Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"MELODY- MELODY PUT THE APPLES IN THE OVEN!! WE NEED AN APPLE PIE FOR THE TAPES!!"

"Fandrew, I got it!! Stop yelling in my ears already, you're making me deaf!!!"

Melody hastily moved criss-cross in the game, a tray in the player's hands with nothing but a red apple in it, in the search of the alleged child oven Fandrew had been oh-so-lovingly pestering her about. The LIVE chat section at the bottom right corner of the livestream soon exploded full of hints, if not with instructions to help guide the perplexed pink drone further into gameplay, a task easier said than done. 

After some decent time, though, after seeing how the player character was running in circles around the VERY table the white oven sat on, Fandrew felt like moments away from snatching the keyboard from Melody's (non-existent) hands and showing her how REAL gaming is done, but he thought better of it. First of all, he didn't want to outright TWEAK in front of the viewers!! No no, despite his gradually thinning patience, he had his silly image to maintain. No need to lose his cool after the box incident. Couldn't lose that pristine image of silliness the fans had formed about him.

Second of all, he didn't have proper claws. SURE, he had stiff arms that could rotate 360° AND work functional just like normal ones, though their ends weren't the most reliable when it came to smashing in ten different controls at the same time on a keyboard. Not to mention how much of a pain Fandrew felt AFTER hacking a bit for B-PO last time!! Talk about carpal tunnel syndrome, those "hand" pains were excruciatingly uncomfortable to work with for at least a day or two. 

A few high-pitched giggles next to the prototype shifted his attention back to the game on the large screen, flashing in different colors against his own dark blue.

Oh right, Amanda the Adventurer. It seemed Melody had finally gotten ahold of a new tape and was playing her way through another episode already while Fandrew was on a little day dream break. Good, not too much time had passed, yet.

"Fandrew, where should Amanda and Wooly go next?? I can't choose between the bakery OR the post office!!", Melody squeaked through her voice box.

The blue cursor flickered back and forth between the two goofily animated buildings in the game, darting indecisively as Melody hovered in anticipation, her digital gaze glued to the screen with excitement. She was so absorbed in the following events in the game, her attention so entirely focused on the choices in front of her, that she hadn't even noticed Fandrew's .. eery silence.

Normally, his sharp quips or overly dramatic advice would flood the usually silent air, filling every pause with his usual mix of sass and impatience. In the long run, giving the stream without Fandroid a bit more spice to it.

But this time, there was nothing. Not even the slightest reaction.

"Fandrew?" Melody's voice chirped through her speakers, still high with enthusiasm, though a trace of curiosity started to creep into her tone. "Come on, where should we go next? I need some expert guidance here!!" She hovered playfully, donut-shaped drone body bouncing slightly up and down in sync with her teasing.

Still, silence from the latter.

Melody's pixelated eyes briefly flickered away from the game. She was used to Fandrew's outbursts 'til now, his sharp corrections and not-so-subtle hints to steer her back on track when she strayed too far from the game's objectives. Her mischief loved to ignore him on purpose just to hear him irritated. Watching him throw his little tantrums when she pretended to be clueless had become one of her favorite parts of this stream.

But now? Fandrew hadn't said a word in the last couple of minutes. No sarcastic remarks. No over-the-top instructions. Nothing. The absence of his voice was almost louder than his usual chatter.

Melody's exhiliration dimmed, if only for a moment. The blue cursor stopped moving between the bakery and the post office, the animated icons practically glowing on the screen. The pink drone let go of the keyboard and mouse for a second, her focus entirely set on the prototype now.

The playful flutter in her circuits began to wane, replaced by a faint buzz of unease and confusion.

Even though it probably was a silly thought, something felt..

..off.

Chapter Text

“FANDREW!!!”

Fandroid’s monitor head shot upward the second he was startled by the loud noise in the Panic Room.

 As his internal systems struggled to boot up into Safe Mode correctly, the senses of the musical robot were overwhelmed by an unwelcoming feeling of fear. Who just yelled that loudly? Was someone hurt or in danger? Were ADHOC’s systems finally compromised? 

And, the utmost important question of all - was everything okay in the Panic Room with him?

The fans in Fandroid’s circuitry whirred loudly, trying to desperately cool down the heat overload caused by his sudden onslaught of anxious thoughts. The droid’s eyes darted nervously around on the ceiling, short, jagged breaths distorting his audio perception. Fandroid’s heart - that is, if he had one - throbbed with a deafening rhythm in his boombox chest. It almost hurt the musical robot he was awake.

 It felt hard -  nearly IMPOSSIBLE -  for Fandroid to make sense of anything in his current state. Though, one thing was sure for the musical robot:

This scenario.. it felt familiar. FAR too familiar.

Was he having a spontaneous panic attack? The mere thought alone sent him spiraling further into emotional distress. He hadn’t been acquainted with this.. feeling for a VERY, very long time. He didn't need to experience it again.

Even though robots and humans had almost nothing in common biologically, they shared one thing: both struggled with stress in strangely similar ways, give or take. What was that method of calming down again? The 101 guide to eliminating stress and anxiety? Think Fandroid, think!

Fandroid frantically searched through his memory banks. He recalled reading an article in one of ADHOC's handbooks he once had been skimming through, “Worries and Anxiousness: Top 10 Easy Ways to Calm Down” . But that information felt out of reach now, buried under the storm of swirling thoughts. Fandroid's limited options were running thin.

This was BAD.

If Fandroid didn’t find sooner or later a way to quickly prevent himself from eventually overheating his internal machinery, he could break down. Not in the sense of ‘malfunctioned, in need of repair’, but ACTUAL irreversible damage would be dealt to his hardware.

The kind no one at ADHOC could fix. Certainly not the dead humans on the ground, not even B-PO. 

And that meant something by all of ADHOC’s repair measures.

At that point in deep thinking, Fandroid’s sight had swirled into a colorful vertigo by now, a fleeting warning sign for the musical robot to cut it out. But how would he do that, when his mind was so clouded and his vision so foggy? The internal fans emitted a roaring sound, scraping against the inside of his metallic casing, signaling that they were struggling to keep up.

Wait a second , Fandroid thought.

His vision .

An idea sparked in his code.

The ADHOC bot slowly closed his twitching eyes and relaxed the built up in his claws that had been gripping the plastic arms of his gaming chair this whole time.  The spinning sensation started to resolve on its own without the visual input, yet the (anxious) thoughts in Fandroid’s head were still nagging at him, too persistent to leave.

“..one of the ten best ways of handling stress is to think of positive thoughts” , the musical robot gradually recalled. “Any simple thought, whether silly or unrealistic, can be enough to silence the bad ones until it’s over.”

That was when Fandroid heard amidst the raging chaos in his head, laughter. Genuine laughter.

Fandroid, with the growing upper hand over his fears, turned to face the source of the familiar noise. His squinted eyes lost their ugly wrinkles when he then realized whose laughing he was hearing: it was Melody’s.

Deep within the musical robot, Fandroid couldn’t help himself but put a small smile on his blue face. His sister and his cousin Fandrew (who Fandroid noticed moments later) were livestreaming a game at the moment and chattering, albeit in a higher volume with the watching viewers. Both were bantering back and forth in a playful manner, unaware of the aforementioned awake droid nearby.

It was then the racing trainwreck of fragmented thoughts slowly halted in its tracks, eventually stopping several miles before it could’ve crashed into a dead end.

While Fandroid’s systems quieted, a new, this time warm thought crossed his mind: He was still in the Panic Room, safe and sound. His family was with him, and they wouldn’t leave his side any time soon. B-PO of all bots made sure of that. That Fandroid was in good hands.

.. and that nothing would EVER hurt him in here. Ever.

And so, at last, everything in the world fell into sweet silence.

Fandroid leant his back on the gaming chair. Everything settled down into its place, just as things were before.

.

.

.

"Oh hey, Fandroid! Were you awake this whole time??"