A loud argument was carrying on in Afton and Emily's office.
Dollface winced at a loud yell and the sound of something falling. Wolfie stared stone faced at the office door. The black shirt they had to wear everyday wore baggy on her, like loose flesh clinging to bone. Wofie's eyeliner was smudged. It always was, and always had been.
The thought of Wolfie looking neat or 'sweet' was almost comical. Even Michael thought so, especially when he found out that she'd hated church camp, she'd recently set the place on fire.
But only after pushing someone into a poison ivy trench and witnessing a level ten ptomaine poisoning.
Dollface had been sent to Camp Granada once, but hated it so much that she'd straight up left long enough for authorities to be called. Gramma was pissed, but she was home before the week was over.
Wolfie was always good for a laugh or a can of spraypaint, often found at sunset cruising around the abandoned districts of Elmore across town. There wasn't much town to escape from backwater Baptist parents, but it was easy to duck into a crumbling townhouse that wasn't inhabited by Jason or Old Man Kruger.
Freddy Krueger... He got what he deserved.
The girls couldn't tell what the argument was about, but from an estimated guess, it was about the boy in the trunk, and how Corporate was panicking over this PR nightmare due to Old Man Krueger's sticky fingers.
Michael said over an unsweetened cup of coffee and a split plate of blueberry muffins the other day, that as glad as he was that Freddy was gone, he didn't think he was involved. He wasn't sure who yet, but after saying his goodbyes, Michael told Dollface to keep an eye out.
He wouldn't always be able to get to her in time, no matter how much he needed to.
"Okay girls!" Henry slammed the door open, startling all five of them. Izzy even let out a startled squeak. "We have a new plan! And we'll start with you girls!"
"C'mon in!" William greeted, pushing his smeared glasses up his nose.
Dolli Mae gave Henry 'the look'.
Henry gave 'the look' back to Dolli Mae.
With interest of 30%.
Princess pushed Dolli Mae, forcing her into the office. Princess couldn't stand tension, even for a few seconds. She HAD to know where something was going, and being patient wasn't her way of getting there.
In her mind, results were the only thing that mattered, and results had to come fast.
"Hello girls." Afton sat behind his desk, sweating. It was covered in papers and documents, and the clunky computer's monitor was plastered with sticky notes. The entire room reeked of too much cologne. Dollface tried to look around the Macintosh at Afton's round face as he leaned back in the office chair. He pulled out a drawer from his cluttered desk and held up a drawing ripped from a journal.
"A friend of Vinnie's drew this the other day. I think you'd fit each role well." he slid the paper towards them, winking at Dollface, blank side up, letting the girls stew over the contents of the drawing. Dolli Mae paid attention, the name of her new boyfriend being mentioned.
Dollface, standing front and center, grabbed the picture and flipped it over to see the colored picture. Her friends huddled around her, wanting to see. Dollface blinked at the picture, not quite registering the colorful drawing.
"Okay, what do you want?" Princess clumsily asked from her place over Dollface's left shoulder.
"I want you to be the new face of Freddy Fazbear's." Afton beamed.
"Okay, I still have zero clue what you are saying here."
Dollface stared at the paper, recognizing her friends all lined up for costume concepts. She twisted and turned it in her little hands. She'd need another set of sketches to fully comprehend what was being asked of them. She'd drawn character concepts before, and whoever had done these needed to work a little harder, and draw a few more detailed sketches.
For all she knew, there were more, better detailed drawings hiding somewhere and she just didn't see them.
"Are there any singular characters?" Dollface asked, "It's kinda hard t'see."
William's smile didn't waver as he passed over a stack of sketches. Dollface shuffled them, skimming each cluttered concept. "I hope these can help."
Ouch, these were hard to read. Details were drawn in the margins messily and notes were scribbled illegibly. Even the colorwork was poorly done, clearly a rush job done by someone who couldn't give a shit.
"What's that?" Izzy craned over Dollface's right shoulder.
"Ya think we should do it?" Before she could get an answer, she said, "Hey, Wolfie, think ya might like t'see this."
Wolfie looked up from her suspicious prowl of the small office. "Yeah?"
"What d'ya think o'this?"
Wolfie snatched the picture from Izzy's hand. "Yo Dolli."
Dolli Mae stopped glaring at the beaming Afton suspiciously. Afton's politely terrifying smile never wavered.
"Whatcha thinkin'?" he asked.
"What exactly are ya sayin' here?" She asked Afton as he leaned forward in his chair.
"You girls can help us bring in customers. Mascots are nice, but having a real face and real people everyone recognizes can help win back a certain demographic-teenagers, like you."
"This is about the body, isn't it?" Princess asked.
"The body might've helped us with this decision, yes, but we were considering this anyway." Afton stated, calmly. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Have you ever heard of the 'uncanny valley'? This industry is full of it! And we've lost teens due to the Video Game crash. Besides, we don't know what they like anymore."
Wolfie raised an eyebrow at 'Considering this anyway', but smirked when she saw her mockup, a black bodysuit with stripes.
"Whatdya want us t'do?" Wolfie asked, not even caring enough about the uncanny valley or whatever he was talking about to actually ask further.
"We want you to be The NEW Fazbear Band." Henry said as he opened the door with his foot, "We want you to memorize these tapes and help Maggie make your costumes over the next few weeks or so. Your main role is to grab the audience we've lost over the last few years due to trends- teenagers. Are you interested? We'll even let you play what you want."
The girls chorused different cheers of, "Yeah!" when the bonus of playing what they pleased and William, along with Henry, grinned at the new prospect.
Like wolves… Michael said, but Dollface ignored him, hoping he was wrong.
The feeling his words brought stayed with her until Henry distracted her by loudly dropping a box with scripts and tapes as William slid a stack of freshly printed contracts from his desk's filing drawer.
Real contracts printed with ink instead of mimeographed on whatever was found!
Now that was classy!
Or, at the very least, better than the underfunded school's stationary system, anyway.
Thoroughly distracted, Dollface placed the contracts in the box, placing the sketches on the desk next to a mechanical toy frog with glasses. "Thank ya sirs! We a'r'dy know how t'play music, so that'll be an easy task"
Afton smiled in delighted surprise.
Dollface beamed, turning to leave. They could do this! It would be a fun way to while away the summer until school started back up.
"Talk it over girls, it'll be a big commitment!" Afton said as they left the room, the door closing behind them. Then, he asked more privately to Henry, "You sure this is a good idea? Is our legal team okay with this? I don't want our girls to get hurt."