AN: Happy October! My favorite month!
If you haven't guessed already readers, this is another story inspired by a horror video game called "Five Night's at Freddy's." I thought the title was kinda funny, though I considered simply calling it "Five Nights". If you haven't heard of, played it, or watched online gamers or otherwise play it, that's fine because I won't be following any specific plot here. As per usual with my stories. You'll learn all you need to as you go. By the way, I am going to work my ass off to finish my other Halloween-themed stories by this upcoming Halloween.
Anyway, sorry for being so slow with the updating. College, financial troubles, family and just plain depression has been kicking me in the ass lately. But I have hope that it'll get better eventually. But enough about me. I hope you enjoy it! I know it's a little unorthodox for me to write with main characters such as these, but hey, I wrote it and so I must've thought it would be worth reading.
See you at the end!
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Join the Black family at the site of their estate this Halloween for a creepy and fun-filled walk through of this year's featured Haunted House!
Attraction includes over thirty seasoned actors, professionally built sets and the latest in animatronic technology. Each room of the building will feature a new scary theme, however some areas such as Rec Room C of the second floor, and the entire third floor are off-limits to attendees. Admissions cost only five dollars ($5) and all profits go to Whitechapel's local charity.
(Volunteers for maintenance are welcome and much appreciated, particularly those with fair knowledge of mechanics and/or electronics.)
WARNING: Young children, the elderly and those with heart conditions proceed with caution, as the exhibits may be overly frightening.
Neither the Black family nor maintenance, nor employees or volunteers will be held accountable for any accidents. The building is secure and equipped with emergency lighting, however individual flashlights and cellphones are encouraged, especially in the corn maze.
Stay safe and have fun!
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Knock, knock, knock.
Pause.
Blue converse tapped against the grand stone steps. A quick glance at his watch told him he'd been waiting for exactly six seconds since his last knock. Seven seconds.
Eight, nine.
He pressed the doorbell and waited a few more moments.
Knock, knock, knock.
Semi-interested bright blue eyes, not unlike the color of his shoes, and quirked blonde brows appraised the opaque windows surrounding the double-doors. He supposed if he were rich, he would put windows he couldn't see out of around his grand front doors too just because he could. The blonde puffed out his cheeks slightly, pressed the doorbell and raised a hand to knock again.
"Yeah, yeah, I said hold on!" A voice from behind the door called and Rory froze his fist an inch from the door. A moment later, a casually dressed but very annoyed looking teen (man?) was staring out at him.
Said man raised his eyebrows and gave Rory a sarcastic half-smile. "Can I help you?"
This was said rather rudely, but Rory let it fly over his head as per usual, his pleasant albeit aloof look not faltering.
"One of my friends called in to volunteer yesterday, but he had to go out of town...unexpectedly." Rory turned his head to the side as he heard an odd metallic creaking from somewhere to his left. "So he asked me to come in his place."
"Oh. The gee- ah, teenage computer gee-wiz my mom hired." The boy (man?) struggled for words for a moment before opening the door fully, as he'd been previously holding it as if ready to slam it in Rory's face. "Come in...please."
Rory walked in, a skip in his step and a small smirk on his face. The boy obviously, even to him, wasn't used to using such manners. Especially, Rory thought, on a "commoner" like himself.
"I'm Rory, by the way." Rory introduced himself, rocking on his heels. "But you can call me the Rorster. Or the Rorster Keanster. Or RA or R-Money or R-Khalifa-"
"Ah, o-okay that's enough," The man held up a hand, with a tight-lipped smile that didn't reach his tense eyes. "Thanks. you can call me Jesse."
A shiny key ring was thrown casually at Rory's chest and the blonde scrambled to catch them before they could like, fall and crack the marble floors.
"You can head out back through those doors," Jesse pointed just behind Rory. "To the warehouse, where I'll be needing your help. I'll be out momentarily, just wait by the entrance."
It was only then that Rory realized that what Jesse had shown up in- a silky pants the color of mercury, with an equally silky button-up shirt- was probably what passed as nightwear in this house. Or, mansion, whatever. He was also barefoot, but, of course, his hair still looked stylish, like he should be wearing one of those "I woke up like this" shirts. Rory wondered if he wore those clunky glasses all the time.
He made his way bewilderingly out the doors Jesse had motioned to and into a vast yard with a fountain, the greenest grass Whitechapel had to offer, and glorious hedging trimmed to perfection. Well beyond the line of the hedge and through grass that got slightly taller as the yard went on, was a house. Or, at least it looked like one. A big one. It was three stories tall, and looked to also have a basement, and the structure itself had a low oak fence surrounding. Vaguely, Rory wondered if he had the right house. Jessie did say warehouse, didn't he? And this structure was bigger than almost any common home in their little town.
Well, it was the only structure around, right?
Taking one last look at the mansion behind him, he headed towards the decked-out warehouse. Once at the doors after climbing the steps of a clean wooden porch, he reached for the knob but recoiled when he heard some kind of maniacal laugh from just on the other side of the door.
A moment later, a sweaty and ruffled looking blonde pushed her way through the double doors and cast him a sidelong look as though to say, 'You're going in? Good luck' and proceeded to take a shrieking (hopefully battery-powered) clown head down the steps and out into the yard. Before Rory headed in, he heard a crash a moment before the head stopped screaming.
'Oh boy.' Rory thought as he looked around the warehouse. Everything in it seemed to be covered in bloody cloth or shielded by dirty-looking curtains. A few splatters of blood colored the walls here and there, and he could hear people conversing and moving things around somewhere beyond the maze of roll-away privacy curtains.
Suddenly curious, he made his way over to the obvious entrance to the exhibit and began walking through the maze. Here and there were fake syringes dripping blue fluid and scalpels stained with blood- all of which were fake, Rory hoped.
It wasn't long before he came across a big door, labelled "Authorized Personnel Only" that he found something that looked even moderately out of place. A huge blue computer screen attached to a sleek monitor. And, a coffee cup laying on its side with some creamy, foaming mocha spilled on its side.
Without a care in the world, or so it seemed, Rory made his way in and began his cleaning of the PC and the hazardous and unkempt wires protruding from the ceiling lifts. This place was so high-tech it even had the lift-over ceiling panels like an office building or school!
Absently, he wondered why these people didn't just hire a personal technician to care for their electronic needs. These breakers and wires looked like they hadn't been touched in ages- which, in itself, wouldn't have been such a bad thing, if not for the fact that it looked as though rats had been gnawing on some of them. Daring rats, coming into a place like this. Rory suspected the family would get motion lasers when they found out.
Luckily, Rory had brought along some electric tape for a quick fix, and so he was perched atop a stool, atop a chair, just finishing wrapping the last of the frayed spots and replacing the ceiling panel when Jesse Black walked into the room.
"There you are!" The raven-haired man (boy?) scowled. "I've been looking for you for like three minutes."
"Well, I've been in here for almost thirty. Don't you think it's a little late to keep your volunteers waiting?" Rory asked with no real malice as he stepped down and off the stool, then off the chair with two quick, albeit clumsy movements.
"You are the one who volunteered." Jesse shrugged, eyeing the blonde with a superior look, this time, without the clunky black glasses he'd been wearing when he answered the door. "Anyway, what are you doing in the ceiling, dork? I told you to wait by the door."
"I have trouble staying still for extended periods of time. I followed the sound of coffee falling over onto that keypad." Rory shrugged and squirted hand-sanitizer from his bag on his palm before rubbing it around. "Anyway, any short-circuiting you have in the surrounding area should work a little better now, though I suggest finding someone with more experience to look at it."
"What are you talking about?" Jesse asked obnoxiously as he scowled and looked up at the ceiling. "Those wires? Who cares about the wiring in here? This is my mom's idiot intern's office. As if she ever does anything useful. Some intern. Anyway..." He turned and exited the room, turning off the lights rudely and leaving Rory to scramble after him. "I'm sure there are things that need fixing down in the basement as well, if you get around to it. But the real problems start in the furthest rec rooms on the second floor and the entire third floor."
"It would have even nice to know that earlier." Rory muttered and glanced at his watch.
"If you would have waited patiently, you wouldn't have wasted your time." Jesse glanced back at him and opened another door to reveal a brightly lit stair case. He peered in and slid on a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of his leather jacket before heading up the stairs with Rory in tow.
"So, what kind of technical problems are we talking about?" Rory asked, watching his step as plastic Halloween debris was scattered here and there.
"Well, from the reports of my family's employees, there's the basic lights flickering and electric glitches in the back of the second floor. And a lot worse on the entirety of the third floor." Jesse sighed and moved his sunglasses to rub at his eyes, his footsteps sluggish.
"Okay, here's how it works, each floor has two sections, and each section is split into two or more sub-sections. An old building stood here before this one, and it made sense at the time this building was erected to make it as huge as the previous one- otherwise, it would have looked half-assed, and my grandparents couldn't have that."
Jesse pushed another door open as they reached a new landing and paused before entering. "Anyway, this place has fallen somewhat into disrepair without a regular technician to care for it. And besides that, it's only been used by my uncles and cousins for woodwork and bachelor parties for the past half-decade or so."
"Well, at least the ruggedness adds to the Halloween theme." Rory didn't really see anything rugged at all about the building, but tried to be polite. He was cast a raised eyebrow and Jesse's lips raised slightly at the corners.
"Exactly. Isn't my mother creative? That's why she put out an ad for volunteers anyway. Figured anyone kind or bored enough to volunteer wouldn't mind keeping quiet about our neglect to the place. By building, after all. A lot of people could use the extra space that we have."
"Well, I had nothing better to do." Rory answered as Jesse led him into an open area. "So where are these sections you talked about?"
"This particular area is going to be part of the Halloween house, so the slide-out walls have been retracted. But the last section down that way is where I believe we store the uh...automatons."
Was it just the nonexistent cold wind, or did the way Jesse said 'automatons' seem vaguely uneasy? It made Rory tilt his head to the side in brief confusion.
"Automatons?"
"Well...you'll see..." Jesse led him down the open area, past stacked crates, boxes and random dusty furniture to the paneled sliding wall labelled REC C. In the far corner where two walls met off to the right, Rory noted absently, was a beige camera that would have blended into the wall perfectly, were it not for the shiny surface of the black lens. Once Jesse opened the door, though, Rory turned from his distraction and immediately recoiled. The blonde gave a surprised yelp as he jumped back behind the wall to peek around the corner.
"What the hell is that?!"
"This would be Foxy." Jesse's smile glittered as the sunlight hit perfect white teeth. "Handsome fella isn't he?"
Just inside the entrance to the room, stood a tall and shiny, orange, metal fox. Scratch that, upon unpleasant closer inspection, it wasn't all shiny but had rusted in some places, with spiderwebs in others, such as those between his ears and menacing metal gap-teeth. An eyepatch was raised horizontal above his left eye, revealing a gaping hole with a mess of wires inside, and in the place of his left hand was a shiny hook. His right hand, was much more rusted and battered down to the basic frame and wire.
"What-" Rory made a face, then edged inside the room to stand somewhat close and slightly behind the raven-haired man. This was one of those automatons that he'd been talking about. A children's toy by the looks of it, but then why was it so...
"Gruesome, right?" Jesse asked, not seeming to mind Rory's close proximity, but instead smirking and going to stand by Foxy, throwing an arm around the thing's shoulders. Quite a feat, considering the automaton had to have been over six feet, and only bypassed Jesse's own height by an inch or two.
"Why is it so..." Rory shook his head, blinking. "Uh, never mind. That thing's creepy. I mean, wicked cool, but severely creepy. Let's just get going."
"Sure." Jesse smiled darkly before flipping down the robot's raised eyepatch with a clang.
The room Rory was led to had drape-covered objects, stools, ladders, window glass and other odds and ends. Back against the far wall to the left lay an old and battered piano. But this room turned out to be only a quick stop, as Jesse led him up another flight of stairs to the third floor. It wasn't until they reached the landing that Rory realized he hadn't been told exactly why Rec Room C was off-limits to visitors.
"So, why is Rec Room C closed off again?" Rory asked. "You can't put Foxy to good use? Seems like he has no trouble being creepy."
"Well, actually, that creepiness is kind of the trouble." Jesse glanced back at the blonde. "Let me show you the third floor and then we'll talk."
The third floor seemed simple, like most of the second, consisting of mostly dusty crates, ajar ceiling panels and in some places, open ventilation ducts. This floor, however, had actual hallways instead of slide-away walls and curtains. The first two doors they passed were closed, but the third one was open and the wall facing the hallway was made mostly of glass, with a huge window facing the hallway- and Rory had no idea why that was.
The chilling thing, was that in the room with the huge glass window stood another automaton. This time, it was made of violet painted metal and had tall bunny ears and a lumpy tail that stuck out it's backside- seeing as it stood facing the opposite wall.
The last room, however, much like the last floor was a lot more interesting than the others. For one thing, it was crowded with books, microphone stands and odd computer parts scattered across a large desk. A bookcase sat against the left wall, next to what appeared to be another huge vent and the right wall was taken up mostly by the huge desk, which had cupboards attached to it, up the wall like a vanity. The third wall, directly across from the door, had large windows that over-looked some of the yard, and the western end of Whitechapel in the distance.
Scattered across the desk, in front of three decent-sized computer screens, were candy and food wrappers, books, electrician manuals, spare computer parts, new wires and RAM disks. Atop the cupboards of the desk were dusty knick-knacks, old magazines and there were inappropriate photos and posters taped to the walls that made Rory struggle not to blush.
"Such a slob." Jesse seemed not to notice the perverted photos and instead made a sound of disgust at the desk. He then picked up a stray pen, which he used to push the leftover wrappers from the desk onto the floor. "Disgusting. I'll have Dara clean this up before you get to it."
"Huh?" Rory averted his eyes from the big-busted women on the wall and blinked at the dark man.
"Now that we're all through with the tour, here's the general rundown..." Jesse sighed, lifting his sunglasses from his eyes and setting them atop his perfect, black hair for a moment before squinting slightly and setting them back down on his elegantly sculpted nose. Really, the guy could be a supermodel, you know, if he lost the air of hostility and smiled a bit more.
"So, you saw Foxy, right?"
"Totally, I saw her." Rory nodded, shaggy blonde locks falling in his eyes. "There was a bunny robot in the other room with the windows too."
"Right, the purple rabbit. Anyway, you've already seen what the inside of the ceilings look like, but that wasn't quite the issue that we wanted to call someone in to fix." Jesse paused and then shrugged. "Or, well...examine, I should say. Monitor."
"Okay." Rory nodded, then lit up as he remembered seeing something black and shiny in the room on the second floor. "What am I monitoring? Is that why there was a camera on the second floor?"
"Camera's are everywhere, actually." Jesse nodded, going over t the window to lower the shades. "You noticed the room with the big windows where the rabbit ended up. That was a part of my uncle's studio, like this room was. If you were listening, I told you that this building has been used for a lot of things, but neglected a lot in past years. This junk is what he left behind. Anyway, he was really paranoid about people stealing his sound or whatever, so he set up camera's everywhere, and my parents didn't object too much, since we've been broken into before."
This would have surprised Rory, if he hadn't been pushing the pointy hat of a bobble-head wizard that sat on the desk. "Really?"
"Yeah, really." Jesse answered, preoccupied himself, by all the dust that had collected on the windowpanes and the blinds. With a scowl, he turned back around to face the blonde.
"So...cameras. Break-ins." Rory blinked as he looked back at Jesse. "Shouldn't you hire a security guard for that stuff? I'm only a high school graduate."
"...Look, I'll just cut to the chase." Jesse pulled his shades completely from his face and revealed deep black eyes to Rory, starkly different from his own. "The robots are starting to act up during the night. It's the reason we don't let people past Rec B on the second floor. The off-limits places mentioned in the flier, the ones I just showed you, house the props we acquired from a children's restaurant that had some bad luck a few years ago."
"Umm, act up?" Rory gave him a confused stare. "What does that mean? Like, fire hazards?"
"It means they act up and move around during the night. My dad meant to fix them up, but never got around to it, until last month, when he hired a man to take a look at them. They were like statues before that stupid mechanic toyed around, but then he went and had an accident and left them here like this."
"Wait, wait, let me get this straight." Rory's eyes were wide. "They move around? Like, how does that even happen? And you haven't talked to anyone before me about maybe fixing this?"
"My mother was a minute away from hiring a professional when your friend called to volunteer." Jesse shrugged nonchalantly. "It would be bad for the family rep if these things ended up hurting one of the kids or their parents when Halloween comes."
"Oh, yeah. Something like that would ruin the rep..." Rory nodded, thinking that it would be awesome to get to look at the insides of those things, however creepy they were. The last time he'd even seen one was when he was probably six or seven and too young to know what RAM disks, multi-circuits, heat sinks or motherboards were. "So...you want me to fix these things? Or the faulty wires in your ceilings?"
"I'm sure my mother and father would appreciate any help you could offer. Especially on the first floor and with these stupid robots, since that's where most of the action will be happening." Jesse have him an odd look, then. Almost like he was attempting to act like a normal person rather than a haughty rich-kid. "You know, my parents were going to pay you anyway. Even though you volunteered to do it."
"Well, I would have done it anyway." Rory smiled brightly at Jesse. He would have, that was the truth. Because even if he didn't get paid, volunteer work looked great on any resume. "So, do these monitors still work, with the cameras?"
"They should. My dad'll be pissed off if they don't." Jesse threw a grimace at the desktop before tapping one of the towers on the floor rather roughly with the toe of his boot, making Rory wince.
"So. When can I get a look at those bad boys?" Rory asked, deciding to jump right into it, adjusting the pack on his shoulders.
"Whenever you decide to get going, I guess." Jesse shrugged, turning back to the door of the room. "But downstairs would probably be priority due to the amount of people that are gonna be walking through there."
"Right, the first floor." Rory suppressed a pout. No robots that day.
"And the basement." Jesse looked back at him, pulling his sunglasses on again. "Most of the second floor too, I'll bet."
"By the way..." Rory started, as he kicked around some wrappers Jesse had pushed to the carpet. "You said the last person who worked in here got hurt?"
"That's right!" Jesse answered, way too cheerfully, as he exited the room, again leaving Rory to follow. "Clumsy old man with a wig."
"How did it happen? Should I like, watch out for falling rafters and falling bookcases?"
"The accident? Uh..." Jesse glanced back at Rory, who was right on his heels as they passed the room with the violet bunny facing the wall. "He was electrocuted."
Rory's eyes widened as he looked down at his bare hands, which had just been wrapped around frayed wires not twenty minutes ago. "Electrocuted..."
"Yeah. They found him in one of the vents with his head half inside an electric jack-o-lantern. Must've been a tweaker."
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"Hold it still!"
"I am holding it still!"
"If you're not going to help, just hang up!" Rory complained, standing atop the same ladder he'd been standing on all damn day. Internally, he whimpered as his neck ached. The wires that connected the monitors to the cameras wasn't in the ceiling, per se, but high up in the wall.
He didn't need to be listening to Ethan give Benny instructions on how to get a better signal when he was the one who called, needing help. He sighed.
"Which one is disconnected again?" Benny's impatient voice crackled over the iPad Rory had brought along. Upside to decked-out warehouse: a big, high speed internet server that no one was around to use except for him.
"The blue one." Rory whined.
"Okay, so a dark blue or like teal or turquoise?"
"Benny! It's blue!"
"Okay, so just connect the blue wire to..." Ethan struggled to peer through the iPad at what Rory was looking at. "The blue port?"
"That helps, there's three of them!" Rory exclaimed, getting fed up and just plugging the wire into one of the blue ports, connecting them. Nothing happened.
"I think maybe two of them are just there for show." Benny's stupid face dominated the screen, as Ethan was only in the connection through audio. The shorter of the brunet geeks himself wasn't in Whitechapel either, but getting settled early into a dorm that both he and Benny would be sharing in the upcoming college semester.
"When does anyone just have them for show, Benny?" Ethan sighed, and Rory could hear him flipping pages. "And when did all three of us suddenly lose our edge on computers?"
"I should have taken that last computer class." Rory mourned loudly. "I knew I should have, but I got cocky and took Advanced Calc and now look where I am!"
"Surrounded by half-nude women?" You could hear the smirk in Benny's voice.
"Scrambling to get these stupid monitors hooked up to the cameras before tomorrow." Rory glared at the black panel in front of him- far more advanced than what he was used to. "I promised Jesse that I'd have it running perfectly."
"Why would you do that?" Ethan asked incredulously. "Rory, if it's too much, just go home. It can't be that bad. These people are rich, they can have three professionals in there at the drop of a hat."
"But you should have seen the look on his face!" Rory yelled as he plugged a new wire into a random port and watched quite a few bulbs light up on the panel. "He looked like he doubted that I could turn a PC on by myself, much less run a whole four-floor system. It's bad enough I have to call my geek friends to help me with setting up basic communications-"
CREAK.
Startled, Rory glanced at the door. Had Jesse come back?
"What was that?"
"Is that interference?"
"Rory?"
"I think the rich kid might have come back." Rory answered and eyed the door wearily. The last time someone had come to check on him, several hours ago, was when the same blonde girl from before had rushed past him again and up the stairs. When he'd gone up after her, after tending to the main control panels of the first floor, she'd been gone and the office he currently sat in had been cleaned down to the now nonexistent dust-bunnies atop the monitors.
"Tell him to leave us alone." Benny snarked, obviously put out by just the thought of Jesse Black, who'd pushed him around a few times when the three of them had all been freshmen in high school and Jesse had been a junior.
"I think I have to go, guys. Mandatory meeting for our hall, Ben."
"See ya, E."
"Bye Ethan, thanks for the help!"
A moment or two later, Ethan's connection to the conversation cut out and when Rory didn't hear any more noise come from the hall, he shrugged and hopped down from the ladder.
"I really hope this works." Rory muttered, glancing out the windows of the office. It was almost nightfall outside, and he had the last of his scholarship applications to fill out. Plus, he was starving.
"It should, we've tried everything in the book, literally." Benny sounded exhausted as well.
"Still at that apothecary?" Rory asked and shook out his hands and cracked his neck, seeing as he'd been in the same position for over an hour.
"Yeah, my great aunt is still away with my grandma. How old ladies can have so much to gossip about in one sitting is beyond me." The brunet sounded both annoyed and amused. "Surprising amount of visitors though, for a pagan place like this."
"Well, you know the trends. Organic in, plastic out." Rory began poking around the towers, making sure everything was plugged in right.
"Tell that to the girls on your wall." Benny winked suggestively from the desk and Rory ducked his head as he plugged in one last cord that he was pretty sure led to the middle computer monitor.
"Okay..." Left to right, Rory switched on the monitors, and one by one, the monitors lit up.
"Woo!" Benny crowed from the pad. Rory punched the air in gratification and relief.
"Finally, I can go home!" Rory stood on stiff legs, almost falling over. "Thanks for everything, Benny, I owe you one definitely!"
"Wait, Rory, can't you stay online until-"
"Yeah, I'll call you later! Promise! Or maybe tomorrow morning! I bet E'll pick up if you call again!" Consumed with the need to be out and in open air, away from this building, smelling of dust and metal. "Thanks again, Benny!"
"Ror-"
With only a twinge of guilt, Rory smiled at his friend through the screen and ended the connection.
Signing, the blonde stretched and turned off the PC, satisfied with the knowledge that everything would be ready for the next day. The next five nights he'd be spending in the building.
Opening the door, he screamed suddenly and stumbled backwards, dropping his bag full of tools and spare pieces, landing, thankfully, against the rolling computer chair. At the same time he screamed, a higher pitched shriek sounded from the hall, just beyond where a tall metal figure stood- an automaton in the form of a duck.
"Oh! What the heck?! You scared me!"
"You scared me!" Rory defended himself, clutching at where his heart was pounding against his ribs. "What are you doing with that thing?!"
"I was just about to ask you the same." The blonde from earlier that day stepped inside the room, past the freaky duck, with it's mouth hung open and one eye poking out of the socket. "It's pretty creepy, huh?"
"Well, when you put it in front of a door in the middle of the night.." Rory shook his head, noticing suddenly that the girl was really quite pretty, and smiled his best girl-charming smile. "I'm Rory! The tech guy for this place, apparently!"
"I'm Dara. It's nice to finally know your name." The girl nodded, smiling a bit and glancing down to where Rory's possessions lay scattered across the floor. "Wow, I'm sorry, maybe I should have made more an effort to be quiet."
"What? This?" Rory asked, wanting to stop the look of guilt dancing in her pretty green eyes. "This is nothing! Trust me! A pretty girl like you can knock me over anytime!"
Dara simply looked up at him and moved a lock of hair away from her eyes, before kneeling to help him pick up the fallen tools. Rory smiled proudly at the blush on her cheeks, and then his cheeks and ears proceeded to turn pink when he realized exactly how many near-naked women decorated the office.
"Uh, it's fine, really." Rory took the bag from the floor and threw it under the desk, away from the both of them. He quickly ushered her outside the door with mutterings of faulty lighting and wanting to get home as soon as possible. They made it past the duck and into the main area of the floor before she spoke again.
"Are you sure? It was my fault in the first place."
"What was your fault?" A new voice asked from the stairway.
Both blondes jumped at the sound of Jesse's voice. Jesse, who looked rather irritated with the both of them, and was leaning against the doorway to the stairs, giving the perfect impression that he'd been just standing there waiting for them to notice him and had gotten tired of it.
"What did you do this time, Dara?" Jesse asked, none too kindly. "Was it another clown head? I told you that thing was a bad idea, and then you went and made a burn mark on the lawn. Now, apparently, your being a burden to our computer geek."
"Hey!" Rory forgot the initial surprise at seeing the dark-haired man and stepped forward a little. "She didn't do anything, I fell down on my own!"
"So, you pushed him? Dara, Dara..."
"No! She didn't!" Rory insisted. "That yellow thing scared me and I fell over!" Neither of the others missed the blush that dusted Rory's face at his own words and Dara averted her eyes with a look of sympathy and mild amusement. Jesse smirked, seeming to forget that he's been irritated just a moment before.
"So, Chicka likes you, is that it?" Jesse asked, tilting his head at the blonde male in a way that made Rory's insides feel funny. "Well, what can I say? I don't know what to do with either of you." His eyes flicked to Dara. "Except you, intern. There's a glitchy fax machine in the west office with your name written all over it. I'd like to see it running and printing in the morning. Now go."
"Sorry, Jesse." Dara looked down and gave Rory a quick smile, brushing against his arm, probably on accident, as she left. Instead of appeasing him, the apology seemed to make Jesse's expression darker. "It was nice meeting you, Rory."
"Bye Dara!" Rory waved, even though she couldn't see it, watching her squeeze past the raven-haired man with care not to touch him, and then faced Jesse with a disapproving look.
"You shouldn't be so mean to your employees."
"Right. Well, she's not mine, she's my moms." Jesse sat up straight from his position against the stairs. "Anyway, let's take a look at the office, shall we? Check your progress?"
"I just left the office!" Rory groaned. Usually, he wouldn't dare pout around his employers- his mother had drilled it into him to respect authority figures in the workplace as much as he could, but this was Jesse. Benny was right, he had been and still was a real jerk. "I'm not supposed to have an office job until I'm like thirty!"
"Stop whining, dork. I'm just checking, jeez."
Rory paused as he studied the duck automaton on their way back into the office. What had Jesse called it...? Chicka? He gave it a confused look as he noted that it's left hand was stuck out to where the doorknob would have been if the door were closed.
"So you were just going to leave the light on? That's running up my electricity bill, geek." When the obnoxious man's voice broke Rory from his thoughts, and the blonde looked over, Jesse held up Rory's bag.
"Oh, that." Rory looked at the mess in the floor and bent to gather it up, grimacing and hoping to god that his disks weren't bent or scratched. "Sorry."
"Just as long as you clean up after yourself." Jesse smirked a little, just a quirk at the end of his lips. He looked down at the blonde, who didn't seem to mind or notice that Jesse wasn't lending a helping hand like Dara had offered to do, that the blonde had to reach around Jesse's boot-clad feet to reach containers of screws and chips. "Fine by me."
"I need to get all these naked women off of the wall if I don't want your mom's assistant to think I'm some closet perv or something..." Rory scowled to himself, kicking himself in his head, even though it was something he had no control over. Either way, tomorrow those suggestive photos were coming down.
"Funny, I didn't think you'd be the type to mind what she thought of you." Jesse murmured and Rory blinked up at him owlishly. Jesse turned away and waited for him to get up. When Rory finished, the man appeared to be examining the blinds.
"Something wrong?"
"No." Jesse answered simply.
Rory pouted as he was brushed out of the way and made to follow Jesse quickly before said bully, like, shoved him down and ran away, turning off the lights as he went. Before the raven stuffed him into a cupboard and left him there until morning. Before he knocked the bag out of Rory's hands and kicked away the contents, like he had with Benny those few years ago.
But Jesse did none of those things. Instead, he stood at the door and watched as Rory zipped up his bag.
"Ready?"
"Yeah." Rory answered, surprised in the back of his mind and following at Jesse's heels like he did earlier. The upper floors really were creepy, especially at night.
It wasn't until they were all the way to the bottom of the stairs at floor one that Rory realized they hadn't turned off one light on way down.
"Wait! The lights!" Rory turned around and stared up the stairs with disbelief. Was he going to have to run up and turn them all off, one by one?
"Don't worry about it." Jesse's drawl broke the blonde from his frantic thoughts.
"What?"
"I said don't worry about it, didn't you hear me? We have automatic lights, dork."
"But..." Rory started. "You're not going to make me run up the stairs and turn off every light? You're not going to make me pay the bill?!"
"Not unless you don't move your ass." Jesse cast him an annoyed scowl. "I shouldn't even have came up here. You're going to be more trouble than your worth, I know it."
Somewhere in the depths of Rory's thoughts, he processed that the feeling in his chest wasn't entirely indifference. The feeling was vaguely unpleasant, but Rory only huffed and shoved past Jesse, for the first time that day being mildly upset at the older man.
The only look Jesse gave him was a confused one. Indeed, the raven-haired man wasn't entirely happy with himself at that moment, because really the blonde had tried, didn't he? But instead of considering it further, Jesse squashed the feeling, the humanity that reared it's ugly head only once in a while, and sighed tiredly. Easier to not care than to try and make it better. As it had always been.
Glancing back at Foxy, who looked very innocent and creepy at the same time, standing by the stairs, he shuddered lightly. The thing's right yellow eye was enough of an ugly sight, but that gaping hole on the left was simply terrible to look at. Maybe it was time to get rid of those things after all, instead of having the kid monitor them.
'The first thing I'll do tomorrow.' Jesse thought with a sneer. 'Is glue that damned eyepatch to its eyelid. That hole is an eyesore. Literally.'
Smirking, Jesse turned out the lights and secured the building with a quick code typed into the wall-pad and closed the door, not realizing that he'd already flipped Foxy's eyepatch down that day- or that he had just exited from the first floor.
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AN: So, there it is! I'd like to point out that I wrote three-quarters of this within the last few days, so I might just be getting my mojo back, guys! Been watching a surplus of Supernatural, maybe that's it.
Sorry for any mistakes, please correct me, and tell me what you think! Damn, I'm digging myself in deep with this. I'd say this story has two or three chapters left (But it doesn't seem right for this to have less than five), and that Night Shifter has two, and The Eight Pages has maybe three or four (though it really should have eight chapters total). How am I going to do this? :D I dunno. On top of that, I'm almost finished with the last chapter of my two-shot The Fake Fiance, and I'm working on another for HITB. Stressful. Troublesome.
And BethanForever has gone off the map. My views are getting lower and lower it seems, but what can I say? I can't help myself. You'll definately be seeing more of my stories this month, I'm kicking myself in the ass to do this, so yell at me if you notice that I'm off the charts too, okay? Don't be pissed at me, I'm trying!
I'd appreciate reviews! Until next time! BTW, does anyone know what's going on with daylight savings? The struggle is real.
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Uploaded October 2nd, 2016. 9:35PM :D