Somewhat based off of my own awkward interactions with a past partner, unfortunately. Why is it so difficult to just like…normally converse with someone when you've started dating them?
Also, speaking of relationships…can we pls pretend Foxy and Mangle's relationship didn't exist? Idk man just pretend they broke up off-screen like a year ago. Because I cannot even like…deal with them rn. They are an enigma. Never speak of their relationship again. Ever. Doesn't exist. Their ship has crashed with the old Balloon Boy, Sammy, and Ruby's twin siblings (ogs will remember all of those guys, who have since been painstakingly redacted from the book)
Reviews!
MoonTheMagical: Oo, what did you order? Also you could totally crush those darn other kids into the dust.
SomeRandomRobo: That's a good idea, yeah! I love pop, especially Sprite.
Qxr: You're good with math! And yeah, they'd each get plenty of money. Too bad Michael doesn't like sharing…
Penguimom: NOOOOO THE REINDEEEEEEER
Warning: very very small Arcane episode 5 spoilers lolz
Enjoy!
Chapter 73
Of Mice and Romance
"Don't call me cupcake. My name is Caitlyn."
"But you're so sweet, like a cupcake!"
Gay, Ruby thought absent-mindedly to herself, pausing the show. She adjusted her position so that she was lying sideways on the bus seat, head on top of her backpack like a makeshift pillow. She was currently watching Arcane, a show which Josh had practically bullied her into watching, and she had to admit it was pretty captivating.
And speaking of gay…
Ruby sighed as the bus screeched to a halt, a group of kids noisily clamouring up the steps like bear cubs and beeping their bus passes. Quickly, she stretched out her legs over the rest of the brown leather seat so that none of them would try and sit with her.
How was she supposed to…interact with Myah?
Now, Ruby, despite being insanely hot and a total baddie, had never actually had a girlfriend. Or kissed a girl. People had asked her out, sure, but they'd never turned into an actual relationship. Two were girls who'd seemed nice at first, but one of them was obsessively into One Direction (like, in a creepy stalker kind of way), the other Ruby had turned down because she had never seen the girl in her life. And the third was a wannabe f-boy looking for a 'goth girlfriend'. A little strange when;
Ruby was not goth.
Ruby was not into men.
Ruby was not into him.
Ruby had made all three of those things very apparent in her four years of high school, had informed him of all those things when he asked her out, yet he claimed he could 'fix her' and get her to like him, him, in all of his sweatpants and misogynistic glory.
Yeah, Ruby had never lucked out in the dating department.
Of course, you could count her ex-friend Maisie, who needed practice for a date with her latest crush (who'd turned out to be a total douchebag and tried something, something that earned him a slap on the face and a frantic call to an Uber driver). Ruby had had to cover for her by saying she was sleeping over at her place the whole time, what with Maisie's mom being so strict she claimed she wouldn't let her go out with a boy until she turned sixteen.
But whatever! This wasn't about toxic past friends, this was about her and Myah and how inexperienced Ruby was, and how probably experienced Myah was. After all, Myah was a very sweet girl, with a sort of shy charm that could draw people in like iron to magnets. There was no way she hadn't dated at least one other person, right?
And what about pacing? What speed were they supposed to take it at? Was Myah even okay with physical contact? Were they supposed to hold hands when they went down the halls? Were they supposed to-
"Hey. Ruby. You're getting off, right?" Opie from her science class asked from the seat behind her. Ruby blinked the daze from her eyes, shaking herself from her mind's thoughts and realizing that she was on a mostly empty bus parked by the high school.
Ruby flushed. "Oh, yeah. Whoops."
The other girl studied her. "You look like you've got a lot on your mind. Everything okay?" She adjusted the thin gold frames on her nose and untucked her straightened white hair from behind her ears.
"Oh…well, me and Myah actually started dating yesterday." Ruby admitted, then immediately froze up. Oh God, was that even okay? What if Myah hadn't wanted to tell people and had just wanted to keep their relationship a secret? Had Ruby just screwed everything up?
"What?! Are you serious?! That's insane! Where was it? Who else knows? Have you guys gone on any dates yet? Will you-"
"OI!I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU GIRLS EIGHTEEN SECONDS TO GET YOUR NOISY, GABBERING MOUTHS OUT THE DOOR BEFORE I DRIVE THIS BUS TO THE DEPOT AND LOCK YOU IN HERE WITH IT, UNDERSTAND?!" The bus driver, ironically named Joy, roared back at them.
"HOLD YOUR HORSES, WE'RE COMING!" Ruby shouted back, digging through her backpack pockets for her bus pass while Opie headed to the bus's front.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Joy hollered. Opie winced at the loud noise, scanning her bus pass and hurrying off to a group of kids with brightly dyed hair.
Ruby rolled her eyes, finally finding her pass and heading to the front, scanning it as fast as she could.
"NO STICKERS!" Joy yelled, referring to the Buzz Lightyear sticker Ruby had, covering her painfully embarrassing school photo embedded on the pass. Ruby didn't know why Joy had to target her specifically, tons of kids had duct tape or stickers covering their faces. Besides, Buzz was so handsome!
"You don't have to yell. I'm standing less than a foot away from you," Ruby pointed out.
"WHAT WAS THAT?! I COULDN'T HEAR YOU!"
"Yes ma'am," Ruby huffed, stuffing the pass back into her pocket and zipping it shut, practically leaping down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. Jeez, the lady had probably gone deaf with how freaking thunderous she was.
After the orange bus had driven away with a loud screech, Ruby tossed her backpack over her shoulder and headed inside into the overwhelmingly noisy hubbub of students inside. Squeezing her way in-between a group of freakishly tall boys with baseball caps, she made a break for the stairs. Honestly, sprinting through crowds of people who were also trying to navigate to the same places as you should be an Olympic sport.
But finally, out of breath and tired, she had reached her locker, recently painted teal. She spun the code in for her locker: nine forty-five nine. Frowning when it didn't open, she did it again, this time trying to be more precise. But again, it didn't open.
"Stupid…goddamn…locker!" Ruby grumbled, trying the code again for the umpteenth time. When it didn't work again, she grit her teeth, kicking the locker with brute force.
"What did that locker ever do to you?" A voice, light and playful, teased from behind her. A small hand rested on her bare shoulder where her leather jacket had slipped down. Ruby could feel the freshly clipped nails lightly digging into her skin, nails she knew were painted white, knowledge gained from the numerous times she'd stared at the girl during class.
Myah. Butterflies swarmed her stomach, flitting and flapping all over the place.
"Oh, it's just- being annoying. I've, um, entered the combination in like a million times and it's not opening." Ruby stammered, a slight blush on her face.
"Mm. Can I help?" Myah offered, twirling in front of her. Ruby quickly analyzed her outfit - a light green cardigan printed with daisies buttoned over a white collared top, paired with a short white tennis skirt, long white socks and chunky shoes to match. A light green plastic flower crown adorned her low raven bun.
"Sure. By the way, cute outfit." Ruby complimented, surprisingly casually. From the way she'd been stressing before, Ruby had assumed she'd be having eight panic attacks and three strokes by now, but Myah was surprisingly easy to talk to.
And it was so worth it, because the way Myah's face positively lit up was an image Ruby would store in a special part of her mind, frame it in glass and gold and treasure it for years.
Myah fiddled with the lock, spinning the silver around to enter in the code. When it didn't work, she tried it again.
"You know my locker combination?" Ruby laughed, scrunching up her eyebrows in disbelief.
Myah flushed. "Yeah, I just- I don't know, I mean I see you enter it every day, and…" She trailed off, mumbling something barely audible.
Ruby beamed. "Well, I'm flattered you watch me that much, it's good to know I'm so hot. Gives me a big ego boost."
"Not that you needed one anyway, hm?"
"Heyyyy! You're just say-"
"Hey, can you two lovebirds get out of my way? I need to get to my locker." A girl with red hair and white earbuds plugged into his matching phone asked in an annoyed manner. At first the two of them were confused when he pushed past them and entered in some random code into the lock, but then-
Oh.
Myah started to laugh, but quickly slapped a hand over her mouth when the girl turned to look at her funny. She waited in agonizing silence while he grabbed a black binder from their locker and hung up his raincoat on the silver coat hook, then pressed play on their phone and walked off.
The second he was gone, the two girls burst into laughter.
"How- how long were you trying that code for?!" Myah wheezed, clutching her stomach with a hand over her mouth.
"I don't know, like five minutes? It felt like forever!" Ruby laughed along, hand on her forehead in a mock-facepalm. "I actually can't believe I didn't notice, that's so stupid."
The bell made three short buzzes and Ruby sighed in disappointment, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. She felt like she could keep talking to Myah till she was old and gray.
"My first class is robotics, and I don't usually need my binder for it. See you in English?"
Myah smiled, tucking a black curl behind her ear and revealing a cute ear piercing shaped like a little green frog. "Mm-kay. Bye!"
~lll~
Well, that was a fantastic day.
Her morning classes were a blur of note-taking, dull crossword-themed study sheets, and sneaking video games on her phone inside her desk during lectures on the same old stuff she learned last week. Bo-ring. With the exception of robotics class, where she'd learned to program a little Lega robot to run a couple meters, pick up a brick, and bring it back to her. She was no Fazbear Entertainment, but it was still pretty good for her first Lega robot project!
Lunch was pretty nice. She'd swiped a strawberry yogurt cup from the free food shack, and Ruby had leftover cheese quesadillas and homemade guacamole in her lunch kit. Plus, she'd managed to trade a banana for some of Ducky's veggie stick chips, so those were tasty (as expected).
Of course, her friends all sounded like boiling tea kettles when she and Myah sat down next to each other- like calm down, we've sat in close proximity before!
But then English class, oh boy. That was something else.
English class itself was fine - writing a poem where every word had to start with the same letter was at least a creative assignment, unlike some of her other classes of 'fill out this word search we downloaded off the web'. But it was her only class with Myah in it, and she had to make it count. And she did!
They sat next to each other, and despite there being three other kids at their table and eighteen others in the class, it felt like they were the only two in the room, hell, maybe even the whole world. It was a wonderful blur of stupid sophisticated jokes (typing 'boobies' on the calculator counts as sophisticated, right?), helping each other come up with words that started with A or R, and genuine conversation where Ruby felt she learned a lot from the other girl.
For instance, Myah's favourite colour was pink, she adored cats but couldn't have any because her mother was allergic, she hated sports except for swimming, and in her spare time she was learning how to knit from Ducky's grandmother. Yeah, apparently her and Ducky were closer than Ruby had initially thought - guess them being the new kids were something in common for the two of them. Plus, Myah had stolen Ruby's black bucket hat and worn it on her head, and Ruby couldn't stop laughing at how it had slipped over her eyes and just past her nose.
And it ended with a ride on the bus with Ducky on possibly the creepiest electric bus she'd ever been on - which was also the only electric bus she'd ever been on. It was weirdly quiet, and the wheels made an odd humming sound, almost like…singing? But whatever, they had scrolled through funny videos while sharing earbuds, laughing till their sides hurt, until Ruby got off the bus and went straight home to take a nap.
All in all, a splendiferous day, one she was excited to tell her friends about in three…two…one!
"RUBY IS HERE, LET THE PARTY BEGIN!" Ruby yelled at the top of her lungs, kicking the door in and letting out a loud whoop of excitement.
"Why are you always so energized at twelve in the morning?!" Bonnie complained as he emerged from the left hallway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning.
Ruby pouted. "Awww, did I wake the wittle baby bunny wabbit?" She cooed, bending over slightly to look down at him. She'd recently hit 5'9, and was quite proud of being able to look down upon her short friends. She still needed to beat Josh though…
"Funny, you think you're funny. Listen here, beanstalk, I have a plastic spoon and I am not, do you hear me, NOT afraid to get violent all over the carpets."
"Hmm." Ruby hummed, skipping past him. Normally, she'd take him up on her offer, but she was too filled with adrenaline and a burning desire to announce her newfound girlfriend to her friends to argue with Bonnie.
"Oh, hey Ruby! I like your hat!" Chica complimented as Ruby entered the main room. Chica appeared to be playing a game of Sorry! with Mari, Jojo, and Freddy. Foxy and Mangle were sitting on the floor on top of ratty old pillows, chatting about some TV show Ruby hadn't heard of.
Ruby beamed. "Thank you, Chickadee!" She hummed, twirling around dreamily and landing square on the couch with a long, drawn-out sigh. When nobody paid any attention to her, she sighed again. And again.
Chica rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. "What?"
Ruby beamed, happy for the attention at last. "Let's see if you can guess. You have three guesses."
"You aced a math test?" Freddy asked, rolling a five and moving his little blue piece five spots ahead.
"Come on, Freddles, you know me better than that!" Ruby laughed, throwing a pillow at him. It phased right through his body, sure, but at least he got the message.
"You gave up trying to make tea with tap water and lawn grass?" Bonnie asked.
"Nope, and I am now regretting telling you that story." Ruby said with a grimace. Honestly, why had nobody informed her that that wasn't okay when she was younger? What kind of parents did she have?
"You adopted a pet mousie? Cos I did!" Jojo chirped.
Mari smiled disbelievingly, patting the small girl's head. "Joey, come on. You didn't actually OH MY GOSH!"
A small brown mouse scuttled out from behind a nearby wooden plank, twitching its small pink nose and standing up on its hind legs to sniff at the air. It's body glowed blue, a ghost, then.
Jojo beamed. "His name is Mousie."
Freddy face-palmed. "Okay, Jojo, that's not- he's not- oh, I don't know. You can keep him if you want, I guess. Just try not to freak your brother out with it."
Ruby smirked. "Guess the janitors have given up if we have a rat infestation."
"Mousie."
"Sorry. Mousie infestation. Remind me to never bring my cats over." She joked, though that last part seemed to be a bad bad idea from the way Jojo glared at her with as much ferocity as a lioness guarding her babies.
Suddenly, the creaky noise of rusty metal and the loud thump-thump of footsteps rang out from down the hall, and before they knew it Springtrap was leaning out the door.
"Has anyone seen a mouse around here? Brown, about yay high- oh, that's it." He nodded to Jojo. "Jojo, would you be a dear and bring the mouse over here, I need it for…um, a tea party."
Ruby frowned. Something in the back of her mind told her he probably wasn't using the mouse for a tea party, but she ignored it. It was just a mouse, after all.
"Don't feely like it." Jojo told him. One of Jojo's new 'things' was to add a Y to every other word.
Springtrap let out an overly dramatic sigh, dragging his feet as he walked over and bent down, scooping up the small mouse into his hands.
"Make sure to give him back to me, okay Springy?" Jojo asked softly, picking at a loose string on her blue overall jean shorts. "He's really cute."
"Um, yeah, sure. Whatever." Springtrap mumbled absent-mindedly, walking with a sort of purpose back down the hallway.
Ruby frowned. "What's he up to?"
"Honestly? Don't know, and don't care." Mangle muttered, examining her nails.
Foxy gave her a short explanation; "We usually try to steer away from that tyrant, and he does the same with us." Ruby nodded in agreement. Made perfect sense to her. Although, if she was being totally, completely honest with herself…
Some sick part of her kind of wanted to learn more about Springtrap, to talk to him. It was probably just human nature, curiosity and all that. She knew that. But still, she felt horribly guilty for wanting more knowledge - this was her best friends murderer, after all. Actually, now that she put it that way, she realized her life was kind of crazy. Ruby wasn't sure how she hadn't figured that out before.
"So? What did you want us to guess?" Bonnie asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.
Ruby grinned, suddenly remembering. "Oh yeah! So, you all remember Myah, right?"
"Yes?" Chica asked pointedly, an edge to her voice. Ruby frowned, what was her deal? Whatever.
"We…" She paused for dramatic effect, then shook her hands in a jazzy way. "Started dating yesterday!"
There was a moment of silence for everything to sink in, and then everything was a blur of squealing and cheers and congratulations and hugs around the waist from little girls who probably didn't know what was going on.
Mari gave her a kind smile. "That's amazing, Ruby! She seems like a lovely girl."
Ruby almost laughed at how Mari was talking like a wise old grandmother when she was only thirteen, but then realized she'd probably take that offensively and kept her mouth shut.
"Thank you so much Marbles, means a lot. And yeah, she really is amazing. She's got this shy sort of behaviour, but when you get her talking about something she's passionate about she can totally go on for hours, it's so cute."
Mangle laughed. "Sounds like you really like her."
"I do, a lot." Ruby said softly, cheeks pink.
And as everyone talked and some moved on to different subjects, Ruby noticed that Chica, usually so open to girl talk, was oddly silent, just staring off into space and fiddling with the lace hem of her skirt. Ruby sat down next to her, the springs of the ancient couch creaking as she did so.
"You alright, Chickadee? You were kind of…off there. Is there something bothering you? You can tell me, I'm your bestie." She coaxed, gazing at her with welcoming hazel eyes.
But Chica's blue ones were closed off and narrowed, and she didn't meet her gaze. "I'm fine."
"Really? Because I don't-"
"I said, I'm fine, okay?! Just…back off!" Chica hissed as she stood up sharply, fists clenched and teeth gritted.
Ruby's eyes widened, and she immediately backtracked. "Hey, I'm sorry if I treaded on anything sensitive-"
"You didn't, it's fine! I'm going to go…bake something." Chica muttered, stalking off with her black Mary Janets clicking like tap shoes on the tiles.
Ruby looked stricken. "Do you guys know what that's all about? She's never like this, especially not towards me."
"Self-centered much?" Bonnie quipped, but he mumbled an apology after Freddy shot him a Look.
"She's just…" Freddy hesitated, turning to the others for…advice, it seemed? Why would he need advice for something as simple as telling Ruby something? She was their best friend - they could tell her anything!
Then Mari spoke up. "I think she might be feeling…um, I think it's because she had kind of a bad day. Nothing serious! But, you know, just waking up feeling irritated, burning…cookies. You know how it is!"
Ruby frowned. "Yeah, I guess." But it wasn't like Chica at all to act so cold, even if she was having a bad day. Ruby had a nagging feeling that there was something else going on behind the scenes, and she was determined to find out what.
But, until then, there was a game of Sorry! that had her name written alllll over it.
~lll~
"She's supposed to be here at three, and now it's three thirty! Where the hell is she?! Honestly, the nerve of this generation! If you can't be punctual, then you shouldn't even come at all, that's what I say." Springtrap ranted in frustration, hands moving wildly. "You understand what I mean, don't you, Plush?"
Plush gave a sneeze of acknowledgement and leaped across the table in a single bound towards the brown mouse, only a little smaller than Plush. The mouse's nose twitched as it sniffed Plush, judging it with beady dark eyes. After deeming him unworthy, the mouse turned and hit Plush in the face with its thin, hairless tail. Plush made a surprised squeak, backing away towards Springtrap and sneezing indignantly.
Springtrap narrowed his eyes, curling his lip in disgust at the mouse who looked so smug after hurting his precious son. "Filthy vermin." He'd crush the horrid little bugger on the spot if he could, but he needed it alive.
Suddenly, there was a loud pounding on the glass and Springtrap rolled his eyes, stalking over to the glass panes and unlocking it, shoving it open. The barking of dogs could be heard even louder, and Springtrap silently willed them to shut up.
"Bloody hell, Katy, I told you three? What kept you, eh? Were you giving a couple married ghosts a bedroom tour?" Springtrap snapped, voice filled with venom.
The ghost outside, Katy, rolled her eyes, yanking on the leather leash and shouting a few choice words at the ghostly hounds on the other end. "Funny guy, are ya? Lemme guess, ya got a grudge against girls like me."
"Oh, I don't know. What colour bed sheets did you pick out? Personally, I like a nice spring green, but I've heard that sunset pink is the new thing these days." Springtrap replied sardonically, placing two hands either side of the window frame.
Katy laughed dryly, tossing her chin-length blonde curls behind her head. "Got a real good sense of humor. Don't get many like that in this job. So, you want me to hand 'em through the window or ya got a better place for 'em to go?"
Springtrap sighed. Handing the dogs one by one through the window would be a huge pain, and horribly tedious, but it had to be done if he wanted his plan to work. "Sure. Do you want me to pay you up front, or-"
"Nah, it's all good. Don't got much else to do 'round here, so I try to find work when I can. Keeps me entertained, that's payment enough. Unless…" She fluttered her lashes, expression sultry as she winked at him flirtily.
Springtrap recoiled, immediately removing his hands from the window and stepping back. "Wha-"
Then Katy wheezed, voice thin and raspy as she waved a hand. "Just kiddin' with ya, darling. I don't go for furries, or the living peeps. Prefer gangster-types, ya know? Though you've certainly got a wonderful voice." She purred, licking her bright red lips in a suggestive manner.
"Mm. Can't say the same for you. You sound like someone who's been smoking nonstop for fifty years." Springtrap retorted, though deeply uncomfortable with the tension in the air. "And I'm not a bloody furry!"
"Ah, well, the loss of a hypnotic voice is what comes with bein' shot in the chest. Too bad I'm young and beautiful, eh? Always got a target on my back." Katy sighed, as if reminiscing on old memories. Then she shook herself, back to her normal stern demeanor. "You want the pups, or no? 'Cause I've got-"
"Oh, just wild parties lined up from four till nine, eh? Are there lots of crazy things happening to the corpses around town!" Springtrap snapped. "Hold your horses, we're in no rush. Now pass me the dogs."
"So you like talking to me, hm?" Katy asked casually, wrapping the least around the leg to keep the other dogs in place while scooping one dog, a pointy-eared German Shepherd, up into her arms and coaxing it through the window.
Springtrap didn't reply.
They repeated the process till there were thirteen or so dogs in the room.
"I don't think I can keep any more in here, you can set the rest free." Springtrap decided. Katy shrugged, and untied the leash, freeing the rest of the dogs and they streaked away through the night.
"Hey, thanks fer being nice conversation. Most guys I do business for are total jackasses, but you weren't half bad talk." Katy complimented. "'Course, it helps that you've got a nice voice. You could prattle on for years and I'd probably still listen. It's a very trustworthy voice, I'd follow you anywhere."
"Yeah, I bet you would." Springtrap muttered under his breath. Louder, he replied, "Thank you."
"No problem. Hey, if you ever need me for anything else, if you wanna chat or need more dogs or whatever - you know I'll be around here."
"Yeah. Thanks." He sighed.
Katy gave him a nod, then strolled off, disappearing into shadows until he couldn't see her at all.
"Now then." Springtrap frowned, turning to the dogs of various breeds and sizes, though all having one thing in common - each were breeds known to have sharp teeth and ruthless ferocity, the exact kind he was looking for. He had to admit, Katy had always had an odd knack for finding the most random items.
"How am I supposed to train them? They're just mutts, they can't even understand me!" Springtrap complained to Plush. What had he been thinking! When these dogs had been alive, they probably hadn't been trained to kill - well, not all of them, anyway.
"Excuse you, we are all purebreds." The German Shepherd snapped. "And my name is Monty."
"WHAT." Springtrap yelled. Dogs couldn't talk, last time he checked! Then again, he was never a dog person…
"Oh, come on, it's really not that big of a deal. When we died, we took it upon ourselves to learn some basic English, is that so hard to understand?" A golden Lab asked, raising a paw.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK."
"Alright. I suppose it is." The Lab sighed. "So, you want us to kill people, hm? We can do that, so long as you give us treats every now and then."
Springtrap nodded. Okay. Dogs could talk. Okay. This was fine. It solved the communication barrier, that was for damn sure. But there was still one tiny problem he needed to solve. After experimenting with some spiders, he'd discovered that it was impossible for two ghosts of the same species to kill each other. However, he had yet to fully figure out if two creatures of different species could kill each other.
This was where Mousie came into play.
"Fetch," Springtrap ordered as he scooped the mouse into his hands and tossed it into the panting jowls of Monty. A snap of teeth and a crunch of bone, and Mousie was no more.
A crooked smile slowly began to spread across Springtrap's face. Good, this was very good. If he could successfully manage to keep the dogs in hiding without anyone suspecting a thing, then he might just be able to pull this off.
What's Springy planning, eh? And who's this Katy?
Totally not projecting my struggles with boring assignments…totally.
Also sorry for the long period without uploads! My life has a been a little busy, but I'll try and keep chapters coming out as quickly as I can!
Question/Challenge: What is your favourite breed of dog? Mine is a border collie, they're super smart and really fast, plus totally adorable!
Have an amazing day/night!
~LittleGhostDog