Why is it that in November I always lose motivation? I don't know. It was a very busy couple of weeks. I also entered in an MEP, so I'll see if I got in and let you guys know!

might have gotten a little bit addicted to cookie run kingdom in the past few days ahahaha.

also I'm addicted to watching bob's burgers and like helpppp my Disney+ subscription ends next month and there's still 7 seasons I haven't seen :sob:

Reviews!

MoonTheMagical: woah, twins! yeah it was really annoying to wear, but still fun. I bought this glasses fogging spray that's supposed to help, so it might work on the plague mask too.

SomeRandomRobo: oo nice, December 16! Can't wait :)

Qxr: glad you liked it! and yeah, that's a good idea

Deblod100: oh wow, I love your story! and yes, I plan to add sb themes in later :)) thank you for reviewing

Notjeillen: wow really? cool!

Enjoy!

Chapter 64

Green-Eyed Monster

Chica set her pen down, examining her drawing with pride. It was a simple picture of a girl with light pink skin and a juicy strawberry on top of her white fluffy hair, but she was very proud of it. Character design was always a fun hobby of hers, and she was pretty good at it if she did say so herself.

She leaned back in her chair, flicking off the fairy lights that her and Mangle had strung around their room. Cassidy had moved out a little while ago, usually sleeping in the maze or not at all. It was probably for the best, considering how much she complained about the slightest of sounds from the two of them.

Still, Chica kind of missed her. Cassidy used to be her best friend when they were kids, and now it seemed like she didn't want anything to do with her. Chica had even overheard her talking to Mari about how she found Chica irritating. Like, okay, maybe her high-pitched voice could get on Cass's nerves, but did she really have to talk behind her back about it?

As much as she hated to admit it, in some ways Chica almost sided with Springtrap's insults to Cassidy, though she did feel bad about it considering how much Cass had been through.

Another thing to mention about what they'd found out a week ago. Mari and Cassidy were actually younger than the others. Well, they were technically older, but mentally and physically, the two of them were young, Cassidy being fourteen and Mari being thirteen. They theorized it could have something to do with how long they were in the suits for, considering Cassidy stopped aging the day she left Fredbear. That wouldn't explain Malcolm's case, however, where he'd been inside BB for a year and hadn't changed a bit, but the theory was a start.

Chica stood up, stretching out her arms, and sighed. She had a craving to do some baking, and she figured cupcakes would be a nice treat for the janitors, Allen and Ian. Considering the amount of harassment they got from Springtrap and the other ghosts, Chica figured they deserved a treat. It wasn't like any of the household members could eat, the ghosts being, well, ghosts and Springtrap's organs being shredded to pieces.

Baking had always been a passion of hers, ever since she was little. She used to do it all the time with her sister, Samantha, and her father too. That was before he left, of course…

Point was, it was always her dream job, second only to helping her mother make those wonderful patterned blankets of hers. Or quilts? Tapestries? Chica wasn't quite sure what the correct word was for them.

She also wasn't quite sure why she'd liked sewing in the first place, considering back then she had the patience of a squirrel. She had a fond memory of trying to sew with her family…

"Lookit, Mommy! It's a sword for a fairy!" Susie cheered, stabbing the silver pin into thin air wildly, a mad grin on her face. Her mother glanced up from her careful work.

"Be careful with that, Sue. I don't want you to get pricked."

Susie frowned, slumping. Grown-ups always had to ruin all of the fun.

"Look here. See how I thread the needle into the fabric? Out, then in. Out, then in. It follows a simple methodical pattern. Once you figure it out, it's really quite- Susie! Put Sparky down!" Her mother, unfortunately, noticed the five-year-old trying to get Sparky onto the table so he could sew too.

Sue pouted, setting her Golden Lab puppy back onto the floor, where he scrambled back to his feet, waiting attentively with his tongue hanging out for his master's orders.

"But Mommy, he likes it there! He told me so!" Susie whined, crossing her arms, which were covered in a soft red sweater.

Her mother frowned.

"Dogs can't talk, Sue. Now, help me with this cross-stitch…"

Ah, what trivial things that she'd complained about back then. Chica would give almost anything to be back sewing on their dining room table with her beloved mother again…

No. Chica shook herself out and straightened. Her old life was in the past, and now her focus was to spend time with her new family (minus Springtrap).

She opened the door and began to walk down the hallway, heading to the kitchen for some relaxing baking, and-

Hold up.

"Wow, Foxy! Those pancakes look insane! If I could still eat, they'd be gone already."

Freddy, Bonnie, Mangle, Mari, and Malcolm were crowded around the table, oohing and aahing and gushing over the steaming plate of warm beige pancakes, dripping with topaz syrup and melted butter.

Chica frowned, walking over.

"Hey, guys. What's up?" She asked, her expression giving away nothing.

Foxy grinned widely and waved.

"Ahoy! I was just cooking our crew up a batch o' pancakes!" He said, pride shining in his one yellow eye.

Chica nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. But none of us can eat? I was going to make something for Allen and Ian, because they have to deal with us every time they come here to clean."

Foxy dipped his head. "Well, that's rather kind of you, lassie. But I'm using the kitchen right now, so you could cook 'em later?"

Chica's mouth dropped open. "B-but I-"

"C'mon, Chickadee, you're an awesome baker, but you've gotta let someone else use the kitchen every once and a while!" Mari coaxed, her face pleading. Mari, being a peacekeeper, did not like the tension in this room.

Malcolm peered up at her with his large cerulean eyes.

"Like us?"

Bonnie patted him on the back, in more of a condescending way than reassuring. "No, you're actually banned from using the place ever again. Same for your sister."

Malcolm slumped. "Awh."

Mari raised a finger, her mouth open as if to object, but then closed it, nodding. "Yes, actually, I think Bonnie has a point. That was a literal nightmare to clean up."

"I had literal nightmares," Foxy shivered, obviously traumatized.

Chica rolled her eyes. "Can we get back on-topic, please? Am I allowed to use the kitchen, or not?"

Everyone exchanged glances, then turned back to Chica.

"Sorry, dear, but I think you need to let the rest of us have a turn." Mangle told her gently, her yellow-and-black eyes full of sympathy.

Chica hated it.

Well, maybe hate was a strong word. Chica heavily disliked the pity in her friend's eyes. And maybe her friends were right, she should let others have a turn at baking. Still, she couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy when she saw the others fawning over Foxy's baking rather than her own.

Oh well. It was fine, she supposed. As long as she got to make her food later, then she was okay with it.

Chica wandered down the hall, but stopped when she heard a loud noise of metal on metal, almost like somebody was...hammering something? She paused to listen a little more. Hm...seemed like it was coming from Springtrap's room. Chica walked on up and opened the door.

Springtrap was sitting at his desk back bent leaning over his desk, which was lit up by a small desk lamp. He spun around in his chair, clearly surprised when he saw her.

"Oh, it's just you. You're not so bad. Hello." Relief was heavy in his voice.

"What are you doing?" Chica asked, leaning to the side to try and peek at what he was doing.

Springtrap rolled his chair aside to proudly show off his work.

"It's my latest and greatest invention: the illusion disk! Or, what I've made so far, at least. It's still a work in progress." His eyes shone with pride, and Chica could tell he was excited. Honestly, however evil his intentions might have been, Chica had to admit that the man was good at programming.

"What does it do?" She asked, keeping her tone level.

"Oh, nothing much. Just creates an illusion of anything you want and can completely revamp your appearance. Really, miniscule in the grand scheme of things." Springtrap's voice held an edge of sarcasm.

Chica raised an eyebrow skeptically. "That sounds like it could be dangerous."

"Could be, I guess. But I dunno, it was something I'd been working on last summer. Before you lot rudely barged in on me."

"You kidnapped a child," Chica quipped incredulously.

"Yeah, well, um." He frowned. "Shut up."

"Oo, sick comeback." Cassidy mocked, walking through the doorway and leaning against the wall. She adjusted one of the white ribbons holding up her pigtails and gestured to his desk.

Springtrap grimaced. "Ick, it's you. What, got nothing better to do than torment me?"

Cassidy gasped in mock outrage. "Torment you?! Whyever would I do that? No no no, I'm just an innocent little child wanting to know what you're working on!"

"Yeah, I'd like to know too." Freddy said, him and Bonnie appearing at the door. Springtrap rolled his eyes.

"Great, you're here too. Look, this isn't some museum where you can just dance your way into my room and hammer me with idiotic questions like 'what are you working on?'"

"I'm also here!" Jojo chirped, standing in front of Mangle. Mal nodded from beside his sister, busying himself with a bar of soap.

"And I brought a cantaloupe!" Foxy chimed in.

Everyone stared at him.

Foxy adjusted the large melon on his shoulder and stared back, his eyes wide. "What?"

Springtrap threw his hands in the air, staring up at the ceiling in amazement. "What is with you all and coming into my room today! I thought you weren't even allowed to come in here in the first place! Right, Fuzzbear?"

Freddy mulled over this new piece of information for a moment, then nodded. "That's true. Alright, everyone out! No buts!"

"Aawwww…" Jojo murmured, slumping as everyone was quickly ushered out by a very stern-looking Freddy. The conversations that they whispered were, much to Springtrap's delight, not about the illusion disks, but rather about how Foxy had managed to obtain a massive cantaloupe.

Cassidy managed to cross her eyes and stick out her tongue at him before Freddy shoved her out and slammed the door shut.

Springtrap hoped her tongue caught in it.

~lll~

"So, do you mateys want teh do something? Play a game? I've learned a few card tricks!" Foxy exclaimed rapidly in a chipper tone of voice.

"Card tricks?" Mari emerged from a nearby room, intrigued.

"I'd like to see this too," Freddy said, taking a seat at one of the plastic folding chairs.

Foxy beamed, pleased that he'd been able to capture everyone's miniscule attention span. "That's right. You'll all be shivering in your timbers by the end of this, that's for sure."

"Okay, so I'm going to shuffle these cards, right?" Foxy said, carefully switching them up. The four other skeptical ghosts watched intently.

"Now, who wants to pick a card? Chica?" Foxy asked, looking directly at her. Chica reached forward and carefully selected a card. She glanced down at it, concentrating hard on remembering it, and showed it to her friends. An eight of diamonds.

Bonnie rolled his eyes. "I know how you do this. It's a trick. You just look at the-"

"Shhh! It's magic. Ye can't spoil the magic, scallywag." Foxy warned him, his expression serious. Bonnie snorted in disbelief, but closed his mouth.

Foxy took the card back from Chica and placed it face-down without looking at the front of it. Bonnie examined the back of the card closely. Hm...there didn't seem to be any tricks there. The back was completely identical to the others. Still, he'd figure it out how the sly fox did it!

"Now, I'm just going to take the remaining cards and flip 'em around," Foxy explained, doing exactly that. As he was doing so, he busied the rest of them with a riddle.

"If a rooster lays an egg on top of a barn, which way does it roll?" He asked. He'd heard this one from a joke book he bought a couple days ago, and it was a good one.

Freddy frowned, his brow creased in deep thought. "Um...right?"

"Nope," Foxy told him, taking a sneaky peek at the bottom card. A Joker. He shot his head up, hoping none of them saw, or he would never hear the end of it.

Luckily, it seemed they were all completely absorbed in the riddle, theorizing with each other and thinking deeply. Chica snapped her fingers suddenly. She had the answer!

"I've got it! It rolls...down! Easy."

"Good guess, lassie, but that's incorrect," Foxy said, taking Chica's card and stacking it into the deck. Bonnie slammed his fist into the table and groaned in frustration.

"Goddammit! This riddle is impossible! What is it, it's probably going to be something stupid."

"I bet it rolls up," Mangle said jokingly.

Bonnie rolled his eyes, playing along. "Eggs don't roll up, dummy."

Mangle gasped and punched her friend in the shoulder. "Shut up! You don't know that!"

"Do you want to know the answer or not?" Foxy asked, raising an eyebrow.

The four of them immediately shut their mouths, straightening their posture and sitting very still.

Foxy smirked. "Roosters don't lay eggs. Hens do."

Everyone groaned.

"That's so stupiddddd!" Bonnie whined. "How were we supposed to get it?"

Foxy shrugged. "Well, I guess if you were an expert on those scurvy land birds then you'd know. Oh, and by the way Chi-Chi, is this your card?" He flicked up a card. The eight of diamonds.

Everyone gasped in wonder, but Chica just narrowed her eyes, snatching the card to take a look at it for herself. She searched it for marks, anything out of the ordinary, but found none. Chica shot his gaze back up at Foxy.

"How did you do that?!" She snapped, and to her surprise, she felt anger in her voice.

"A magician never tells," Foxy said mysteriously.

"Hmmph." Chica was not convinced.

"That's amazing, Foxy! You're really good at that!" Freddy praised. Foxy beamed.

"Aw, thanks, mate."

Bonnie turned around, meeting Chica's gaze. "Hey Chi, can you do any magic tricks?"

The question itself was well-meaning, but for some reason, it ticked Chica off even more.

"No, I can't. And what does it matter?" She snapped.

"No, no, it doesn't. I was just asking." Bonnie defended himself, raising his hands.

Chica frowned as everyone gushed over Foxy's epic magic trick that really wasn't that impressive. Like seriously, it was like he discovered a cure for cancer with the way everyone was reacting!

Chica sighed. She was getting bored of this whole magic schtick. She decided she wanted to draw again. She made her way across the room, picking up her sketchbook and flipping through the pages to a blank one and picking up her pencil. Hm...she wasn't very experienced in drawing braids. She'd try to draw someone with braids!

A couple minutes passed, and she had finished the sketch. Chica smiled. Y'know, it looked pretty dang good if she did say so herself. It was a simple drawing of a girl with her dark hair in braids, wearing a black leotard and tutu paired with a spiked choker.

"Woahhh! Foxy you wrote that? This is so good!"

A voice exclaimed from the other side of the room, and Chica rolled her eyes. What did Foxy do this time? Solve world hunger? Cancel global warming? Create world peace?

"Chi, come look at this! This is amazing!" Mangle called, beckoning her over. Chica sighed heavily, tossing her sketchbook and pencil aside and making her way over there.

"It's really not that great," was Foxy's attempt at being humble. "I wanted to make it a graphic novel, but I lack the art skills."

Uh-huh. Is that the only thing this Gary Stu isn't good at? Chica thought to herself, but kept quiet. Maybe it didn't make him a Gary Stu. Maybe she was just overreacting.

"Hey, Chica, you should write a book sometime!" Freddy suggested kindly. But Bonnie just snorted from behind his hand.

"Chica, a writer? Ha! Have you guys seen the story she wrote last year! It was the comedy of the century!"

"I thought it was supposed to be a tragedy?" Mangle quipped.

"Really? I didn't see it." Bonnie replied lightly, leaning back in his seat casually. And that was it. The final straw. The lid had blown off and Chica was full-on steamed.

"IT'S LITERALLY ABOUT A WOMAN WHO'S HUSBAND JUST DIED! How could you not pick up on it?!" Chica exploded, waving her arms in the air.

"I dunno, it wasn't very well-written. At least that's what I heard, considering that Text-To-Speech had no idea what a single word meant." Bonnie laughed.

"Bonnie! It was- I was trying- NEVER MIND." Chica growled, clenching her fists so hard that her knuckles were white. "I can tell when I'm not wanted, so I'm going to my room. Have fun playing your little magic trick games!" And with that, Chica sped off, envy radiating off on her in waves.

Too tired to even make it to her and Mangle's room, Chica fell against the wall, sliding down it until she was sitting on the cold tile floor. She pulled her knees close to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. Why did she feel so terrible? She should be happy for Foxy's successes, but she just felt…

…

Her thoughts were cut off by the sound of footsteps coming towards her. Chica's head snapped up, letting go of her legs and crossing them, looking up to see who was disturbing her peace.

It was Foxy. Of freaking course. Chica looked to the side, avoiding eye contact. Foxy seemed to notice this and sat down across the hallway, just a few feet away from her.

"Um. Hey there, lass. I, uh, wanted to apologize for...whatever I did back there. I didn't mean for anything to-"

"Stop, stop." Chica couldn't bear to listen to him apologize for nothing any longer. "It's not your fault, okay? You didn't do anything wrong. It's me who should be saying sorry."

Foxy didn't say anything, he just let her talk.

"I was...I guess I was feeling a little jealous. I mean, you're so good at cooking, and writing, and that magic trick was really cool!" Chica explained, her hands moving around. "Plus, you're really funny, and you're such an amazing friend. I'm so sorry for acting so crappy today." Chica sniffled and curled up again.

Foxy's eyes were wide with wonder.

"You're... jealous of me?" There was a moment of silence, then he burst out laughing, clutching his stomach. Chica scrunched up her nose, not exactly getting the joke. When he was done laughing at her words, he exhaled, collecting his thoughts.

"Listen, mate, I don't know what's so great about me that someone as epic as you could be jealous, but seriously! Look in a mirror sometime! You're the cooking expert, not me! Maybe you're not that great at magic or writing, but have you seen those drawings of yours? I can barely draw a stick figure without making it look like a manatee."

Chica smiled softly. "Thanks, Foxy...that means a lot."

Foxy smiled back. "No problem-o." Suddenly, his golden eyes flashed and his posture straightened.

"Hey, I just had an idea…"

~lll~

"Go away! This is a work in progress, and nobody's allowed to see it!" Chica yelled, covering the papers with her arms.

"Fine, jeez. It's not like I was even interested or anything." Cassidy huffed, crossing her arms and walking away.

When Chica was sure that Cassidy was safely gone, she removed her arms from the papers and gave Foxy a thumbs-up. It wasn't that she was just hiding it from Cassidy, they had to hide it from every nosy person who wandered in. Which included Plush. Those black eyes were like security cameras that reported everything straight to Springtrap.

Chica looked down at their work and grinned. Foxy and her had decided to work together and make a graphic novel using Foxy's book! It was about these two kids and their parrot discovering a pirate ship and having many adventures on it.

And with Chica's art skills and Foxy's writing talent, Chica just knew that their book would be a bestseller.

A/N

BAM DONE! All it took was me finishing all of my projects early and being bored out of my mind! At least I have a ton of new chapter ideas hehehehe

Question/Challenge: what's your favourite type of cheesecake? I had a good chocolate one once.

Have an amazing day/night!

~Ghost