Chapter Text
“This is stupid,” Samira hissed, waving a hand through her long white hair in frustration. “Like, olympic-gold levels of stupid.” Her blue eyes scanned the stage through her glasses in anticipation. This was a terrible idea and the fact she was roped into it made it even worse.
“You're stupid,” Sweets snarked back. “It'll be fine, Chess, and if it isn't, just blame Jet like always.” She spoke around the small lollipop in her cheek, twirling it around with her black painted nails as her green eyes filtered across the stage, shining with casual confidence from the lights above them both. "'sides," Sweets said, glancing at her, "you agreed to this anyway."
“Unwillingly!” Samira protested, spinning to glare at Sweets.
“Seemed plenty willing when Flare called this ‘too fun of a challenge to pass up,’” Sweets replied, winking annoyingly and smirking, her black lipstick shimmering from the stage lights as they changed to a bright pink hue.
“We all do whatever Flare tells us,” Samria grumbled, narrowing her eyes at the girl beside her and folding her arms “Including you.”
“Yeah yeah,” Sweets muttered and waved a hand dismissively, which Samira found infuriating. She opened her mouth for a retort before the stage lights suddenly flashed with colour, moving rhythmically with the loud music that suddenly blared out of the speakers.
Samira flinched at the sudden noise before shifting her gaze to Sweets, who was smirking like a maniac.
“Oh fuck yeah,” she grins, shifting her lollipop to the other cheek with her tongue and focusing on the stage.
“Of course you’re excited,” Samira sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
The music blasted an obnoxiously upbeat rhythm, barely syncing with the flashing multicolored lights before they finally settled on the stage. Samira rolled her eyes at the lazy performance, tilting her nose up at the children a few years younger and the teens a few years older who seemed enthralled with it all.
A smoke machine began to pour out a white cloud that covered the stage, covering the back of it. After a few seconds, a grey wolf animatronic rushed out onto the stage, the colours of the lights causing the metal skin to sheen. She began to play on a keytar, pressing keys with inhuman efficiency. Samira frowned and shifted slightly in discomfort as the crowd around her cheered, shouting the animatronic’s name.
“Roxy, Roxy, Roxy!” They chorused, Samira glanced at Sweets and her jaw dropped as the girl was screaming and cheering with the crowd, pumping her fists, the corners of her green eyes pinched in excitement.
“S-Sweets?!” Samira stared, slack-jawed.
“Live a little, Chess!” Sweets shot back, laughing and swaying slightly with the music, waving her lollipop in the air like a flag. Samira shook her head and groaned in annoyance before another cheer from her friend and the crowd forced her gaze back up to the stage. A massive alligator jumped onto the stage, causing Samira to flinch again and Sweets to cheer even louder, laughing.
“Monty Gator! Monty Gator!” the crowd chanted gratingly. Monty roared and began strumming his bass guitar, adding another melody to the discordant and unpleasant song. Samira scrunched up her nose and clenched her fists, her heart pounding. Glaring at the stage, Roxy and Monty faced each other. They grinned and played in sync before suddenly splitting apart. A white chicken ran between them with a loud strum of her electric guitar, shifting the hammer and causing another discordant sound into the song.
“Chica!” Sweets screamed out in joy, Samira raising an eyebrow.
“Seriously?”
“She’s my second favourite, what am I supposed to do?!”
“I can’t believe you came with me instead of Flare.” Samira sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration again as Sweets laughed. Suddenly, the stage lights all focused on the center as a rising platform launched into the air, an animatronic bear on top of it pointing a finger to the sky as he began to sing. Samira closed her eyes and covered her ears in frustration. How could anyone possibly be enjoying this? It’s grating, terribly mixed, and filled with autotune. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, only to meet a pair of familiar green ones, wide with concern. Freckles dusted over too-pale skin, inches from her own.
“Chess?” Sweets questioned softly, nearly inaudible to the crowd. She slowly and gently placed her hands on Samira’s and pulled them from her ears, the loud sound causing her to flinch again before Sweets pulsed her grip on her hands and nodded. “We’ve seen enough. Let’s regroup at El Chip’s, yeah?” She said calmly, a contrast to what she was mere moments ago. Samira gave a weak nod. Of course, she’d panic here. Fucking typical. Sweets gently pulled her by her hand through the crowd, snapping at an older teen who tried to get them to stay and enjoy the show before shoving past him and pulling Samira with her. Was she really this much of a liability? Sweets was the responsible one right now, Sweets! It was beyond embarrassing, she couldn’t let Flare see her like this, and god forbid Jet saw her, her reputation would be ruined. Samira took measured deep breaths as the sound slowly faded away, opening her eyes and seeing the bright neon ‘El Chip’s’ sign in front of her. She slipped her hand from Sweets’ grip, swallowing hard as she fell into step beside her.
“You okay, Chess?”
“Fine, Sweets,” Samira replied stiltedly.
“... You sure?” Sweets insisted.
“Perfectly.” Samira breathed out as she entered the restaurant, the orange and brown tiling with the metallic silver and yellow ceiling was a tacky mix, souring her mood further as she spotted the other two members of their group. Flare slammed his head onto the table, surprising her for a moment as Jet laughed. Ah, something must’ve happened then.
We’re back!” Sweets sang, skipping over to the boys’ table. She hip-bumped Jet off the edge of the booth and slid in beside him.
“Didja miss us?” she purred, batting her lashes at Jet. He only rolled his eyes, clutching his chest in mock longing.
“Oh, so very much, my dear Sweets.” He said dramatically, leaning against the wall of the restaurant, his black locks swayed with the movement, the red tips covering his black eyes.
That’s what I like to hear, Jet.” Sweets grinned. Jet snorted, covering his mouth with a caramel-skinned hand to stifle his laughter.
“How’d it go?” Flare asked, running a hand through his short black hair, his grey eyes focused on Samira.
“It went fine, the animatronics are surprisingly dexterous,” she began. “Roxy doesn’t seem to have much of anything specific, Monty can leap, Chica can run but I assume they all can, and we didn’t see Freddy do anything out of what was expected before we left.” Samira listed off, watching as Flare considered the information before nodding.
“Good, Jet and I found an area with no cameras near the back of the ball pit.” Flare informed, scooting over to allow Samira to sit next to him as Sweets and Jet began to banter with one another, shoving, insulting, and betting all at the same time.
“So are we still doing this?” Samira said, resting her elbows on the table and resting her head on her palms.
“Yep.” Flare confirmed, nodding his head and crossing one leg over the other. “We’re still doing this.”
“This is stupid.” Samira insisted.
“You think most of our plans are stupid.” Flare dismissed.
“Because they are.” Samira hissed.
“It’ll be easy, we’re just staying in a Pizzaplex for a couple of days, we’ve even got a kitchen and water, what could go wrong?” Flare shrugged.
“You just jinxed it.” Jet deadpanned.
“We’re doomed.” Sweets sighed.
“Halfway in the grave already.”
“I can see the angels now!”
“God himself carries me into heaven!”
“The pearly gates-”
“Enough.” Flare interrupted, watching as both Jet and Sweets dissolved into snickers, bumping shoulders as they laughed. “Let’s start moving to daycare, we wanna get there as soon as possible to avoid suspicion. If we get caught on the way in we’ll most likely get escorted out during close.” Flare strategized, gesturing with his hands. Samira nodded and stood, letting Flare out of the booth. She watched as both Jet and Sweets shoved at each other until Sweets yelped after a particularly hard push from Jet sent her sprawling out of the booth, Flare catching her just in time so she didn’t land on her back.
“You bastard!” She hissed venomously at a chortling Jet.
“Me personally, I just wouldn’t have fallen like that.” He spoke haughtily, scooting out of the booth and dancing away from an irate Sweets. Flare snorted and flicked Sweets’ shoulder. She glared at him, reaching to flick his forehead, but he slapped her hand away. She chased him as he jogged away from her, Jet snorting at their antics but choosing to walk with Samira instead. She gave him a once-over glance, to which he winked.
“Checking me out, Chess?”
“Deciding how easy you’d be to murder.” She deadpanned.
“But still looking anyway!” He cheers.
“It would be decidedly easy.”
“Oh, I’m easy alright, especially for you.” He said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“I feel like we lost track of the conversation,” Samira replied exasperatedly.
“We didn’t lose track of noth-” An alarm blared, silencing Jet’s reply as an automated voice played over the speakers.
“Good evening! We are extremely sorry about the unfortunate turn of events regarding tonight’s show. Please exit the building while our extremely qualified and specialized staff work overtime to try and solve what went wrong tonight. Refunds of tonight’s show are unavailable.”
Samira frowned in confusion, checked the stage, and froze. The stage was in chaos. Freddy lay down on the ground, completely lifeless, his eyes wide open and staring at something. Roxy was snarling. Samira didn’t know they could seem so full of emotions. Her teeth were barred, and her eyes predatory and feral locked onto someone or something as she paced the stage, her keytar haphazardly across the stage. Chica was frozen, wide-eyed, and twitching, screeching a discordant tone that grated against Samira’s ears, causing her to wince. Chica’s head snapped to the left and Samira froze, the eyes were vacant of anything, no emotion, no anger like Roxy's, just, nothing. Samira felt pinned by Chica’s gaze before forcing herself to look further backstage to where Monty was. Monty was seething with rage, his body trembling and twitching, hands clawed and body hunched over, predatory. His bass guitar was in pieces behind him.
Jet coughed, startling her enough to break her out of the trance she’d placed herself in. She looked at him to find him staring at her with unsettled eyes. “So,” Jet began.
“Are we still doing this?” He asked, snapping Flare out of his stare at the animatronics. He nodded and slipped his hand into Sweets and tugged her away, breaking her gaze on the stage and moving with him.
“This is our time, let’s move to daycare quickly.” Flare said, the tone too calm to be natural. Flare was nervous. Samira narrowed her eyes but let it slide, she was nervous too but everyone else seemed plenty willing.
“What’s our cover story if we get stopped?” Samira questioned.
“We’re looking for Jet’s little brother and Sweets sister, we’re convinced they have a crush on each other and never separate.” Flare replied, snorting at Sweets' appalled look, the mood lightening considerably.
“Excuse me? Astoria would never fall for anybody even slightly related to Jet!” She stated, askance.
“What? But I’m so pretty!” Jet said, batting his eyelashes at Sweets.
“Pretty fuckin’ ugly more like!” She said, blowing a raspberry as they passed through the daycare entrance, moving past parents holding toddlers or holding hands with kids. Samira rolled her eyes at their banter and looked at Flare who had his head on a swivel, constantly looking out for both staff bots and human staff. She was slightly surprised at his vigilance, it wasn’t as if this behavior was unusual, it was just more concentrated. Flare took his role as their ‘leader’ fairly seriously even when it started as a joke since he was the eldest. Seeing him so observant was… nice, even if slightly unexpected. Samira shook her head, breaking her train of thought before watching as Flare whistled, a sharp high note followed by a longer lower note, and then repeated a second time. Sweets and Jet stopped their ribbing and turned to Flare who quickly nodded his head at the slide. Jet, ever the reckless follower he is, grabbed the edges of the slide and threw himself in it, launching himself down like a missile. Sweets, always his rival in all things stupid, did the same thing, biting down on her lollipop to keep it from falling out of her mouth as she rocketed down the slide. Flare rolled his eyes but waved her along. Samira sighed.
“This’ll work? You’re sure?” She questioned, eyeing the slide warily before looking around.
“It will if you get down quickly,” Flare insisted, gesturing more forcefully.
“What about the cameras on the slide?”
“Taken care of.” Flare hissed.
“How?” Samira replied with a raised eyebrow.
“Is this the time?” Flare said, looking around hastily before focusing back on her. “We need to do this now or not at all, and half of us are already down the slide.”
“Fine,” She huffed, Flare could keep his secrets. It’s not like she’s their main strategist or anything. As much as that title felt undeserved and slightly pretentious when it was handed to her, she was the best of them academically and in terms of general strategy. Chess is her designated ‘code name’ for a reason. She put her hands on the edge of the slide, her blue-painted nails matching with the color of the plastic as she pushed off. Darkness enveloped her until suddenly her vision was filled with obnoxious colors and plastic balls. She moved out of the way of the slide and looked to her left just in time to see Sweets stuffing a plastic ball into Jet’s open mouth with him in a headlock. Samira grimaced at the lack of cleanliness before she picked up a green ball and tossed it, aiming for Sweets' forehead but missing and striking her neck. Sweets turned and met Samira’s eyes.
“We’re supposed to be sneaking around.” She hissed.
“I’m being plenty sneaky.” Sweets retorted, letting go of Jet who spat out the ball.
“We’re super sneaky.” Jet added, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.
“They’re gonna check the ball pit at least one more time, so maybe we don’t fuck around for a bit,” Samira said, stressed.
“Calm down, Chess. We’ll be fine, security isn’t paid nearly well enough to check more than once.” Sweets said, adjusting the lollipop in her mouth and shrugging in that unbothered way that annoyed Samira to bits. Samira rolled her eyes as the sound of plastic balls rustling against one another interrupted their conversation. A mop of black hair stood out of the balls before the rest of the boy sat up, signifying that their fearless leader himself had finally joined them.
“Everyone alright?” Flare asked.
“Nope, real hurt from the plastic balls,” Jet whined dramatically, yelping when Sweets kicked at the back of his knee, causing him to fall into the ball pit, cursing. Samira rolled her eyes and looked at Sweets, unimpressed, only to be met with a self-satisfied smirk and a wink from toxic green eyes. Samira quickly shifted her gaze to Flare who trudged to stand next to her.
“Let’s be quiet for a while, at least until the lights shut off,” He tasked them with, before sitting down in the ball bit to where only his head was visible. He motioned for the rest of them to follow his lead. Samira sat down and the balls came up to her nose until she shifted, frowning at her lack of height. Sweets was fine up to her neck where as Jet had completely vanished. Samira’s brows furrowed she felt something touch her knee and the ball pit rustle. She reached down and felt around the plastic until she felt the curly locks that were Jet’s hair and tugged. The boy predictably snapped his head up and glared at her, rubbing his head.
“That was rude-” Jet began.
“Shh!” Flare snapped, interrupting. “Let’s take this time to make sure we have everything. Sweets?” He prompted.
“Got the two flashlights in my hoodie,” She drawled.
“Awesome,” Flare praised. “Jet?”
“Multitool is in my boot like always, and I’ve got the lockpick kit in my pocket.” Jet listed off before sticking out his tongue. “The kit hurt like hell down the slide by the way.” He informed.
“Tough.” Sweets eloquently responded.
“Okay, pal-” Jet began to defend himself.
“Chess?” Flare interrupted.
“I’ve got the extra batteries and I stashed the spray paint in the bathrooms on the second floor behind the trash can,” Samira informed.
“Awesome. Looks like we’re all set.” Flare said. “We just need to wait for a while then.”
“Joy.” Sweets said, sighing and sinking further into the ball pit.
“Waiting game!” Jet said, flopping down into the ball pit and protesting when Sweets began to bury him.
“It’ll just be for an hour and a half at maximum.” Samira estimated.
“Patience is key.” Flare said.
“Okay, infantry wannabe,” Samira said sarcastically, smirking when he tried to smack her and missed.