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Once the pesky ad finishes, Ray Palmer appears with his usual welcoming smile in his usual cream-colored living room and black chair. This time, however, eager fans note that he is not alone: next to him, in an identical chair, is Ray's boyfriend Len, sipping from an R2-D2 mug. He's draped against the chair's back, arm around Ray's as well, just finishing his gulp as Ray waves to his audience.
Many viewers pause the video to really get a good luck at the guy. Len has only appeared in the background of Ray's Instagram photos—on holidays and birthdays he's in the forefront—and a couple vines during which he doesn't talk. To them, Len may as well be the next National Treasure. Here, he's in a black thermal shirt and jeans, scarf around his neck.
It should be known that this video was posted in the middle of June.
"Hey everybody!" chirps Ray, "Welcome to another Pizza Sunday! Fittingly, we have gone with Five Nights at Freddy's. But this time, I'm not gonna be playing! I've finally convinced my boyfriend," gesturing to Len with both hands and getting a mug salute, "Len to try it out for you guys! So, Len, say hi to everybody!"
For the first time ever (seriously, even during cons, nobody's heard Len's voice), AtomGamer's fans hear Len speak.
"Hello."
His tone is a drawn-out, easy drawl, accompanied by a smirk that implies he just knows he's been holding out on everyone watching. Half the fans clutch their hearts.
Ray grins at him. "Are you ready?"
Len leans forward to set his mug out of frame. "I can hardly bear the suspense."
Ray makes a noise between a laugh and a groan. "I should warn you," he tells the camera, "Len likes to make puns."
"Move over, Boy Scout."
They switch seats. Ray goes through the usual explanation of Pizza Sunday: for every successful level—or in this case, hour—he and Len will take a bite of pizza. Essentially, when they finish a night, they'll take five to six bites.
"I don't expect Len to follow the rules," Ray says, side-eyeing him.
In response, Len takes a huge bite out of his first slice.
"Yeah. Oh, and if he loses—" Len raises an eyebrow, "—you guys have unanimously voted for him to have a kiss as a consolation prize."
Len glances at the camera. "I'll try not to lose, then."
Ray rolls his eyes. "We'll go through just the first night in this video. If he loses more than five times, we'll stop altogether."
"If," Len emphasizes the 'f'.
"And it also gives him the chance to meet the Puppet!"
"Wonderful."
Ray smiles. "Okay. Let's play!"
Their image shrinks into the top left corner of the screen to reveal the Five Nights at Freddy's 2 menu screen. Len clicks New Game.
The HELP WANTED article pops up. Ray points at the screen, saying, "Look: what could go wrong?"
Len asks, "Why is that chicken wearing a bikini?"
"That's Chica. They wanted to make her more obviously a girl."
"That bear looks like he's ready for retirement."
"He's called Freddy."
"What about the stoned bunny?"
"The stoned—" Ray snickers, "Bonny. He's Bonny."
"Did Cisco name these people?" on a duck's quack, a picture of Cisco taking a ridiculous selfie briefly appears.
The article fades, clicking into 12:00 AM — 1st Night.
Without looking at him, Len asks Ray, "Why am I only getting paid a hundred bucks a week?"
"This game takes place in 1987."
"No excuse."
Ray laughs again.
Night 1
The phone rings.
Ray pipes up, "Oh, this is the exposition guy."
"Didn't know Basil was in this," Len deadpans (picture of Basil from Austin Powers blinks on the video,) checking out the cameras, flashlight control, and Freddy mask in quick movements.
The phone guy starts talking: "Uh, hello? Hello-hello? Uh..."
Len already looks unimpressed.
"Hello and welcome to your new summer job at the new and improved Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."
"Always wanted to work with killer robots," Len says. Ray hasn't stopped smiling.
"Uh, I'm here to talk you through some of the things you can expect to see in your first week here to help you get started on this new and exciting career path."
"Well don't get too excited, you might pull somethin'."
"Now I want you to forget anything you may have heard about the old location, y'know. Uh, some people still have a somewhat negative impression of the company, uhhh—"
"Raymond, you do realize you're going to be counting how many times this guy says 'uh', right?"
Ray snorts, "And for every 'uh', you get what, exactly?"
"Oh," Len smirks, "I'll think of something."
An Uh Count appears in bright blue text at the bottom right. It is now at 4.
"...was kind of left to rot for a while, but, I-I wanted to reassure you—Fazbear Entertainment is committed to family fun and above all, safety." Len scoffs. Ray sends him another smile. "They've spend a small fortune on these new animatronics. Uh, facial recognition, advanced mobility—"
Len turns to Ray. "Didn't you say this takes place in 1987?"
"Yeah," Ray answers.
"And they've given a kids' pizza joint robots with facial recognition?" He's responded with a helpless shrug. "Sounds like an excuse for 'our Chuck E Cheese is possessed'."
Ray tilts his head. "That's—actually not a bad theory."
Len's eyes narrow. "No."
"...most importantly, they're all tied into some criminal database—" Len gives Ray another look, prompting a fresh bout of laughter, "—so they can detect a predator a mile away. Heck, we should be paying them to guard you!
"Uh, now that being said, no new system is without its...kinks."
"Heeere we go," Len mutters.
"Uhh, you're only the second guard to work at that location. Uh, the first guy finished his week, but complained about...conditions. Uh, we switched him over to the day shift, so, hey, lucky you, right? But mainly he expressed concern that certain character seemed to move around at night and even attempted to get into his office. Now, from what we know that should be impossible—"
"How?" Len asks, "The office is sitting at the end of a hallway with no door."
Ray exclaims, "I know, right?"
The corner of Len's mouth twitches.
"...So, while our engineers don't really have an explanation for this, the working theory is thaaat—the robots were never given a proper 'night mode'. So when it gets quiet, they think they're in the wrong room. So then they go try to find where the people are and in this case, that's your office."
"This guy's a terrible liar," Len says. Ray hums.
"So our temporary solution is this: there's a music box over by the Prize Counter and it's rigged to be wound up remotely." Len's eyebrows furrow in clear disbelief. He finds the correct camera no problem, but he clearly doesn't like the phone guy's bull. "So, every once in a while, switch over to the Prize Counter video feed and wind it up for a few seconds. It doesn't seem to affect all of the animatronics, but it does affect...one of them."
"I have to entertain the enemy boss with a music box?" Len sounds like he's low-key about to get up and leave.
"Uh, and as for the rest of them we have an easier solution! S ee, there may be a minor glitch in the system about robots thinking you were an endoskeleton without its costume oooon and wanting to stuff you into a suit—so hey! We've given you an empty Freddy Fazber head! Problem solved! You can put it on at anytime and leave it on for as long as you want. Eventually anything that wanders in will wander back out."
"Of course it will," Len drawls.
"Something else worth mentioning, kind of a quartz-modern design of the building...you may have noticed there are no doors for you to close, heh. But hey, you have lights, and even if your flashlight can run out of power, the building cannot. So, don't worry about the place going dark.
"Well I think that's it. Uh, you should be golden. Uh, check the lights, put on the Freddy head if you need to, uh, keep the music box wound up, piece 'a cake. Have a good night, and I'll talk to you tomorrow!"
The Uh Count appears in larger font, dinging like a game show bell. Uh: 13. It blips back to its original place and size after a couple seconds.
Meanwhile, Ray is telling Len, "I think you'll appreciate that the 'golden' comment was a pun."
Len hums, "Yes, I've heard tales of Golden Freddy." he couldn't sound more unimpressed.
Ray pouts, "I thought you weren't going to do your research!"
"I didn't. Barry," TheFlash's picture pokes from the side, smiling big with his thumbs up, "decided to tell me a few things."
"Of course he did."
"Don't worry, Raymond. He only told me about Goldie. Also that you're terrible at this game."
Ray squawks, "I am not—"
"You forget that we live together. Even if he didn't tell me, I heard you screaming about it."
Bonny's disappeared from the stage. Len's expression or straight posture doesn't so much as twitch, though his clicks get lightning fast until they settle on Bonny's place. He wings up the music box, checks Bonny again, before returning to the office.
Then the sound starts up. Ray stiffens, rushing to tell Len, "That means something's wrong. Check, check, check!"
Len calmly checks the hallway, then the camera. Bonny's suddenly kneeling in front of the vent. "Teleportation," he says, "of course. With their facial recognition and criminal database, I would be disappointed if they couldn't teleport."
Ray's tension eases a peg. Until Len looks at the vents after winding the music box and—"OH NO!"
Len's head knocks to the right, as if blasted by Ray's shout. The screen rapidly blinks.
"He's coming, he's coming, PUT YOUR MASK ON!"
Len does so, just in time for Bonny to slide into frame. Ray slams a white-knuckled grip onto Len's shoulder.
"Chill out, Raymond," his boyfriend says, completely cool and collected. Once Bonny has disappeared, he rewinds the music box, checks the hall—"Did she not like her beak?"
Ray grabs his pizza and takes three huge bites. Len sees this and starts smirking.
"Don't worry, Boy Scout," he says, "I'm sure if you give her one of your friendship speeches, she'll run the other way."
Ray gives him a small shake, "Don't put your mask on!"
"I wasn't planning to."
"But you—wait, what?"
Len turns off the flashlight. Winds the music box, checks again. "She's obviously not moving. Considering this is the first night, I'll just keep her there with the light." Throwing a bigger smirk at Ray, "I pay attention to your screams, Raymond."
Ray pinches the bridge of his nose.
He barks a harsh laugh as Chica ends up killing him. The effect's pretty much ruined, however, when Len doesn't even flinch at him or the jumpscare.
"You are so boring to play horror games with," he mutters.
Len raises his eyebrow again. "Now, now, no need to be so cold. Didn't your time earning those badges teach you manners?"
"Still have to kiss me."
Len makes sure to press Skip Call first. "Basil's a turn-off," he teases.
They kiss, as promised. It's a brief and closed-mouth, but Ray sighs anyway.
Len murmurs something unintelligible afterwards. The caption underneath reads Better?
Ray replies with a quiet Mhm.
Len tries again. This time, Ray is considerably calmer. (Comments will joke about how he sucked Len's cold demeanor through his lips.) Ultimately, the playthrough is filled with some of Len's snarky comments and Ray's adorable replies.
Ray still jumps and makes scared noises at each sudden entrance. Len just looks bored.
Soon enough, 6 AM jingles on the screen. Ray lets out a relieved breath.
"Wow," he says, blinking, "that...wasn't nearly as scary the first time."
Len's already grabbing his pizza slice. "That's because you knew you were gonna give me—" a long series of bleeps and AtomGamer's logo over Len's mouth, "—for every Uh in the game."
Ray's smacked a hand over his own mouth. "You can't say that on YouTube!" he hisses through his fingers.
"Coulda fooled me."
"Just to be clear!" Ray's voice cracks, "I did not know about—any of that while he was playing!"
Len smirks. He neither confirms nor denies.
The video cuts to their finishing their last bites of pizza.
"Why, Raymond," Len says, still smirking, "I thought there was a limit to how many bites you could take."
"You're a bad influence," Ray replies.
Len chuckles. The other half of the fans clutch their hearts.
The video cuts again, this time with no menu screen, just Ray and Len. They're in the position they were at the beginning of the video.
"So that's my boyfriend Len playing Five Nights at Freddy's 2!" Ray exclaims, "I hope you guys enjoyed." Turning to said boyfriend, "Did you have fun, Len?"
"Oh, so much," Len deadpans.
Ray whispers, "That means he had a lot of fun."
Another cut. Now he's back to his regular volume. "That concludes Pizza Sunday! I know it's short, but I thought Len's appearance would make up for it."
Len grins a Cheshire grin. "How sweet."
Ray grins at him. "It's true."
Len rolls his eyes, looking somewhere out of frame. Some fans swear they see him blush, despite his cheeks remaining snow white. (Vampire fanfiction skyrockets after this video.)
Ray beams back at the camera. "So I'll see you all tomorrow! Have an awesome Sunday, and remember: you," pointing at the camera, "are somebody special. Goodbye!"
The video fades on his cheerful wave...and Len's hand creeping across his shoulder.
Lisa Snart, lying half-naked on her side, enjoying a Sunday morning in bed, nods her approval. "What a cinematic masterpiece," she says.
Mick Rory, completely naked, wraps around her from behind and snickers, "Maybe he'll be in a good mood today."
"Oh, baby," Lisa simpers, "no good mood will keep my big brother from shooting you now."
He does not seem at all bothered by this prospect.
"Wanna watch it again?" Lisa asks.
Mick shrugs, "Why the fuck not?"