Chapter Text
BANG.
CLASH.
The day-care lights were out again. Not dimmed. Not flickering. Gone. The blackouts had been getting worse for days now, stretching longer each time and the actor inside the day-care suit was losing his grip on himself because of it. Roxanne could hear it in his voice before she ever saw him. The strain. The crackle of feedback bleeding through the speakers. The way the faceplate sparked and buzzed against his skull like it was trying to crawl inside his head. Sun. Moon. The switch wasn’t clean anymore. It never was. The voices overlapped now, tangled and sharp, drilling straight into her ears.
“RULE BREAKER!”
“NAUGHTY CHILDREN MUST BE PUNISHED.”
His arms swung too wide, too fast. Those long fingers weren’t props anymore. They cut through the air like claws as he lunged, the suit jerking instead of flowing, joints grinding under stress. Roxanne turned and ran. The small plastic chairs scattered under her feet, bright colours exploding outward as she clipped them with her boots and sent them skidding across the floor. One caught her heel and she nearly went down, balance alarms screaming as she threw her weight forward and kept moving. Three days. Three days since the first real sign of aggression. Three days of unanswered emails. Of messages marked seen and never replied to. She’d begged management during breaks, hands shaking as she typed, insisting something was wrong, insisting someone was going to get hurt and-
Where did he go?
The lights came back in violent flashes, strobing white and gold and deep blue. The colours bled together until the room felt unreal, like a bad dream trapped behind the protective glass. Every flicker froze a different image. A grin too wide. An arm raised. Nothing at all. Her HUD struggled to compensate, warnings stacking on top of one another as her vision lagged behind reality. Her breathing hitched, shallow and fast, and the display pulsed red as her heart rate spiked for the third time that night.
“Sunny... please,” she gasped, voice cracking. “J-just stop.” The word please tasted wrong. Desperate. She hated that it was the only thing she had left. This had to be a prank. Some twisted rehearsal. A fucked-up Halloween test. They wouldn’t let it get this far. They wouldn’t-
AAGH-
Pain tore through her torso as something slammed into her from the side. The impact drove the air from her lungs and sent her crashing to the floor. “ERROR. TORSO DAMAGED.” Three deep claw marks ripped across the Roxanne Wolf shell, alarms blaring as metal warped inward. The silhouette above her was a blur of orange and black and orange again, limbs moving too fast, weight crashing down as white hair spilled across her vision. She dragged herself up on shaking arms, systems lagging, just in time to be kicked back down. The floor hit her hard. Metal screamed. The suit twisted in ways it wasn’t meant to, and her HUD flooded with reports she couldn’t read fast enough. Impact detected. Structural failure. Motor response delayed.
She felt small.
The last thing she registered was the cold against her back as the suit released her. The emergency eject kicked in without asking permission, panels unlocking, clamps snapping free. The sound of it was wrong. Final. She slid out onto the floor, the shell pulling away like it wanted nothing to do with her anymore.
Rejected.
Arms lifted her before she could move. Not rough. Not gentle. Just there. The clink of metal echoed around her as she was carried, her head lolling uselessly against someone’s chest.
“It’s going to be okay.”
The words echoed strangely, hollow and familiar.
Her own voice.
Roxanne stared up at the darkness, heart pounding, vision swimming.
Is it?
Roxy, Roxanne, bootleg Foxy, she had heard every version of the name, usually whispered by people who thought she wouldn’t notice, and every time it reminded her of how she ended up here in the first place. Finn, her cousin, had been Foxy for years, long before the Pizzaplex, back when contracts were messier and lawyers missed things they shouldn’t have. His deal from the eighties had a loophole buried deep inside it, one that granted him character rights if he was ever unlawfully fired, and when Fazbear Entertainment tried to sweep him aside for a redesign, he smiled and told them no. He kept Foxy. He kept the legacy. He kept everything they wanted to strip down and repackage. For Roxanne, that refusal changed everything. She became the replacement, the compromise, the afterthought. They took her nickname, slapped it onto a new shell and called it innovation.
Around her, the others fit too neatly into place, co-stars tied together by family lines and old favours, people who inherited their roles like heirlooms. They smiled at her, stiff and careful, never sure what to say to the one person who hadn’t been born into it. Roxanne noticed. She always did. But she refused to let it define her. They handed her a script and expected her to follow it, to play safe and stay small, and instead she tore it apart and built something louder, sharper and impossible to ignore. She became the character because no one else who performed for it had bothered to try. She learned quickly that no one likes a loser, and she wasn’t one. The whispers didn’t bother her anymore. Jealousy always sounded the same in the end. They could keep their family names and borrowed prestige. Her father wasn’t a Freddy. Her mother wasn’t a Chica. She walked into the auditions with nothing but confidence and walked out with the role because she earned it... and that, more than anything, was why she was the best.
It took years for her to truly connect with the others. She might have been a wolf, wrapped in that sharp I don’t need anyone attitude, but beneath it all, she still yearned for a pack, especially when she's supposed to be part of a band. She watched the others laugh easily, form bonds that seemed effortless and told herself she didn’t mind standing apart. That independence was her armour. Still, it got heavy after a while... venting to her cousin didn't help as much as it used to, he kept trying to tell her to at least try but it wasn't that easy.
So when Chica made the first move, Roxanne hadn’t known what to do with it.
She didn’t even know the woman’s real name, heck she still doesn't, just the bright mascot, the constant cheer and strange balance of being a foodie but also being obsessed with keeping fit. It happened late one night in the kitchen, well past closing. Roxanne had been restless, pacing the halls after a hard day and staying on the fold out couch in the greenroom for the past few days. They weren’t allowed out of their suits outside the greenrooms or maintenance tunnels. It was mandatory. No exceptions but she decided to walk out with the suit following closely behind her. It was just to get a snack, something to settler her nerves.
And yet there Chica was.
Standing barefoot on the cold tile, suit missing, hair messy, clutching a plate of leftover pizza like it was contraband. For a moment, they just stared at each other, caught in the act. Roxanne had been ready to snap, to retreat, to pretend she’d never seen her but Chica only smiled, sheepish and conspiratorial, and whispered, “You too?”
That was the first crack in the wall.
Breaking the rules for something as simple as a midnight snack became the only common ground they needed. They didn’t talk much at first. Just shared space in the dark, the hum of old kitchen lights and the soft whirr of the microwave filling the silence. But soon, it became routine, same time every other night with quiet chats in low voices. Complaints about long rehearsals, about expectations, about the way management seemed to see only the characters and not the people inside them. Chica listened, at some points even agreeing with her and Roxanne found herself talking more than she meant to.
They discovered they had more in common than either of them had expected. Both felt pressure to perfectly perform, to be something loud and confident even on days they felt anything but. Over time, the kitchen stopped feeling like a place they hid and started feeling like something they shared. The others noticed eventually. The Glamrocks began to catch the small things, the way Chica saved Roxanne a slice when she was running late, the way Roxanne lingered a little closer to her during rehearsals, how she stopped brushing everyone off so sharply when Chica was nearby. Invitations came more often. Group outings felt less forced. Roxanne didn’t pull away as quickly as she used to.
Then Bonnie started hanging around her.
He was electric in a way that caught her off guard, able to shift from laid-back and easy-going to sly and sharp in the span of a heartbeat. It was almost like the moment Chica accepted her into that quiet little circle, Bonnie decided Roxanne was fair game too. Suddenly he was always nearby, leaning against doorframes, popping up where she least expected him, grinning like he knew something she didn’t and somehow, he kept finding ways to pull her along.
He’d sneak her into private events she wasn’t technically invited, staff-only after-hours shows, closed tech demos, little gatherings meant for executives and sponsors. “Relax,” he’d whisper, tugging her along by the wrist, “if anyone asks, we're XYZ people.” She should have said no. She usually would have. But something about his confidence, his reckless certainty that things would work out, made it hard to refuse. Out of suit, he was just as striking, wild blue hair kept back with a sweatband that matched the rabbit he played, pale skin dusted in freckles and a small gap in his teeth he’d learned to whistle through. He smiled a lot, but it was the kind of smile that hinted at mischief more than friendliness, like he was always half a step ahead.
Despite the chaos he carried with him, he wasn’t there just to stir trouble. Bonnie had advice and he gave it freely. He knew the company inside and out, its loopholes and its temper, he knew how quickly it could chew people up. Turns out his uncle was a major pain in the company’s side, the kind of name that made executives groan and tighten their smiles. That defiant, unmanageable streak had clearly rubbed off on Bonnie, shaping him into someone who didn’t just survive the system, but poked at it to see how much it could bend. With him, Roxanne learned how to push back without getting caught. They ran the halls late at night, pulling harmless pranks on staff, swapping signage, reprogramming lights. They took a particular joy in outsmarting entitled guests, redirecting complaining Karens in polite, looping circles, watching Bonnie keep a perfectly straight face while Roxanne struggled not to laugh.
Naturally Freddy welcome her with open arms once the others convinced her to meet him face to face, she was finally part of it, included, trusted and oddly protected. Between Chica’s quiet steadiness and Bonnie’s unruly spark, Roxanne found herself standing in the middle of something that felt dangerously close to a pack. A goofy big brother, a best friend and a partner in crime.
And then she woke up.
Not gently either, torn out of nostalgic dreams and being smacked with artificial lights all at once, like being dropped back into her body. The warmth of the past evaporated as the ceiling lights buzzed to life overhead. 6AM, Wednesday. Her alarm hadn’t even gone off yet but her shift was already creeping up on her. Reality came down hard and heavy when she realized she’d fallen asleep on the fold-out couch again. The thin blanket was twisted around her legs, her neck stiff from a bad angle. She had an apartment, a perfectly fine one, paid for and waiting but she barely used it anymore. There were no guests expected, no family dropping by, no packages. Everything that mattered showed up here now and it was easier to stay.
A distant crash echoed through the complex, followed by shouting.
Monty.
She winced, already familiar with the sound of his early-morning rage fits and for a second her mind betrayed her, dragging up the memory of Bonnie sneaking through the vents, dropping down beside her just to complain about management or laugh about something stupid he’d overheard. She missed him more then she'd ever admit. The company had fed them a neat little story, Bonnie was retired, his actor dead after a tragic springlock failure. A clean ending, tied up with just enough horror to keep anyone from asking questions. It might’ve worked if not for her cousin’s text, sent late one night with no preamble and no reason to lie.
"He’s not dead."
That was all it said... and she never told anyone. Not after seeing the grief ripple through the others. Not after watching Chica cry for hours and Freddy spiral, damn, seeing him actually break something after a hard shift was something else and it was the last time he lost his composure like that, with Monty being pulled in to replace Bonnie, it was better to keep her mouth shut, she didn't want to make him feel the way she did when she first got the job of 'Springlock actor'. There was too much red tape wrapped around the rabbit anyway and saying the wrong thing could cost her more than just her job.
With a tired sigh, she pushed herself off the couch and dragged her feet toward the small bathroom connected to the greenroom. The mirror reflected someone older than she felt, eyes ringed with exhaustion, shoulders slumped under the weight of routine. She splashed water on her face, grounding herself before styling her hair, it was white just like the character's own and complete with a bold green streak. Her tan skin was still healthy and lush, her amber eyes lit up once she shook off the morning drag and from down the hall she could hear the familiar whir and click of machinery. The Roxy animatronic was coming to life. Servos hummed, systems booted and the synthetic echo of her own recorded voice carried faintly through the walls, loud, confident, flawless. She stared at her reflection a moment longer, listening to the mechanical version of herself start up a pep talk before she straightened, wiped her face dry and stepped back into reality.
Another day. Another shift. Another performance.
And she's always at her best.
The springlock suit fit her nice and snug.
Springlock was mostly a legacy term now, a name that stuck long after the worst of the design had been stripped away. Years of research and “safety improvements” had turned it into something else entirely, motors, articulated plating and an internal exoskeleton that snapped together with clinical precision instead of bone-crushing force. Less gruesome they claimed. Not harmless. Failures were still failures and the margin for error remained razor thin. Still, Roxanne had to admit she was happy with her setup. Her functions synced smoothly, the calibration was clean and more importantly she got along with the Roxy AI.
The constant learning protocols meant the animatronic could hold a real conversation, adapt, remember preferences. Roxanne talked to it the way you might talk to a roommate who never slept, idle commentary, shared music, half-finished thoughts spoken out loud just to hear them echoed back. She liked to think they were friends considering they loved the same things. The same playlists. The same late-night racing clips and mechanical breakdown videos. Same favourite tracks, same habits and yet... sometimes it felt like talking to a metal version of herself, polished and simplified, all the rough edges sanded down into something marketable.
Was it a little sad? Yeah.
Was it understandable, given her situation? Also yeah.
If nothing else, the overlap worked in her favour. It meant no one noticed when she took an extra break here or there, slipping out of the suit, leaving Roxy to carry on like nothing had changed. Watching the animatronic pretend she wasn’t in control was unsettling the first few times, but she’d gotten good at it. Good enough that most people couldn’t tell when Roxanne was Roxanne and when she was just... Roxy. Hopefully, that stayed true because Freddy was starting to catch on. It was the little things. The way the animatronic dodged conversations about shared memories it couldn’t possibly have logged. The careful sidestepping whenever past events came up, moments Roxanne remembered vividly but Roxy had only second-hand context for. And then there were the excuses. Always excuses. "No go-karts today. System error. Track maintenance. Low battery." Everyone knew Roxanne was obsessed with racing.
So as she walks down Rockstar Row you can imagine the chill down her spine when she hears heavy footsteps speeding after her. Okay, mental list, what could she have possibly done wrong that would get him this quick so early? Was it that party where she went a little overkill on a bully? The fact she avoided the group hang out last week because she was “sick” and they could see she was on Steam playing that new game? Or was it that she stole the last of the electric blue paint for a makeup project..
The footsteps get closer. Yep. Definitely Freddy. No one else sounded like a military march.
She keeps walking as casually as possible because running would only make her look guilty. Or more guilty. Her brain helpfully supplies a vivid mental image of Glamrock Freddy folding his arms, glowing eyes narrowed, delivering one of his disappointed but calm lectures, the kind that would transport you back to the days of being a scolded child.
“Hey!" he cleared his throat to put on the correct voice, "Excuse me!”
There it is. The voice. Cheerful, friendly and somehow still intimidating when directed at you specifically. She stops so abruptly she nearly trips over her own feet and turns around with what she hopes is an innocent expression and not the face of someone actively reconsidering every life choice they’ve made since waking up. Freddy looms there and he looks... concerned? Suspicious? It’s hard to tell with animatronics but his head tilts slightly, servos whirring and her stomach drops anyway.
“I have been looking for you,” he says.
Oh no. Oh no.
“Have you?” she squeaks, mentally drafting apologises.
Freddy raises a hand, stopping her spiral.
“No, no, it is nothing negative,” he says, frowning thoughtfully. “Although... I do not know why you are so nervous in the first place." He leans in slightly, lowering his voice like he’s about to share a secret. “I require your assistance.”
...What?
“With,” Freddy continues gravely, “a very serious matter.” He straightens up, “Monty has been moving my microphone stand again. He insists it is ‘for vibes.’ I do not understand what this means and it is now exactly seven inches off-centre... It is bothering me.”
She blinks.
“...you chased me down Rockstar Row,” she says carefully, “because your microphone stand is crooked?”
“Yes,” Freddy replies without hesitation. “And also because Chica said you have ‘good eyes for alignment.’”
She stares at him. Then a laugh bubbles up, nervous tension draining away all at once. “Oh thank god,” she mutters.
Freddy tilts his head again.
Shaking her head. “I- It's nothing, come on. Let’s fix your vibes.”
He visibly cheers up, ears perking upwards and he turns to walk beside her, heavy footsteps now much less threatening. “Excellent,” he says brightly. “I knew I could count on you. Also afterward, would you like to explain the paint situation?”
"I knew it.”
Honestly, she should have been more thankful for having him as a friend. Freddy hadn’t even sounded angry about the paint. If anything, there’d been that familiar hum of amusement in his voice, like it was just another inconvenience he’d tuck away and deal with later. He’d laughed it off, promised to handle it and that was that. Roxanne knew the staff would get on his ass for it too, paperwork, lectures, deductions, she owed him. Big time.
Freddy had a track record for taking one for the team and everyone knew it. When Monty snapped a golf club in a fit of temper, it was Freddy who quietly bought the replacement before management noticed. When Chica went on one of her late-night fridge raids and left it barren, Freddy restocked it without complaint, even tossing in a few extra snacks “just in case.” He patched things up, smoothed things over, paid the price... financially and emotionally without ever asking for credit.
They took him for granted, Roxanne included but Freddy never pushed back. He just smiled, shrugged and kept going, like it was easier to give than to explain why he shouldn’t have to. Part of her suspected it had something to do with Bonnie. The guilt clung to him like a shadow, regret for the things he hadn’t said, the chances he hadn’t taken to spoil his partner friend when he still could. Now it felt like he was trying to make up for it, pouring himself into everyone else instead.
His pay-check never seemed to go toward himself. No electronics, no treats, nothing frivolous. It went to fixing problems, keeping the peace, making sure everyone else was happy. As if that alone was enough, it wasn’t fair to him. She really owed him a solid. No... more than that. Freddy deserved a party so big, so thoughtful, that he wouldn’t be able to brush it off with a laugh. Something that made it clear and undeniable, that he wasn’t just the one holding everyone together, he was loved for it. But she is so making everyone chip in.