Fired Up?

Liam wiped a little sweat off of his brow, but the smile on his lips stayed since he had just finished the last bit of electrical work to be done for the part. The manager had called him in early to do the last few touches. He had more or less rushed/drug himself to the pizzeria.

His blue eyes looked down from his place on the ladder and looked at the redhead who had been assigned the task of make sure the ladder did not fall over. His mind wandered curiously as to why she had a bandage across her neck. "Did a vampire get you, Cordy?" he asked jokingly.

She weakly replied, "Something like that."

"Or," he hummed out slyly but jokingly, "have you just been getting too kinky lately?" His face lost a little color as he caught sight of her own face turning as red as an apple. He didn't think she actually was doing something like that. Eternally he started saying, Our little Cordy is growing up so fast.

"If you eat enough pizza, its mystical healing powers will have whatever the injury is healed in days. Trust me," he said happily after recovering from his momentary freeze up. "I know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Sure you do," she replied with a nervous laugh. "I bet it can fix anything, right?"

"Of course!" he exclaimed while walking down from the top of the ladder. "I would definitely be dead if it weren't for pizza!"

"Because that's all you eat. You would starve without it," she mumbled quickly under her breathe.

"What was that?" the black haired boy asked quickly while eyeing her with an intense stare. If she didn't come up with something to say fast, she was going to receive a lecture on the supreme power and deliciousness of pizza.

"Oh, I think the manager needed to speak to us. Didn't he?" the redhead responded swiftly and moved her feet to walk toward the office as he hopped down from the last step. "We should do that."

"Wait up," he called while hurrying to catch up to the rushing girl. "Geez, I didn't think anyone just walked at that fast a pace," he huffed lazily as the redhead disappeared behind the door of the manager's office.

Upon entering, his blue eyes simply caught the sight of the manager sitting up all official like in his chair. His fingers were intertwined with each other and covering his face that looked a tab brooding. His dark gaze was firmly latched to the pair of workers. His voice came out tiredly yet firmly, "I would like to thank you both for all you hard work. I am going to give you a whole week off."

"Really?!" Liam exclaimed. He could sleep a little longer was his main thought; although, in the back of his mind, he made a note to try and inform his robotic friends before leaving. Cordelia just looked at the man with a quirk brow as if to ask 'Why?'

"But," the manager added after a small stretch of silence, "I need to stage it like you two are being fired."

"What?" Liam asked aloud. "Why?"

The manager scratched the back of his head anxiously. "The other employee's seem to think you two get special treatment or something. I know that's not true, but that's what they think. I want to pretend you guys are fired for a week. Once everyone sees this place can't function half as well without the two of you, they will stop complaining."

Liam looked puzzled by the whole situation, but nodded regardless. Cordelia was okay with this, too; she was going to ask for time off anyway for another surgery so it worked out perfectly for her.

"So we are good?" he asked. He continued without waiting for a reply since they had already shook their heads 'yes' moments before. "After today's party, I'll 'fire' you two in front of the other employees. Don't say a word of any of this though. Okay? Good. You two may go."

The toys were playing as normal, but they all were nervous and excited to have refurbished animatronics on stage with them. Last night they had all practiced together, and everything was great. Different things were still always nerve racking.

Backstage Liam stared at all the animatronics had had been working on with all the effort he could possibly put forth for the past few weeks. Every one of them was functionally perfect, and had just been cleaned by himself and Cordelia. The black haired boy was so proud to see them already to go on stage.

Bonnie was fidgeting and messing with tie to cop with his nervousness. Freddy was holding his head high and straight in a professional way. Chica was practically bouncing from excitement; she almost dropped her cupcake. Foxy was holding up his newly polished hook and practicing facial expressions.

"You guys ready?" Liam asked with a hushed happy tone.

All four of their faces turned to him. All had large smiles and nodded. They were never so ready for anything. This was what they always wanted. It was what they were built and born for. They were meant to play and entertain, to bring joy to children and people of all ages.

"Just a few more minutes," he whispered. His fingers spliced the red show curtain up only a centimeter to see the toys playing and the kids cheering. The lights and everything were perfect for the party that was occurring. Happy birthday streamers hung across the ceiling and music was booming loudly while pizza and cake was being passed around.

"Thank ye, mattie," Foxy said as quietly as he could. "We all be in the back still rusting if it weren't fer ye kindness. Ye be a great lad."

"I wouldn't even be able to talk right now," Bonnie mused. "My voice bank was so bad. I was sure it was going to go out any day. Then you showed up and fixed it. I didn't tell you when you did it, but that made me the happiest I'd been since the day I first played here. It also gave me hope that we would get to where we are now."

Liam rubbed the back of his head at all of the complements and heart felt words he was receiving from them yet again. "Ah, you guys, you know you don't need to thank me. I did it because you guys are like the best friends I've ever had."

"Really?" Chica cheered as hushed as she could muster. "You're so sweet."

"It time," Freddy said deeply. "You say we don't have to, but again thank you, Liam."

The boy stared to move off stage and looked back for a brief moment and mumbled, "You are welcome. Do great. See you guys later."

The mechanic walk through the crowd of children and to a corner to watch. He wound up finding an uncomfortable Cordelia standing with Vincent who seemed to be hovering over her short height weirdly. Liam, as always, ignored the man's oddities and picked a tile on the floor to rest his feet on.

"Hey guys," he called as he drew closer to his square and stopped on it. "How's it going?"

Both turned their eyes to him. The purple haired man grinned wildly and waved, "Well if it isn't Liam. What's up?" Cordelia simply nodded at him to act as her greeting; she look a little more tired than she had earlier due to lack of sleep. Liam felt a bit bad for her especially since Vincent was being so loud.

"I'm doing good. What about you man?" he asked as he went to lean on the wall beside the two but where he could still see the stage.

Vincent flung his hand out to motion toward all the kids. "Great. Look at them all." He add darkly under his breathe so that Liam and Cordelia could barely hear him, "One day I'm going to get one or more. Soon." He laughed lowly. Liam looked him straight in his silver eyes.

"Really? I didn't even know you had a girlfriend," Liam replied having heard what he wasn't necessarily meant to. "I never really pegged you as one who would be all fatherly and stuff. That's cool though. I'm sure you'll be a good dad."

"Haha, yea. Maybe so," the purple guy laughed eerily. "I'll do better than my own dad. I'm sure of that."

Liam cocked a brow at him. "Bad home life? Sorry, man. I never even really met my dad. He died before my mom had me on some type of overseas work."

"Well, family can be overrated if you ask me," Vincent mumbled before tossing a glance at the night guard who was barely standing. She look like she was about to fall asleep. "Hey. Cord-doll. What about you? You got a perfect family life?"

She glared her pale green eyes his way. "Don't call me that. My family is fine. I live with both of my parents." She, of course, left out the fact that her mother didn't want to accept her in her current state, and her father could barely look at her because of her mother was doing to her. He was rarely ever home. That's why Cordelia liked the pizzeria job a little more than she let on. It kept her away from both her parents.

The silver man shrugged off her coarse answer and turned back to the crowd to make sure none of the customers were messing with things they should not be. He smiled creepily as the children screeched at the top of their lungs when the colored lights Liam had put up started to work their magic and more music started to play before the manager stepped forward.

"Hello, Fazbear friends. It's great to see you all here today for Richie's 7th birthday! Today we have something very special to show you all. I'm going to introduce you to some of our older band members who will be playing with the rest of the band today." The curtain drew back to reveal the smiling older mascots. "Meet Chica the Chicken, Bonnie the Bunny, Foxy the Pirate, and Freddy Fazbear, himself."

The kids roared loudly in excitement once again. Liam legitimately though he might go deaf, but he too was enjoying the reveal of the refurbished animatronics. "Now we are about to start the show! If you would like to go on a pirate adventure come and join Foxy and Mangle in Kid's cove after the first song! Enjoy!" the manager finished as he got off stage and dropped the exaggerated happy smile from his face to replace it with a content flat line as he stepped toward the back of the room to stand.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the old and new band together. Freddy's deeper voice harmonized perfectly with the toy bears slightly higher voice as they sung the children tunes. The Chicas would add in a few perfectly in sync notes and dance about the stage to entertain the kids. Bonnie and Toy Bonnie almost seemed to be competing as to who was better at the guitar, but nonetheless it sounded great and spread music and cheer throughout the pizzeria.

Liam wondered for a moment how the foxes were doing, but the moment there was a quiet moment in a transition between songs, the sound of a loud 'Arharhar' hit his ears. He then knew that the two pirate animatronics were doing just fine.

Time slipped by like wind through idle finger as he watched his friends have the time of his life. Cordelia still stood near him, but she was leaning heavily against the wall as if it were the fluffiest pillow she had ever come into contact with. Vincent had wandered off to deal with a parent who was getting a little angry about something in the prize corner.

Liam had enjoyed the day he at some point sat down and leaned against the wall by the slumped over sleeping nightguard; her head was tilted at an odd angle, and he debated on waking her because she might end up with an awful crick in her neck. He decided against it since she was so tired from her night's work. His blue eyes slipped back to the stage to see the mascots taking a bow.

"We thank you kids for all showing up!" Toy Freddy announced and the children cheered for themselves. "The next event for our Birthday boy, Richie, is going to be in party room B."

"There you can all get some of our delicious cake," Toy Chica chirped gleefully as she wrapped her arm around the older chicken's shoulders.

"You will also have the chance to meet and talk these guys," Toy Bonnie said with a not too creepy smile as he patted the purple a little to hard to identify who he was speaking on before also motioning to the other two older mascots. Bonnie resisted the urge to glare at his blue counterpart.

The Three of them all bowed respectfully. They all started to walk off back stage toward party room B. Before they had completely exited, Chica called to the crowd of children, "We would love to see you and get to know each and every one of you!"

The toys then went out into the remaining bit of crowd that were not part of the party to talk to the children. At that same time the manager came up to the boy who was still sitting against the wall beside the sleeping girl. Vincent had also made his way back to them, but he was just leaning against the wall boredly.

The manager cleared his throat to gain their attention. Silver, blue, and freshly awoken light green eyes now stared at him anxiously. "Yes," Vincent asked with a quirked brow.

"Vincent," he spoke firmly, "I need you to close up for me today. Lock everything. Also please go supervise the party in party room B."

The purple guy caught the keys that were tossed to him and as he walked passed the manager he rolled his eyes and drew out his words lamely as he said, "Sure."

The manager eyes never let his dark gaze leave the two worker in front of him. He stood for just a moment longer to try and make sure all of the complaining employees were looking. He then spoke out loudly enough that the closest people could hear. The only people that were near were the employees, the toys, and the children, who could care less about the old man talking to the teens. Parents were simply watching their children from booths.

"I'm sorry Cordelia and Liam, but I'm afraid I must ask you two to leave this premises and not return unless you are authorized by me." His words were clean and firm.

"W-what?" Cordelia asked with faked astonishment that impressed Liam.

"You are firing us?" the black haired boy added lowly.

"Yes," the manager said as a smile tried to creep onto his face. From the corner of his eyes he watched the other employees and saw his plan was working; they were eating it up. "You two are fired from all Fazbear establishments and banned from all location. I have the authority to escort you out or call the police if either of you refuse."

They had both straightened and looked alert, but now had dark menacing looks seared to their face. Although the manager knew they were fake, he was a bit intimidated. They both glared at him as they stomped toward the exit out of the pizzeria.

"Well I'll just have to get my pizza elsewhere," Liam announced as he trotted out. He said it as though it would be an insult. In all honest, there pizza sales had gone up quite a bit with his presence.

Cordelia just huffed and whisper lowly to herself, "You are probably going to regret this even though it is fake." All the toy had witnessed the show that had just played out, but they had no clue it was pretend.

Sorry it took so long to post this. College was kicking my butt. I will still try and update fairly consistently. Next chapter starts The Week of the Dead. A lot is about to start going down. I also might make a Halloween short as an extra or something. I'm unsure though. Anyway, I hope you liked it.