"Why do I have to babysit her?!"
The blue-haired male whined, more than a little upset with the newfound job thrust into him.
"Because we don't have anyone else to. Unless you want Mari to bite you in the ass, that is."
Came Chica's curt response that should have sealed up any room for argument, but Bonbon was nothing if not persistent, and he was not about to waste his Saturday night babysitting.
"But why can't she just be on her own like BB?"
Ok, maybe that was a bit of a low point, even for him. God knows he knew that answer possibly better than anything, but right now any argument was a good argument, even if it wasn't.
"You know well as I do that without some supervision, she'll not only get herself killed, but probably burn the house down in the process. BB may be an annoying little s- brat, but he can take care of himself. Mangle can't."
Any sensible person would have dropped the argument at this point. It was no secret that, despite Freddy's name being the one on the land deed, Chica was, without a doubt, the one in charge. If she told you to do something, you did it and you didn't audibly complain either, no matter how much you despised the task. Bonbon knew this. Bonbon followed this. Hell, most of the time, Bonbon had an uncharacteristically high amount of respect for Chica.
But Bonbon really hated babysitting.
"But she doesn't even listen to me! What's the point? She'll do whatever she wants regardless of what someone has to say about it, especially me!"
And so he continued fighting, letting his knowledge of the consequences that come with not listening to Chica slip away from his headspace.
"With an adult around, Mangle won't do something fatal. Alone, she'd probably decide to play water gun war with the fuse box! All you have to do is keep an eye on her. And I don't see why you have such an issue with this, it's not like you have anything better to do."
...Ok, so, perhaps there was just the tiniest drop of truth to that statement. But that was still an extremely low blow, even for her.
Even still, Bonbon's eyes narrowed with resentment at his elder, arms crossing in defeat as he let out a frustrated sigh, finally giving up.
A triumphant smirk lines the older female's peach lipstick, there's always entertainment to be found in emerging victorious from arguments, especially ones with Bonnie's pretentious little brother.
"We'll be back around 5:30ish in the morning. If she gets hungry there's leftover pizza—"
Bonbon nearly gagged at the typicality
"And—"
"Don't wake Mari I know."
Bonbon finished for her in an irritated tone, arms still crossed firmly over his chest as he sulks in his defeat. Truthfully, he'd never actually heard this speech before— he only babysat for the young when there wasn't anyone else to —so there wasn't really any way he could know what she'd been about to say. But it was a fair assumption, after all, the rule 'don't wake Mari' which had been drummed into all their heads since they were just little children wasn't just courtesy, it was a survival tactic.
Who you are to her, how well you know her, how well she treats you, none of it matters.
You do not wake Mari.
Ever.
Initially ignoring Bonbon's disrespect— she does however toss an icy glare his way that sends shivers down his spine and simultaneously lets him know he's very lucky it's the only thing he received in regards to his attitude —Chica then turned to the child who's care they'd just spent twenty minutes arguing about, all traces of negativity vanished from her facial features as she smiles kindly down to the kid.
"Alright sweetie, you have fun with Bonbon ok? And if BB shows up, feel free to use him as a punching bag until we get back."
The last part is finished with a knowing wink that elicits a string of giggles from Mangle, who's happy smile, albeit shy as well, has nearly consumed over half of her face. Chica weaves her fingers through strands of the child's snow-white hair in a gentle, affectionate manner before standing up and exiting the house, closing the front door behind her and breaking into the fastest run she can manage in 4-inch heels towards the car where the others patiently awaited her.
Bonbon promptly turned a cold, demeaning gaze towards Mangle, who met is venomous green orbs with her own dual-colored pair— her right eye a brilliant shade of lime green while the appeared as though it's colors had been inverted, the color black seeming to have consumed her entire left eye, the only other color amounting being a white ring in the center of the black (the unbelievable result of a freak chemical accident, they'd yet to find any logical explanation for how she'd even survived, let alone the eye color change).
Bonbon shuddered, his features lined with resentment. He'd forgotten just how unnerving looking at her could be.
With a slight shake of his head to pull his thoughts away from her unnaturally creepy appearance, the male clears his throat, stuffing his hands into his pockets in hopes to reflect the illusion that he's regathered his composure and he's not afraid of her.
"Ok Mangle, here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna go watch tv, and you're not going to bother me at all. Do not talk to me, don't stand or sit near me, heck don't even breath near me. In fact, forget I exist entirely and I'll do the same with you. Ok? Ok."
A shocked and remotely upset look crosses Mangle's face, eyes narrowing and mouth contorting into a slight frown, her expression conveying a range from 'what?', to 'you can't be serious', and finally 'you've gotta be fucking kidding me'. If Bonbon wasn't as stubborn as he was, he might've actually laughed.
Mangle on the other hand was dead serious, and opens her mouth to protest, at which Bonbon suppresses a frustrated groan.
"But what if I get—"
"I don't care."
"But what if I need—"
"I still don't care."
"But—"
"I. Don't. Care. Now, go do whatever the hell you do all day and do not bother me. "
Realizing the chances Bonbon was joking about his lack of concern were nonexistent, Mangle blinked her dual-colored eyes a single time, before turning around and running down the hall.
Bonbon let out a sigh of relief, finally he was alone. He paced into the living room and snatched the remote before unceremoniously plopping down onto the worn couch and switching the tv on, tuning out the surrounding world.
"You little SHIT!"
A positively fuming Bonbon quite literally screeched as he darted with a newfound speed fueled by rage after Mangle, who was, rather understandably, screaming her head off while running as fast as her legs would carry her.
The child lept, twisted, and tumbled over and under the residency furniture (which was unbelievably difficult in pitch blackness, lesson learned using the fuse box as a dart board is a very bad idea) as she narrowly avoided the countless grabs Bonbon made for her.
The child's screams continued to echo off of the walls as Bonbon continued pursuing her, the murderous gleam in his green eyes never faltering as he stayed on her tail to the best of his abilities— which was proving rather difficult- wait where the hell did she learn to do a flip like that? —, and after possibly the most stereotypically-cartoonish chase he'd ever played witness too, Bonbon finally caught up to the girl and seized her arm in a vice-like grip, stopping her in her tracks.
Without a moment of hesitation, Bonbon lifted her frame and slung it over his shoulder like a sack, doing his best to ignore the rather painful kicks and screams she gave out in protest, and focused on keeping her immobile, and also said a silent prayer in hopes that those painfully sharp nails of hers didn't leave claw marks, but knowing her they probably would.
Bonbon continued his journey down the hall until finally stopping in front of a closet door, which he swiftly opened before, quite literally, throwing Mangle inside the cramped space before shutting the once again and locking it.
"Hey! Let me out you asshole!"
Came an enraged shriek of protest, however her cries went muffled by the wooden door. This didn't stop her however, as she continued to scream for the other to let her out, the demands soon accompanied by the sound of her kicking, punching, and full-on ramming herself against the door.
She was actually hitting the wood so hard that for a moment Bonbon actually found himself concerned that she might manage to break it down, but that worry was almost immediately dismissed. Mangle might possess an acrobatics skill set that's not only abnormally extended for her age, but remarkably practiced as well, but even with her suspiciously well-practiced talents, she was still very small for her age. A roundhouse kick, no matter how perfectly poised, will do no damage if you do not have any strength to back it up.
And one thing Mangle does not have is that strength.
And with that those thoughts in mind, Bonbon ventured back into the living room and once again sat himself down on the couch, kicking his feet up and resting them on the armrest, his head reclining against the opposing one. He let his eyes slip shut as he quietly hummed the familiar tune of the Toreador March to himself, before eventually dosing off, Mangle's muffled cries still audible in the background.
Bonbon was violently awoken from his slumber by the startling feeling of someone ferociously shaking his shoulders. A groggy groan escapes his lips, a hand shooting up to rub his eyes before blinking a few times— and finding a pair of electric purple ones— oh no —filled to the brim with so much unadulterated anger they may as well have been actual fire in her eye sockets— oh no —, staring right back at him.
In his entire life, Bonbon has only ever met a single individual with eyes colored such a radiant shade of purple.
Which means there's only one possible person who could be looming over him with a look so ready to kill in this moment.
Which means Bonbon is positively fucked.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
Came a deafening screech so unmistakably belonging to Chica that's full of an amount of unadulterated rage so colossal, Bonbon knows this is the end of the line.
However, in his current state of drowsiness that pays gratitude to the truly peaceful awakening from just moments ago, he can't quite figure out what Chica could possibly be so infuriated for.
Though, judging by simply how loud that scream was, he was really in for it this time...
"Whaa...?"
Is his embarrassingly uneducated reply that he'd intended as the word 'what', but had gone interrupted midway by his body's apparently more important desire to yawn.
"You LOCKED Mangle in the CLOSET! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!"
A flinch, partnered with his arms moving ever-so-slightly between his frightened expression and her snarl, an instinctive defense mechanism in response to her terrifying disposition. Bonbon's prior drowsiness has evaporated, there's no way he's anything but wide awake after that. His newfound alertness also gives him insight into just what Chica is so infuriated over, and if he wasn't royally screwed before remembering why she was so angry, he sure as hell is now.
Oh boy.
The teen gulps, upper teeth momentarily clamping down on his bottom lip in fear before the corners of his lips turn upwards in what might possibly be mistaken for a sheepish smile, and had he not been so unsure as to how to react without losing his life Bonbon might've actually been concerned with just how stupid he looked.
His voice is barely above a squeak when it first comes out, which prompts the teen to very briefly clear his throat in a rather desperate-seeming attempt to actually sound human while talking, before he proceeds to just barely mutter out the remainder of his verbal retaliation.
"I-I was gonna let her out..."
Chica might as well have been blind to any attempts Bonbon was making to appeal to her kinder side, hell, for all he knew she actually was. His very evident terror didn't seem to matter in the least to her, if anything she actually seemed more enraged now.
Was it something he'd said?
"WHY WAS SHE IN THERE AT ALL?!"
"Well, I-I mean I had to do something with her, she blew out the power!"
The tiniest bit of confidence returned to his tone, his expression hardening with just a touch of defiance. After all his action had in fact been justified!
Sort of.
Unfortunately, Chica didn't appear to feel the same way.
"Why did you let her do that?! Weren't you watching her?!"
Whatever confidence he'd managed to gather in his attempt to save himself evaporated into thin air on those words, the self-assured expression shattering like glass as his features morph back into their previous image of surprise and fear.
"I...w-well I mean I..."
Chica's already-enraged face constricted with fury, her snarl twisting to bear an unusually sharp set of teeth that Bonbon could've _sworn_ had actually become sharper, and her face positively reddened.
"You. Weren't. WATCHING HER?!"
Another gulp, oh god he was fucked he was so incredibly fucked—
His reaction was more than enough of an answer for Chica, who's burning eyes continued to bare down at him as her snarl pulled back— wait did she just growl? —at her teeth. She actually looked like she might explode, if he wasn't too terrified to move Bonbon might've actually been kind of impressed really.
However, that was not the case, as he was in fact too terrified to move because this bomb that had replaced his caretaker was the product of his stupidity and Chica was going to kill him and it was his own fault—
"YOU ARE GROUNDED UNTIL THIS HOUSE ROTS AND CAVES IN ON US!"
He instinctively flinches at her scream, eyes squeezing shut as he finds his body trying to curl into a ball as a last resort in terms of self-defense.
He stays in that position for a full thirty seconds before he realizes he can't feel her weight looming over him, prompting him to crack an eye open, confirming that she has indeed moved off of him and is now standing by Mangle, comforting the still-sobbing girl who looks— wow she actually looks really scared...wow he kinda feels a bit sorry for her actually —wait a minute what had Chica said to him?
Eyes widen in disbelief as he recalls the words he'd nearly deemed unidentifiable thanks to her yelling them. Unfortunately, he was able to identify them, and holy hell she had not just said that.
"Wh-Wait what?! Y-You- No you can't ground me I'm 18...!"
Came a slight protest powered by newfound disbelief and a bit of anger too. She had to be joking right? She wasn't seriously going to ground him was she?
The sympathetic expression Chica had carried while speaking to Mangle peels away as she turns to face Bonbon, her kind smile contorting into an unimpressed frown as her posture stiffens once again. Rather than being consumed by anger however, this time, she stands solid as a statue, features hardened in certainty as the slightest of smirks tugs at her lips.
"Watch me."
There was no arguing with that expression. He couldn't even if he wanted to, and oh god did he want to.
A defeated sigh escapes him, eyes drifting closed as he slips his hands into his pockets, curling them into fists and groaning lowly in annoyance at the fact that there is nothing he can do to win.
"What's my punishment..."
Her already-malicious smirk seems to positively swell with triumph, oh god she was enjoying his defeat way too much and Bonbon really did not like that at all—
But what choice did he have? Like it or not they still lived together, he might be 18 but lord knows he doesn't have anywhere else to go, it's not like his brother will let him stay after everything he's done, hell he's lucky Chica's letting him room with her.|
Unfortunately for him, that means Chica is the boss.
Oh god.
"Firstly, I hope your up for spending six hours in a closet."
"Wait wh-oAAH—!"
Eyes widened to the side of saucers as in a flash Bonbon feels his feet leave the ground, and next thing he knows he's surrounded by the suffocating walls of the exact same closet he'd thrown Mangle in mere hours ago. He feels himself protest, feels the pressure of his fists making contact with the wooden door and the strain of his voice as he cries out to them, hears Chica and Mangle giggling at his useless calls for mercy, hears their voices fading as they walk away from him, like he'd done to Mangle.
He finally lowers his fists, unclenching them and resting his palms against the door, sighing in defeat. Nonchalantly, Bonbon turns around and presses his back to the wooden door, sliding down against it until he's seated on the floor, leaning against the panel.
Another sigh, followed by a dry, humorless chuckle.
"Well, at least one good thing came out of this."
He voiced aloud, well aware no one was listening.
"I'll never have to babysit again."