Chapter Text
It was everything you could have ever hoped for when you first visited a bit before a year after opening. Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. A feature of advanced technology working together with retro themes to put together a show stopping experience. You had loved it the moment you walked into the place, eyes twinkling with pure astonishment as your gaze took in everything from the gorgeous neon lights to the incredible golden statue of Freddy himself front and center in your view ahead. You had gone with a few friends after begging them to join you to revel in the rumored highly advanced animatronics that were said to be there. It wouldn’t be a Fazbear Entertainment Inc. location without an animatronic or two, but you had heard the main animatronics were so much more than that. That these ones were truly special. You were expecting to see the big bots like Glamrock Freddy and Glamrock Chica, but what you weren’t expecting were the numerous S.T.A.F.F. bots and Wet Floor Bots that were scattered throughout the vicinity. It was truly something to be seen.
Walking in, your jaw was practically on the floor. As a robotics and mechanical nerd, you couldn’t help but admire the S.T.A.F.F. bot that scanned your admission pass with a small “thank you” that left its voice box. One of your friends bumped you forward to lead the group.
“Geez, don’t get too caught up there. We haven’t even seen the Glamrocks yet,” he said with a snicker, “I’m sure you’ll fall head over heels once you get a look at them.”
“You don’t know that,” you rolled your eyes at the guy, but he persisted.
“No, I do know that. Your little nerdy heart won’t be able to resist them. I’ve already come here once with my family. Trust me when I say you especially will be swept away.”
You walked forward, taking in everything to be seen. It was a bit crowded, and definitely too loud, but you couldn’t help but be filled with excitement despite it all. You had worked with plenty of small robots and different types of machines, but you dreamt of the day you might be able to work with something like the robots surrounding you. It made you all the more excited to see what kind of works of art the main animatronics would be. If they were more advanced than what you already saw, you couldn’t imagine how impressive they would be.
After stalling way too often, your friends decided to take the lead, pulling you along with them to upgrade your passes to allow you in the pizzeria atrium. Once fully upgraded, they guided you to the escalators to reach the elevator that would lead you to the rest of the building. As you passed, you noticed a set of doors to your right with a sign above it saying, “Superstar Daycare Pick-Up.” You looked at it curiously before one of your friends spoke up.
“Apparently, there is an animatronic in the daycare too, but you need to have a daycare pass in order to enter. I think we’re all much too old for a daycare pass, though,” she said as she looked at the doors with you before turning back to laugh at the last part.
You stayed looking at the doors for a bit too long wondering what the animatronic in the daycare might look like. You never saw advertisements for anyone outside of the Pizzaplex save for the Glamrocks themselves. You knew at some point your curiosity would get the better of you, but for now, you followed your friends inside the elevator and waited to be brought to the first level. Arriving there allowed your amazement to return. It truly was a magical place. The ceiling was incredibly high, and you could see some of the upper floors from where you arrived at the railing that protected you from falling down to the atrium’s floor level. There were so many sounds, so many smells. Honestly, so many people, too. But at the moment you didn’t mind. You were too busy looking out for the famous animatronics.
You and your friends decided to take full advantage of your time at the Pizzaplex. You played Fazerblast and Monty’s Gator Golf. At one point your friends convinced you to even take a ride on Roxy Raceway. Bonnie Bowl was even a great time, though it seemed you had missed Bonnie’s performance in the small area. As much as it pained you, you skipped Mazercise. You didn’t feel like getting lost in a place like this, even if it was the point of the game. You’d have to apologize to Chica sometime for it if you ever met her. You might not know her, but you had a feeling it might hurt her feelings. You tried to look inside Kid’s Cove, but it clearly wasn’t an area for your group to be in. After all of the fun and getting treats from some of the food places near the atrium, you all decided to go to the gift shops. You don’t really know how it happened, but somehow along the way you found yourself lost in a place called “Rockstar Row.” You were wide-eyed and slightly panicked at not being able to find your group.
That’s when you spotted the main animatronic himself. Freddy Fazbear, walking with a staff member through the small crowd that gathered around him. He was waving and smiling to everyone, bending over to sign the occasional item or pat a little one’s head. He seemed larger than life. Or maybe he was just large. The bear had to be at least seven feet tall. That was just a guess, but you had a good feeling you were right on that guess. He seemed to be happily in his element. You guessed it was what he was created to do, so that was only to be expected, but he really seemed to enjoy it. He must have felt your eyes on him, because he turned and to lock eyes with you. You panicked, not truly realizing you were staring until he noticed and froze in your spot. He waved at you, kind and friendly with his aura as he tried to greet you from afar. You meekly waved back before tearing your eyes away to walk in a different direction to try looking for your friends once more. You weren’t paying enough attention and ended up tripping on someone else’s shoelaces. You readied yourself for the fall and the possibility of a wicked nosebleed but suddenly felt something stop you mid fall.
Soft. His grip was firm, but so surprisingly soft as he caught your arm to keep you from falling. Freddy must have moved through the crowd to catch you somehow despite being completely surrounded moments ago. Almost as if he had accounted for it. He quickly picked you up to your feet to have you face him as he scanned your person.
“Goodness! That could have been a nasty fall. I am glad that I caught you in time. Are you alright? You do not seem to have any injuries from what I can see,” Freddy said as he twitched his ears at you waiting for confirmation of your status.
But in his eyes, you somehow saw it. The concern, the slight panic and an overall sense of relief seeing you upright and standing without injury. It nearly overwhelmed you with how human it felt. He kept his hand on your arm as he awaited your answer you assumed to keep you steady.
It clicked then and there. This wasn’t just an animatronic. This was somehow a sentient being. The longer you looked at Freddy and studied his actions, the clearer it became. You had worked with countless robots and machines, and none would go out of their way to catch you or look so relieved afterwards. No AI could be this smart and caring on its own without some sort of sentience that came along with it. There was something more than met the eye about Freddy, and now you wanted more than anything to figure out what that was. What was working inside to make this animatronic seem more human than most humans you had met on the street? You figured the other animatronics must be the same. It would only make sense. But how was it done? How did Fazbear Entertainment manage to pull off such a feature? If you would have caught yourself and your thinking, you would have noticed your intense gaze sparkling at Freddy that started to make him confused on whether you were able to respond to him properly.
Freddy seemed to tilt his head to the side in question of your sudden awe of him. He perked for a moment and took his hand away as he started to move his hands to sign something at you. It took you a moment to understand that he was trying to communicate through sign language with the misunderstanding that you couldn’t respond to his words. You quickly came back to yourself to shake your hands back and forth at him.
“Oh no! I can understand you talking just fine! I was just taken a bit by surprise. Thank you for the save. I am alright,” you quickly responded with a warm smile.
Freddy seemed glad to have your answer and gave a smile of his own before patting your shoulder, “I am happy to hear that. I hate to cut this short, but I must get ready for tonight’s concert. Please do your best to keep even footing and watch out for yourself. I hope to see you in the crowd.”
With a final wave he was led away by who you assumed to be his handler back into a room with a large window letting you see him enter a door on its back wall where you assumed he would be prepared for his concert. You stood stunned for a moment, still quite overwhelmed with what you figured out. The interaction gave you an itch. You wanted to work here. You wanted to become the mechanic that took care of these special animatronics to see just how lively they were. But in order to do that, you figured you would need more experience. Sure, you had some experience, mostly self-taught and guidance from some family, but not nearly enough to work with such high tech so easily. You thought to yourself as you half-heartedly looked for your friends again on where would give you good enough experience to get the job. Who knows. Maybe you would need a specialist job. You had family that had worked in the field before, maybe one of your relatives could tell you.
You met back up with your friends who bombarded you with questions as to where you went off to and what you had been up to. They started guiding you back to the atrium for the concert for you to talk and walk. After explaining your experience, your friend who had come with his family before spoke up.
“And were you swept off your feet?” He asked smugly.
You couldn’t help the small chuckle that came with your answer, “Yeah. I guess I was.”
-
It had been two years since that day. And there you were, applying for the open mechanic position at the Pizzaplex. You had worked your ass off for this day. You knew you were more than qualified for the position with all you had studied and worked through. You had no doubts that your resume was perfect at this point. It would be absolutely shocking if they ignored or denied you a position, especially with how you heard rumors of the business struggling to keep workers as it was. You felt like you had this in the bag as you dropped off your paperwork at the appropriate desk in your nicest business casual clothes you owned. You hadn’t had much of a chance to revisit the Pizzaplex since your first visit, so marveling at the building was a fair thing to do in your mind. It was just as amazing as your first visit, but you noticed something. There were far less human employees than before, especially upfront where you could see. The number of S.T.A.F.F. Bots had increased. You shrugged off the information you gathered and instead excused yourself after handing off your resume to leave the building to await good news.
Except the “good news” wasn’t exactly what you imagined. You received a phone call two weeks later from an unknown number. Quickly assuming it was for your job, you answered it at the speed of sound. A cheerful man’s voice was on the other line asking for you to which you assured him he had the correct person.
“Hello there! Thank you for applying at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. I wanted to personally call you because, unfortunately, our mechanic position has already been filled. I know that may be a letdown after seeing your impressive resume, but we do have a different position open that may interest you if you are still on board with working with us.”
You thought for a moment. Yes, you were disappointed, but you didn’t want a chance at working at the Pizzaplex to slip away from you, and so long as it wasn’t in the food court, you might survive, so you answered in the affirmative.
“Great! We have a building float position open that we can’t seem to fill that you would be perfect for. It requires a lot of adaptability and for you to be on your toes, but we assure you that you seem quite qualified for the job. To be more specific about the role you would be playing, whenever a human employee calls out of their department, you would then be called to fill in for that position if needed. Not to worry, you will have a full-time position with work to do even when there are no call outs, but your main focus is picking up where people lack! Sound good?”
“I would be glad to accept this offer,” you replied with a smile in your voice despite the bummed feeling in your mind.
“Faz-erific! Then how about you head over to the plex in about an hour, and we will get you a uniform and all set up to start with another employee who also just accepted a building float position. We’ll talk over the details when you get here. See you soon!” The man said all before hanging up much too quickly for you to form a proper final goodbye.
That was a little rude in your opinion, but maybe he was just a busy man. You sighed before readying yourself to head over to the Pizzaplex. At least it wasn’t a direct food court job. The sooner you started the better was what went through your mind. You did abruptly quit your last job with all hopes set on this new one, so you had little choice. With a few adjustments to your clothes and a bag packed with essentials, you were out the door and on your way to your new job to prepare for your start.
Arriving at the Pizzaplex, it looked like it was just starting to settle down. It was evening now, and from the looks of it, many people were calling it a night, including some employees. You walked in, eyes scanning the entrance for anyone who might look like they were looking for you, only to find another person doing the same. As your eyes met, the girl you looked at seemed to become excited and came over to meet you.
“You must be the other employee joining with me today. How cool! My name’s Sasha,” she said with a brilliant smile.
You smiled back and introduced yourself warmly. Sasha seemed to take kindly to this as she instantly reached out to take your hand and shake it firmly in hers.
“You know, I think I like your vibe already! I think we’ll get along great,” Sasha said before a question formed in her mind, “Quick, no thinking! Who is your favorite animatronic?”
“Uh! Well, I don’t know the animatronics very well, but I did have a very pleasant experience with Freddy when I first came here years back, so I guess I’d have to default to him!” You said quickly in attempts to please her.
“Solid choice! I’m a Roxy fan myself. She gets the need to be pretty, perfect, and badass all at the same time. I don’t know how she does it, but she makes it look way too easy,” Sasha replied with a happy sigh.
You looked over at Sasha before replying with a bit of a giggle, “They are animatronics after all. I suppose it must be a bit easier for them to perfect things than us. Maybe her programming helps.”
Sasha went to agree with you before being interrupted by an employee gathering both of your attentions. It was your new manager, and they did a standard Fazbear greeting before introducing themself. Their name was Frankie. They had you follow them inside to further explain and instruct you while also fitting you for uniforms. You were to provide your own pants and shoes, but they gave you a few of your own red polo shirts with the Freddy Fazbear Mega Pizzaplex logo on the upper left side of the shirt. Pants were to be black and were not to be jeans or leggings. They wanted shoes to be good for walking in while also looking professional. They asked them to also be black to keep things consistent. They had little rules for hair and makeup so long as it wasn’t inappropriate. They allowed accessories but said they were to be kept to a minimum and that one of your wrists must always be free to keep room for your Fazwatch, a must have in the building to keep up with communication.
You went over packets and packets of legal documents. You signed so many documents and really didn’t read any of them. Most of it was in regard to liability from what you were told. If something happened, it wasn’t their fault, and they wouldn’t take fault. Other paperwork was basically saying if someone asked about certain things, you would stay quiet. A non-disclosure agreement of sorts. You don’t know what secrets you had to keep seeing as you were just a building float, but it was a big company that worked with highly advanced technology. They probably didn’t want their work studied and sold to the highest bidder. So, the things you learned on the job stayed on the job. You think at one point you even saw a point that said you were not to discuss certain aspects of your work even with household pets. You don’t know why they were being so uptight in their paperwork, but you couldn’t help but think that even if you had a pet, they wouldn’t be going around able to blab about your work. Could a goldfish even talk to another goldfish? You had research to do on that question once you got home. But for now, you were in the thick of signing paperwork until your hand fell off.
Soon enough, the mountains of documents were signed, and you were done with the stuffy part of your recruitment. You were told that you were finished for the day and that a tour would come on your first official day of work. You parted ways from your new manager, thanking them for their help, before walking out of the building with Sasha and parting ways at your cars. You waved goodbye and looked up at the building once more before getting in your car. This was sure to be an adventure.
-
The Glamrocks were all together rehearsing after a successful concert. They seemed to be in good moods and proud of their work. They chatted and idly played their instruments when something dinged in their systems.
“Damn it, more new employees,” Montgomery cursed as two new employee profiles were sent to everyone’s databases.
The Glamrocks took a second to check out who the new meat was and to see if there were any concerns that came with having new “family” as the company called it. They never did know what kind of person management would hire next. The company did enough background checks to know a person’s history from birth, and really sometimes they just didn’t care what the person had done. It was another opportunity to work their well-oiled business further into success. Freddy paused as he looked them over only to stop completely at the second one. Chica noticed and scanned through them quickly before landing on your profile.
“Hey Freddy, haven’t you met the second new employee before a few years back?” Chica asked as she looked at your picture.
“Yes! I am surprised you were able to tell Chica despite not meeting them yourself,” Freddy replied with an excited smile, “I still can remember how dazzled they were when I caught them from falling and how completely overtaken with joy they were during the concert. It was as if they couldn’t take their eyes off of us for a second even if they tried. I nearly laughed during our third song when they saw me wink at them. They were so surprised that they fumbled their drink!”
“Sounds like a big fan of yours,” Roxanne stated as she read through your file.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that necessarily. They never did come back to visit after that. I wonder why,” Freddy thought out loud.
“Maybe they realized there were better places than this dump,” Montgomery said beneath his artificial breath, only to be lightly elbowed by Chica with a scolding look.
“I wouldn’t think they would apply here if they thought of it as a ‘dump,’ but perhaps they have been busy. Maybe they will have stories to share!” Freddy said with a soft smile.
Your eyes had that look in them still even in photo form. Like they were full of stars and wonder. You had a sort of hope in them even if you weren’t trying to project that. Freddy couldn’t help but be endeared by them. He knew that you had understood something about him during the moment he caught you. He never knew what it was that had clicked in your mind, but it was something important. It was something that made you see him differently and in a new light that made him more appreciative of you. He hoped you would stick around.
-
Sun was cleaning up the daycare after the day when he was sent the profiles for the new building floats. He took a moment to scan through all of the information. He looked through Sasha’s quite quickly, gathering that she most likely wouldn’t be a daycare float very often from the information in her file, but bringing yours up was a different story.
“Oooh, look Sun. They are just your type,” Moon teased internally as they both looked over your employee profile together.
“Wouldn’t that make them your type, too? We do share quite a few interests if I do remember correctly!” Sun huffed in annoyance at his counterpart, “Besides, we don’t know if they’ll even get the chance to work in the daycare.”
“They are a building float. Surely that’s a guarantee that we’ll see them, isn’t it? Daycare employees always call out sick, especially when they know it’s going to be busy. Isn’t that right, Sun?”
Sun’s irritation with Moon grew but he knew Moon had a point. Daycare employees seemed to call in with the consistency of calling a dying loved one in the hospital. Nearly every day at least one person was out sick, if not more. It was a never-ending cycle of being short-staffed. Sun took the chance of silence from Moon to truly look over your profile and picture. It said you would start in a few days. There was something he couldn’t deny about your picture. Something that drew him in. He swore it was your eyes. Something about them asked for him to stare at them a little longer. Something about you, even in photo form, seemed different.
“My goodness, Sun. I didn’t actually think you’d fall so smitten over just a photo,” Moon snickered before being swatted away in his and Sun’s shared thoughts.
“Oh, be quiet, Moon! I am simply informing myself on them in case we meet!”
“You didn’t ‘inform’ yourself so much on the first new employee’s profile. You know, someone else you could meet.”
Sun growled before outwardly pouting, “You are doing this on purpose!”
Moon cackled in their thoughts before slinking into the background of them to give Sun space to get ready for the night. Sun tried to hide it from Moon, but every once in a while as he readied the daycare, he would reopen your file, and read over it once more while taking the chance to look at your picture. If Moon saw, he didn’t point it out. Sun didn’t know why he wanted to keep looking. He didn’t know why you were so interesting. He hoped he would soon find out.