at Nessa expectantly, as though he had said something while Glitch was talking and was waiting for a reply. Which was most likely the case. "You didn't actually get hired, did you?" Nessa asked with a sigh.

Michael blinked and his frown deepened. "How did you know that?"

Nessa shrugged. "Intuition, one might say."

Glitch made a sound that was something between a chuckle and an amused wheeze. 

"Not an acceptable answer, how do you know?" Michael pressed. 

"If you're not going to tell me why you're here, then you don't need to know how I know you're not supposed to be here. What matters is that you lied to get a job here as a technician, a nighttime one nonetheless, and that doesn't exactly seem like a safe job." 

"It's not like the last guy died, so why would I?"

"Technically, you don't know that." 

"Did he?"

"How would I know?" Nessa practically shouted, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. 

"I don't know! You seem to know a suspicious amount about what's going on, in addition to working with the guy who runs the place. Seems like a good reason to suspect you have your bearings around this place, am I wrong?" 

Nessa pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know what? Sure. Fine. Let's say I am working with him. Let's say he's the one who told me you're in danger. Let's say I couldn't care less about Ballora but when I heard another innocent kid might get hurt I drove here to make sure that you didn't die. What then?" Technically it had been Glitch who mentioned Michael was in danger, but William evidently created Glitch so there was that. 

"William isn't trustworthy and I'd find that all the more reason to stay, that's what," Michael replied, without hesitation. 

"Whatever you're looking for, you're it going to find it," Nessa warned. "Please, I know you don't trust me, which I can't say I blame you for, but there are already more than enough people in danger. Go home." 

Michael froze. "'More than enough'? What do you mean 'more than enough'? Who is in danger?" he asked, sounding anxious. 

Ness mentally slapped herself. That was a terrible way of phrasing it. At this point she wasn't sure who wasn't in danger. But there was one person she knew was in the most danger. She only hoped Glitch would honor the agreement the two of them made. "You know Cassidy Fitzgerald, don't you?" 

Glitch made a somewhat offended noise. "No more details, Vanny."

Michael looked surprised, as if not expecting an answer. "I do." 

Nessa glanced over at Ballora. "I wish I could tell you more. But... I need to go. Leave. Make sure Cassidy quits her internship." She turned and ran to one of the backstage areas before Glitch or Michael could say or do anything more. 

She leaned against a wall as Glitch appeared. "Very uncool of you, Vanny," it said, sounding disappointed. 

"So is you calling me 'Vanny'. Yet here we are," Nessa said, staring at the wall as she tried to blank out her mind. 

"Can I not trust you to keep secrets?" It tilted its head, looking the most serious Nessa had ever seen it. Despite only seeing Glitch out of the corner of her eye. 

"I didn't say half as much as I would like. But what are you going to do about it? Kill me?" she scoffed, read using to look at it. At this point Nessa was too zoned out to care if it sounded like a challenge. 

Glitch shook its head. "No! Don't be ABSURD!" So the cheerful demeanor was back already. "However! I feel you may need some... assistance. A partner. Besides me!"

Chapter Text

Charlie covered the receiver of the telephone that was attached to the wall. She glanced at the other side of Fredbear's Family Diner. "Mike! Call for you." 

"One minute, I'm going to absolutely kill Evan."

"I don't care that you're playing arcade games. Cassidy is on the telephone and she sounds pretty mad." 

Michael glanced over. "She's calling already? Dang it." 

Evan cheered as he beat Michael at the arcade game they had been playing together. Michael sighed and grumbled under his breath as he took the phone from Charlie. "Hey Cass."

"Michael?" Cassidy said calmly from the other end of the telephone. To calmly. 

"That would be me," Michael replied, already dreading this conversation. 

"Did you quit your job at Circus Baby's?" 

"Yeah. It was only a few hours ago, how did you know that?" 

"Because Charlie told me just a moment ago." Michael gave Charlie an accusatory look as Cassidy continued talking. "You better have a good explanation for quitting," she finished, clearly doing her best to not start yelling into the phone. 

Michael chuckled nervously. "Yeah, uhm, but of a crazy story. Remember when I mentioned that William Afton adopted another kid?" 

"Vann— Vanessa. Yes. I know. I met her, she's crazy. What does that have to do with this?" 

"She showed up at Circus Baby's..." Michael started. 

"And?" Cassidy prompted impatiently. 

"... and said I was going to die if I stuck around and that I should leave and go home." 

"You. You believed her. Why?" Cassidy said, sounding more annoyed by the second. 

"Kind of? Not really? I just... I didn't quit right then and there. I waited until my shift started, but then I went down the elevator. But then I had to crawl through this vent and I was in this cramped basement with all the animatronics and HandUnit told me to shock them and... I may have freaked out a bit and impulsively quit? Just a bit?" 

"You can't be serious." 

"Hey!" Michael replied defensively. "You would've done the same in my position. Besides, would you rather I be down there, dead? I know that I asked you to help me get that job, but that was a mistake. I'll admit that. But I don't think quitting was a mistake." 

"Next time think about it a bit more before asking me to hack into an employee database and getting you a job, yeah? Just because I managed it for myself doesn't mean it's easy or safe." Cassidy sighed and grumbled for a couple seconds. "But never mind, much as I would like to yell at you about this whole thing, that wouldn't be very productive. I'm guessing Charlie didn't tell you why I called?" 

Michael shook his head before remembering that he was on a telephone call. "Nope, why?" 

"It's a bit complicated and I don't think I was able to explain it properly over to phone to her. Will you all still be at the diner in a couple hours?" 

"Yep. We should be here all day, Uncle Henry's building some new animatronics." Michael glanced in the back room, where a frog and a hippo exoskeleton were barely visible. 

"Good. I'll see you soon. You guys have a spare computer on hand that you'd be fine with blowing up?" Cassidy asked, sounding completely serious. 

He blinked. "I... think so?" 

"Good. And Michael?" 

"Yeah?" 

"I'm never helping you get a job again." It was more of a joke than anything, but either way, Michael didn't get a chance to reply before Cassidy ended the phone call and there was an audible click. 

——————————————————————

Cassidy strode into the diner, carefully holding a USB drive. "Behold, I bring top secret information. Illegally downloaded video game code." 

Elizabeth ran over. "Weird. Can I play it?" 

Cassidy glanced down with a raised eyebrow. "Nope. Afraid not. This will turn your brain to mush and cause weird mood swings or something." 

"People say that about all video games. Yet I play arcade games all the time. Is my brain mush? I think not," Elizabeth insisted. 

Cassidy frowned at her. "You're not wrong. But something's weird with this game. Where's Michael and Charlie?" 

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "In the back room." 

"Thanks." Cassidy walked towards the back room, where Charlie, Michael, and Henry Emily were practically buried in blueprints and scrap metal, surrounded by bits of animatronic exoskeleton. 

Evan was sitting on a table, writing something in a notebook. "What if we called them the Mediocre Melodies?" 

Henry glanced over with an offended look. "Is that what you think of my beautiful creations? I may be a bit out of practice and not used to creating animatronics from scratch, but wow." 

Evan flushed in embarrassment. "No, no, no! It's not that. It's just I came up with this whole story about how they could be rivals with Fredbear and Spring Bonnie and..."

Cassidy cleared her throat. "Hello Mr. Emily. Hey Evan. Charlie, Michael, where's the expendable computer?" 

"Expendable?" Henry asked suspiciously, glancing between the teens. 

"Cassidy has an illegally downloaded game and won't let me play," Elizabeth said, with a hint of sourness in her voice. 

"Wait, really?" Michael sounded intrigued and shoved an endo off to the side to stand up. 

"Do your parents know?" Henry immediately questioned. 

"Yes..." Cassidy said, a tad awkwardly, not being a great liar. 

Henry raised an eyebrow. "You know what? I'm busy and I doubt you'd do anything wrong for now good reason. I wash my hands of this and please don't blow up a computer." 

"No promises." Cassidy grabbed both Michael and Charlie by the hand and dragged them out of the room. 

"Can someone explain what's going on here?" Michael said as he was dragged towards one of two computers in the diner. 

"Your father made a game. I got myself an internship for the company he hired to make the game. One of the beta testers was acting weird. I stole the game code," Cassidy replied simply as she plugged the USB into the computer and began looking through the code. 

"Won't you get in trouble for that?" Charlie asked as she leaned over Cassidy's shoulder. Not that she understood the code. 

"Why would I? Everyone's too busy to notice what I do and even if they did, it's not like anyone except William Afton will even care." 

"So that's why you wanted to get a job for Silver Parasol? I was wondering why you were being so vague about this," Michael added. 

"Oh. Is this similar to what your brother Jeremy did a couple summers ago where he decided to work as a night guard?" Charlie asked, the gears in her brain practically visible as they turned. 

Michael snapped his fingers and nodded. "I remember that! Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria. You two said something about trying to figure out what William was hiding there, didn't you?" 

Cassidy glanced between the two but didn't reply and continued to look through the code. "What the heck is 'malhare'," she mumbled as she stopped scrolling. 

Michael and Charlie leaned towards the screen, trying to figure out the code. "Never heard of it, seems like a goofy name though," Charlie declared. 

Michael rubbed his forehead. "That sounds kind of familiar? Hold on, maybe Evan remembers something." He ran off to go grab his brother. 

"Evan, you remember anything about the term 'malhare'?" Michael asked urgently once he reached the backroom where Evan was still writing down name suggestions. 

"Malhare? Wasn't that in Father's old stack of notebooks he left behind?" Evan questioned, looking more as though he was talking to himself. 

Henry glanced up. "Now why would that be important?" 

"It was in the game code Cassidy has and apparently the game was created by William," Michael replied bluntly, figuring there was no point in dodging around the truth. 

"I see," Henry mumbled. "Malhare was an idea for a sort of AI William had planned. It was going to be a sort of side character. A goofy antagonist he talked about adding to the shows. It never made much sense and we never had the technology so that idea was scrapped."

By now, Cassidy had wandered over. "This AI, what was it planned to do?" 

Henry rubbed his chin as he thought. "I think it would temporarily affect the animatronics? Yeah, get in their 'brains' so to speak. Make the two of them fight. Pretty funny routine he had in mind, now that I remember. This game hasn't hit the market yet, has it?" 

Cassidy shook her head. "Nope. Two people who beta tested are acting strange though." 

Michael's eyes widened. "Was Vanessa one of the beta testers?" 

Cassidy nodded. "Well done, you connected the dots." 

Henry looked dismayed. "If William really has figured out an AI that can control people's brains, then we need to figure out a way to counteract it." 

"We need to beat him at his own game," Charlie agreed, having come over with Cassidy. 

Cassidy smirked and glanced at the colorful array of arcade cabinets. "I think I have an idea."

Chapter Text

Glitch had refused to elaborate what it had meant about a partner.

Glitch had also refused to explain its joke about Ballora seeming to have a 'restless spirit' with the way she was acting.

Glitch had refused to do anything besides backflips and make sarcastic comments the entire time she attempted to figure out what the problem with Ballora was, only to end up leaving a note saying just to make a new exoskeleton and slap Ballora's casing on it, as well as the entire drive home.

Nessa watched as Glitch walked right through the door before she unlocked the door and followed it.

"So... do you actually physically exist in the world or do you just manipulate my brain to make me think I see you?"

"Bit of both!" Glitch declared decidedly as it started walking around Nessa's house.

"I don't get it though, you were able to sit in the car, yet you also walked through my front door as if it didn't exist."

"I wasn't ACTUALLY sitting down in that car, ya know. It just LOOKED like I was! Sounds as I did a very good job pretending to be sitting in the car as well," Glitch replied in a smug tone.

"Okay... so you can't technically interact with physical objects and therefore gravity means nothing to you and you're not actually touching the ground," Nessa said, more of thinking out loud.

Glitch nodded and purple confetti rained down from the ceiling. "That is CORRECT! YOU WIN ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"

"So how come you were able to toss me that plush earlier?" Nessa tilted her head as she asked, ignoring the confetti in favor of looking more doubtful.

"OH! That's a pretty fun thing I can do. Reach into screens and such, dig through their data in milliseconds to look through it like a catalogue, then pull out anything I like and suddenly it's real! I suppose those are TECHNICALLY physical objects I can interact with, but I can ALSO make them disappear. It's quite fun."

"How do you even do that? It doesn't make any sense!" Nessa pressed.

"I'm inside your head! And am but A PART of technology that shouldn't even exist until like... forty, fifty years from now. Suspend your disbelief a bit, will ya?"

"Hm..." Nessa glared at Glitch. "What about these purple glitchy things?" she asked as she gestured to the still falling confetti.

"That would be confetti," Glitch replied, completely deadpan.

"No kidding. What I mean, is how does it exist? I've been able to interact with the stuff, yet I haven't exactly seen you pull it out of a screen. So what gives?"

Glitch cartwheeled through the house and stopped to stare at some open notebooks in an office that looked like no one had been in it for months. "Not real. Only convincing your brain that the stuff is real AND I can interact with it because it's as real as I am! NOW THEN, what's this?"

Nessa hastily shoved the notebooks in the drawer. "Nothing, really. Just a few drawings. They're all crappy."

"Aww... Nessa's embarrassed by her little doodles! What sorts of things do you draw?" Glitch smirked as it found another one of her metaphorical buttons to push.

"Just odd things. Sometimes people. Whatever comes to mind. It's not important," Nessa grumbled as she locked the drawer she put the notebooks in.

"I dunno, those looked more like memories than just random things to come to mind. Very VERY specific things! I quite liked those drawings, what made you decide to draw them?" Glitch seemed genuinely curious as it made a purple beanbag chair to sit in.

Nessa gave a sound that was halfway between an irritated grumble and a sigh as she unlocked the drawer and pulled out one of the notebooks. "Can't believe I left these out in the open. That was so stupid of me."

Glitch leaned over her shoulder and looked at the drawing. "I like it! I think it's neat."

Nessa turned and gave it a disturbed look before shaking her head. "At this point, I'm not even surprised." She dropped it back in the drawer and slammed said drawer shut.

"SO what made you start drawing those little works of art?" Glitch asked as it flopped backwards into the beanbag.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"NOPE!"

"You're going to dig through my memories if I don't tell you?"

"EXACTLY!"

Nessa sat down on a nearby chair and stared at the drawer, taking a deep breath and carefully blanking out her thoughts and emotions before continuing. "I was seeing a therapist a few months ago, she said if I didn't want to talk about all the memories I want to suppress then I should try either writing them out or drawing them. When writing made it worse, I made the stupid decision to try and draw them. Didn't work, so I stopped seeing a therapist at all and haven't touched this office since."

"INTERESTING!" Glitch poked its head right through the drawer to get a better look at the other drawings before looking at Nessa again. "You draw blood quite well!"

"It took a few tries," she half muttered, figuring it would be a waste of time to point at the fact that the statement was quite demented, given the context.

"Your phone is about to ring!" Glitch declared casually, right before Nessa's phone rang.

"Oh. Thanks?" she said in confusion before running to grab it.

——————————————————————

It turned out that there was 'no longer a need for a beta tester' and that she was 'being transferred to Fazbear Entertainment's Fazbear Funtime Service'. The job itself didn't seem to complicated, it was certainly phrased as though she didn't have much choice in the matter.

Thanks to Glitch, she probably had zero choice in the matter.

These thoughts rang through her head with tones of bitterness as she set up the last of the logs in the fireplace in her house. Nessa struck a match and it wasn't long before there was a blazing fire.

"Ready?" Glitch questioned eagerly.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Nessa mumbled. She w the first of the drawings and through it into the fire without a second glance.

"Better?" Glitch asked with a head tilt.

"Surprisingly, I think I do feel better," Nessa said softly, though not as quiet before. She tore out the next drawing and threw it into the fire. Then the next. Then the next. Then the next. One by one, each drawing burned away as though it had never existed.

Nessa sighed in relief as the fire crackled, seeming pleased with the paper meal.

If only memories were so easily purged.

Chapter Text

Nessa brushed her hair from her face as she got out of bed the next morning. It felt like it was getting quite long. She sat on the edge of the bed and decided it was time to get it cut.

Wait. Her hair wasn't nearly this long. Sure, it wasn't exactly short, but when she had gone to sleep it was definitely closer to being shoulder length than waist length.

Nessa picked up a lock of her hair and examined it. She definitely didn't have rainbow highlights. Well, not before. She did now.

Her head felt oddly fuzzy as she tried to remember last night. It felt like it had been so long ago. She remembered burning her drawings. There was something else, too. Someone had been there as she was burning the— right. That's right. She remembered that entire day now.

"Glitch?" she asked, attempting to keep a calm, even tone. Though it did come out a bit louder and more panicked than intended.

Glitch walked— well, walked in a handstand— through the door. "VANNY! How does it feel to be back?"

"Be... back? What's that supposed to mean?" Nessa had meant to sound stern and angry, yet her voice was shaking.

Glitch launched itself into the air before standing up normally. "FIRST of all! Don't get mad and DO NOT freak out, yes?"

"What's there to be mad and freak out about?" This time, thee sternness was ruined by a yawn. It really was too early in the day to have to deal with this weird creature's shenanigans.

"You MAY or may NOT have been blacked out for... oh I don't know... twenty? Yes, I think it was twenty months!"

Nessa blinked and stared at Glitch. "I see. That's an oddly specific amount of time." At this point she couldn't be bothered to care that her voice had come out painfully strained. "Ids if because you wanted to go on a murder spree?" she asked sarcastically, but it's not as though she would put it past him.

"No! I mean, I DID do a FEW murders so that was FUN, I'll tell you about them later! But no, that's not the MAIN reason!" Glitch replied innocently.

Nessa pinched the bridge of her nose. "We're definitely going to be having an ethics lesson or something later. But for now, I'll bite. What's the main reason?"

"Remember how I said you should have a PARTNER?" Glitch was bouncing up and down. More of he had created a purple trampoline and was jumping up and down on it.

Nessa sighed and flopped backward onto the bed. "Go on."

"How WOULD you feel IF I told you that you adopted a child!" Glitch half asked, half exclaimed exuberantly.

Nessa immediately sat up. "Come again?"

"HONESTLY! The adoption process takes so annoyingly long. Not sure how anyone stands it! But not to worry, shopping is all done and you went to work and everything AND your new job pays quite well!"

Nessa stood up and started pacing. "You mean there's a child, that you adopted while puppeting me around, right here in this house?"

"In all possible views, except maybe kind of SORT OF TECHNICALLY, it was you who adopted that child! The main way being legally and OBVIOUSLY that's the most important one! People are so strange about laws, it's as though it isn't dreadfully good fun to break them. No idea why people don't do it more often!"

Nessa stopped in front of the full length mirror as paced and caught a glimpse of herself. She looked the same as usual, with the exception of perhaps being slightly more fit, longer hair and the new highlights she really hadn't changed. "And during that time, you decided rainbow highlights were necessary?"

Glitch frowned, though just for a split second. "I thought they looked nice!"

They did look nice. Not that Nessa would tell it that. "Whatever. Since I'm assuming I'm very much stuck with this child, go on then, give me a crash course about them. What's their name, what are they like, so on and so forth."

Glitch grinned widely. "His name is Gregory, he's twelve, he's a bit of a brat and very stubborn! Had a lot of determination though, which is ALWAYS a good trait, ya know. He's good with tools, especially computers!" It chuckled. "The boy is already a hacker, as a matter of fact. The PERFECT aide in our schemes!"

"We are not dragging a child into this," Nessa said, her tone finally reaching sternness. "How long had he been living here?"

"Consider the child already dragged in! Just got here VERY LATE last night, was rather tired so perhaps we ought to let him sleep in, no? I WAS going to have you wake up as soon as he got here, BUT I figured it would be easier for you to adjust if it was in the morning! Am I not so very considerate?"

Nessa resumed her pacing. "This isn't good. We need to take him back or something. I can't raise a child, much less force and teach said child to be a serial killer!"

Glitch waved both hands dismissively. "You KNOW I won't let you get rid of him! Besiiiiides, it won't be NEARLY as hard as you're making it out to be!"

They both paused as a door was heard creaking open.

Glitch smirked. "Sounds like your kid is awake!"

Nessa scowled and held up a middle finger to Glitch before walking out the door.

"Vulgar," it muttered sullenly as it followed via cartwheels.

Nessa walked up to where it sounded as though the footsteps were coming from, the old office. It looked much cleaner now, as though it was actually in use. That didn't mean it looked clean. There were papers and notebooks she didn't recognize scattered across the floor. Pens, more papers, and various office supplies coated the desk. The bookshelves were bending under the weight of a variety of knick-knacks. At least the cobwebs were gone though.

She frowned as a young boy, most likely Gregory, was examining the desk. "You shouldn't be too nosy," she said flatly.

The boy looked up, his eyes widening in surprise at being caught. "You're acting a lot differently than you did yesterday."

Nessa shrugged. "I haven't had my morning tea. You drink coffee?"

"I'm twelve."

"I've seen people start younger, kid. You want coffee? Tea? Water? What?"

"Tea is gross. Coffee."

"Tea is not gross and apparently you just haven't had good tea. You're having tea."

"Jerk," Gregory grumbled, quiet enough so that Nessa probably wasn't intended to hear.

Glitch smirked even more as it watched the two interact. "See Vanny? I told you this was the right kid! You two will get along like peanut butter and jelly, I'm certain."

Nessa ignored him. "I can hear you, Gregory. What do you want for breakfast? You got any allergies?"

Gregory rolled his eyes. "Sheesh, you're acting like you never even met me before."

Nessa frowned as she searched through the cupboard. "Acting a bit more respectful wouldn't hurt, I'm trying."

Gregory crossed his arms stubbornly. "Maybe once you do something to earn my respect."

"There's a difference between having someone's respect and being respectful," Nessa grumbled. "Cheerios fine with you?"

Gregory shrugged and didn't say anything else.

She raised an eyebrow. "I'll be back in a minute. You're old enough to get your own breakfast. Eat anything in the house just don't only eat candy, 'kay?"

He muttered something that sounded vaguely like confirmation and Nessa locked herself in her office. "Glitch, is it possible to take a few days off?"

"Already taking two weeks off!" Glitch declared, sitting in the office chair and propping its feet up on the desk.

"Great. Do you know when school starts?"

"The day before you get back to work in case anything goes wrong!" It pointed to a sparkly planner, unicorns and rainbows sort of design. "Everything is IN HERE!"

Nessa took the planner and leafed through it. She had to admit it was pretty well planned out. Actually, she didn't have to admit anything. "You said you killed people. Who?"

"Not Cassidy, if THAT'S what you're wondering. Haven't figured out how to do so without getting you ARRESTED or whatever! Don't really remember names," Glitch said with a shrug. "Oh! You might be interested to know that Jeremy died."

Nessa paused. "Jeremy. From work?" she asked quietly.

It nodded. "Yes, terrible tragedy! Cut off his face with a guillotine paper cutter!" Glitch stifled a giggle. "Not to worry, you went to his funeral. Acted 'normal' so it's not like you said anything weird or out of place!" It began humming a funeral theme. "Funerals are such a funny concept, don't you think?"

"It was your fault Jeremy died, wasn't it?" Nessa's gaze hardened as she looked at Glitch in disgust.

"Meh. He was weak and would've died young ONE way or another, I think! It's no big deal," Glitch declared, launching into handsprings.

"It's a very big deal!" she snapped. "Can't you take something seriously for once?"

"Let me THINK. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM... NAH! Besides, don't you have a child to supervise?" Glitch ask with a pause and nonchalant head tilt.

Nessa scoffed and looked through the planner, pointedly ignoring it.

Glitch poked its head straight through the door. "Gregory is eating a spoonful of sugar."

Nessa didn't look at or say anything to Glitch, but certainly was rather quick to go through the door, causing Gregory to immediately swallow the sugar before hastily pulling a carrot out of the fridge and biting into it with an ever so slight look of guilt, not even washing it first.

Chapter Text

Nessa sighed. "I saw you eating sugar." 

Gregory shrugged, chowing down on the carrot. "Oh well. What we're you on a phone call about?" he asked curiously, seemingly in a much better mood now. Possibly also energetic from consuming who knows what. 

"Why would you say I was on a phone call?" 

"You're not exactly quiet. I could hear you talking through that door and then pausing, as if waiting for someone else to talk. I also saw a phone in there earlier. I didn't hear anything you said though!" The last sentence was quickly exclaimed when Gregory saw a look of wordy on Nessa's face. 

"That makes sense," Nessa said softly. It was either lie to Gregory or explain to him. She readied her own breakfast and decided to see if she could just ignore the question. 

"Did someone die?" Gregory asked bluntly. 

Nessa snapped her neck towards him. "Why do you ask?" Her brain immediately went to Glitch talking about all the murders. There was also Jeremy. 

Gregory dug through the fridge to look for more food. "You just got off a phone call and you're acting like people do when they hear some friend or distant relative died. I'm not stupid." 

Nessa shook her head. "He wasn't a friend." 

"Was he your—" 

"Now would be a terrible time to finish that sentence. He was an irritating co-worker who thought of me as a friend. Don't make jokes like that, Gregory." 

"So that's what you were in the office about?" he asked, a bit quieter now. 

Nessa nodded. It was a sort of half-truth, but nothing to be done about that. They began eating bowls of yogurt with berries in silence before she decided to say something. "I figured we'd go shopping today, in case there was anything else you needed or wanted. Maybe go do something fun, like bowling." 

Gregory's eyes lit up. "Can we drive down to Hurricane? I have a few pen pals there and we recently exchanged phone numbers so I can call them and tell them we're coming down!" 

Glitch appeared in the seat next to Gregory with a twinkle in its eye. "If you don't drive the kid down there, I will! I am RATHER fond of Hurricane!" 

Nessa barely spared Glitch a glance. On one hand, taking Glitch were it wanted to go seemed like an objectively terrible idea. On the other hand, they would end up there either way, Gregory wanted to go, and it would be best if she was in control when they went. 

"Fine. It's a bit of a drive so we'll leave in an hour."

——————————————————————

The ride there was quiet, there had been a bit of traffic, Glitch had sat in the front the whole way there complained that the population was too large and if it was shrunk down there would be less traffic, Gregory had a puzzle book he worked on determinedly, as well as some strange gadget he tinkered with. Nessa hadn't asked about it, but had noted Glitch's interest in it. 

"This is the right address, right?" Nessa asked as she glanced at the GPS and pulled into the driveway. 

Gregory looked up from his puzzle book and nodded vigorously. "Yep! I wanted to meet them at the diner, but they said it was closed today," he said as bolted out of the car. 

"Perfect. Ready to go meet them all them all then?" It occurred to Nessa that she hadn't bothered to ask even the bare minimum of information about Gregory's pen pals. Not even names. Hopefully they weren't some weirdo creeps. At least if anything went wrong, Glitch would probably be able to handle the situation. She mentally slapped herself for thinking that way. 

Nessa shook her head violently, as if to derail the entire train of thought and walked up as Gregory repeatedly pressed the doorbell until Nessa gently pulled his hand away. 

The door flew open and a very familiar fourteen year old gaped at the duo, well, technically trio since Glitch was standing there and looking very pleased. But it's not like anyone other than Nessa could see if. The aforementioned fourteen year old slammed the door shut in their faces, much to Gregory's confusion. 

There was some shouting and general chaos heard within the house, which Nessa very much pretended not to notice, until Henry Emily opened the door. 

Nessa grinned weakly. "Gregory wanted to meet his pen pals, said he called ahead?" 

Henry gave her an odd look, causing her to realize that he definitely remembered her as well, but didn't comment on it. That much she was certainly grateful for. "He did call! The kids have been looking forward to meeting him. Why don't you two come inside?" 

There was no getting out of this one. Glitch started whistling and immediately began poking around the house as Charlie walked into the dining room, which was situated close to the entrance. "Gregory! Glad to see you survived the trip." She gave Nessa a slight passive aggressive glance for a split second, which really wasn't fair, given Nessa had never even attempted to murder her. But also kind of sort of fair enough. 

Elizabeth either didn't care about Nessa's presence or was simply good at pretending that she didn't care. "Come one, Gregory! Uncle Henry got us a video game console about a week ago!" 

Gregory glanced at Nessa, as if to ask for permission. She nodded and he let himself get dragged off. 

Henry smiled as the kids ran off happily before turning to Nessa. "By the way, Michael wanted to talk to you. I would've done it myself but he seems to understand what all is going on a bit better. Besides, I have some animatronics to work on!" 

Nessa blinked. "What's going on? Okay, sure." 

"He's over in the living room, I'll be in my office," Henry added before walking off. 

Nessa wandered over to the living room, where Michael was sitting on the ground and sketching various animatronics. A variation of Freddy, one of Chica, one of Bonnie, a wolf, and an alligator. No point in beating around the bush. "Henry said you wanted to talk to me?" 

Michael jumped slightly as his concentration was broken and he looked up. "Oh, right. I've been meaning to talk to you for a while, almost two years. You were just impossible to track down." 

Glitch glanced up from inspecting Michael's project. "Quite fun being hard to track down." 

Nessa shrugged. "It was a weird time. What did you want to say?" 

Michael held up his sketches. "Uncle Henry is opening a new location in a couple days. We wondering if you'd like a job there." 

Nessa raised an eyebrow, genuinely startled. Even Glitch looked surprised. "A job?" she said flatly, to temporarily stunned to ask a proper question. 

Michael nodded. "Head of security. Start in a couple days. I know it's rather soon, but since you switched jobs you've been impossible to find. Dumb luck that you happened to adopt my siblings' pen pal."

"Yeah... an odd coincidence," she muttered as she resisted the urge to glance at Glitch. Definitely not a coincidence. "Seems like an odd request though, I don't exactly have experience with security." 

Michael shrugged. "You have the guts to stand William," he said with a smirk. 

Nessa frowned. "I'm not sure I could do that again. Besides, the commute would suck." 

"Actually, it's not far from where the rest stop you used to work at is. From the address Gregory gave us, it's closer to your house." 

Glitch examined the sketches from a handstand. "If you pay CAREFUL attention, you can tell we're in another if YOU don't then I WILL situation! Your current job will be easy to quit." 

Nessa sighed. "Fine, I suppose I'll take the job." 

Michael looked pleased and scribbled in his notebook for a second before ripping out a page and handing it to her. "Here, this should be all the information you need."

Chapter Text

As Nessa pulled back into the driveway, she noticed that there was a package sitting on the porch.

It was late, so Gregory hadn't talked much. He'd barely managed to force himself to stay awake the entire drive.

Nessa silently grabbed the package before she unlocked the door. Gregory stumbled sleepily over to his room for the night and Nessa placed there package on the table to open it up.

It was a VR headset.

Glitch did handsprings across all of the chairs, occasionally phasing through the table. "Oh GOOD! Gregory's headset came in! Been waiting FOREVER for that to get here!"