I Don't Own Fnaf

The alarm was the first thing that Jeremy heard in his snapping to consciousness, groaning to himself for a moment as his hand swiped out to his right, smacking something that felt a lot like his glasses before managing to get the snooze button. The insistent beeping cutting off with a huff, as he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position in his bed, his eyes looking about the room for a moment, not really focused on anything, not that he would be able to see it anyways at the moment.

Taking a second to feel the slight wobbling in his chest from that shuddering energy that came from waking up but not quite being steady with your own body yet, Jeremy closed his eyes and did his best to ignore the faint feelings of twin annoyance coming from the wall behind him where his neighbor's kitchen laid, the two had been arguing more than normal lately, keeping it quiet but they're emotions weren't. He hoped they sorted it out soon, waking up to it wasn't a great way to start the day.

Shifting his half aware mind away from them, he felt the slow and steady contentment of another neighbor who was probably enjoying their breakfast, the slight discomfort from the elderly woman who lived below him that he had over time assumed meant her joints were acting up. The thrumming almost nothing nearby telling him Bonnie was still asleep, dreaming about... something, potentially a nightmare, he felt anxious. Jeremy had already learned his lesson about assuming though, and about waking up cranky animatronic teenagers

A person with enough practice could tell a lot about what a person was doing or thinking just by how they were feeling, of course this experience was wholly unique to Jeremy, so maybe it was just a him thing, but the point stood, he didn't really want to know that. It always had made him feel creepy.

So with a deep breath, as his mind cleared back to being fully awake, he carefully felt that mental dial he had slowly over time envisioned his actions to look like, and slowly faded the awareness of the world only he could feel until there was nothing but his own sleepy kind of feelings, as he let out a low groan as his body stretched itself out just before he pulled himself out of the bed, grabbing his glasses as he did so. Placing them on his face as he shook out the sleep from his limbs as he walked over to his bedroom door.

Heading into the short hallway and then into the small living room, it was barely a few feet to the left before he was standing in his kitchen. The process of grabbing out a container of food that had been given to him by Mike earlier that week and tossing it into the microwave was about as practiced as him hitting his alarm or grabbing at his glasses at this point. Jeremy was beginning to wonder if he should start paying Mike for the grocery bill or something, the man practically made most of his meals at this point as strange as that sounded, and he was starting to feel kind of bad about it.

Shaking the thought away for the time being, he left the microwave to do it's thing and after setting up the coffee machine to get to whirring, he moved to the bathroom, going through the motions of making his mouth feel like it didn't have something dead in it, combing his hair, ignoring the scars/dents making a ring around the crown of his head, and giving himself a quick shave. He took his showers at night nowadays, he was pretty sure he wasn't the only one, it was the only way to get some sleep without feeling like he was tracking pizza grease onto his sheets.

Back to the kitchen, the microwave had gone off about a minute ago and now the food inside was just about cool enough to not burn his tongue when he grabbed a fork and started to jab into it, while the sound of the coffee being spat out from the machine into the pot made itself known and ready to be consumed within another minute or so. He mostly just spent that time eating quietly to himself, wondering about what all he needed to get done for the day, thankfully he was off rotation, just one private party meant that everyone didn't need to be on staff, thankfully this time around Mike and Janet were the ones who would be on call, so he actually got the day fully off.

"God, it's so early, why are you even up?" Jeremy's eyes lifted up to see Bonnie, in all his light blue bunny glory, walking in from where his own room was, as Jeremy's eyes flickered over to the clock on a nearby wall.

"It's not that early" Bonnie just huffed, saying back a bit snippily.

"Says you, I used to be nocturnal you know" Jeremy grinned a bit at that with how put out the rabbit sounded, as he asked back.

"Why are you up then?" Bonnie more or less grumbled his answer out as he moved over and basically just dropped into one of three chairs that were pushed up against the small table that was in the kitchen.

"Couldn't sleep" Right... So it had been a nightmare, Jeremy did his best to hide his frown, as he asked carefully casually.

"Want to talk about it" He just got a huff in reply.

"Nothing to talk about" Right, Jeremy just nodded once.

"Right" He wasn't looking to push, he knew just how many nightmares he got over the years and was still getting if he was being honest, given everything there had even been some fresh and horrific material being introduced in his dreams in recent weeks, mostly involving balloons bursting into massive balls of fire and melting laughing children... Jeremy made the sudden decision to change the topic, as he glanced back at Bonnie as he moved over to grab a mug for his coffee.

"I got to run some errands today, so I'll be gone for most of it" It was mostly just going around and picking up some stuff he needed around the house, but he also had a few things he needed to run out and get dropped off as well that he had been putting off, and today was a good enough day as any to get such a thing done. Bonnie didn't say anything for a moment, before just letting out a slightly harsher huff than was normal for the rabbit, saying back.

"What else is new?" Jeremy frowned a bit, uncertain as to what that was about and thought about asking, before deciding maybe the rabbit was finally starting to feel the effects of keeping himself holed up in a small apartment for months on end. Jeremy knew all too well how being alone or having no one to talk to could get to a person, though if that was the case, then there was no way in the world that Bonnie would ever admit to being lonely.

Maybe he should call the day off then? Just spend it inside, watching some tv even if he still wasn't a massive fan of it, Bonnie liked to commentate on how things were stupid when Jeremy watched with him, and that was usually pretty interesting in of it self. Still, he was only just one person... Maybe he should...

"Hey, remember what I asked about a while ago?"

"You talk about a lot of stuff"

"I mean the idea of getting a landline put in? You know, so you could call out when I'm not here. I'm sure Mari would appreciate being able to talk to you more" That might have been a mistake, Bonnie had slowly been opening up to calling the puppet every now and again, but he clearly hadn't been that pressed about it, as he just said back a bit more sharply.

"Yeah, get a whole phone for one person"

"I mean, I wouldn't mind if you wanted one"

"I'm not a charity case"

"I know Bonnie" His tone seemed to knock some kind of wind from the bunny's sails as he turned around and stared at the man for a moment, squinting before just saying.

"Good... How long are you going to be gone?"

"Not too long, a few hours, I'll be home for most of the afternoon"

"Alright" That seemed to be it, and once more Jeremy was struck with just how boring his life felt sometimes that there really wasn't anything for them to talk about. He had to wonder if the others went through this as well, or if it was potentially worse, Mike and Mari, and Fritz and Janet, lived together in pairs and worked at the same place, what did they even talk about? He let the thought continue itself for a while before finishing up his breakfast as he moved on to getting into some proper clothes for the day.

Bonnie had migrated himself into sitting in front of the tv, some cartoon was playing on it that Jeremy didn't recognize, but he seemed to be reasonably invested so it was probably good.

Still, he felt a faint shifting guilt about just leaving the rabbit alone all day, as he paused, half way past the back of the couch where his hat rack was standing in the corner of the small living room. A thought he had from a while ago popping up, as he found himself speaking without thinking enough about what he was going to say, as he continued on his path to the hat rack, grabbing one of the bucket hats from it, a dark green one.

"Hey, you remember Plushtrap?" The rabbit's head lolled back, his ears curling backwards along the head of the couch to look up at the upside down view of Jeremy who was trying very hard to not look nervous as he adjusted his hat as the rabbit responded.

"Yeah? What about them?"

"Well, it's just... I heard from Goldie that the little guy has been getting antsy, there's not a lot to do at the warehouse, and we can't bring them to the Cove until they figure out how to not bite everyone. I was thinking maybe a change of scenery might be nice for them" Bonnie slowly grew a frown, his eyes flickering about as he tried to figure out what Jeremy was trying to get at, as he said slowly.

"Okay...?" Jeremy nodded, at nothing, as he said quicker than he wanted to.

"So, well, I was wondering how you'd feel if I brought them over here? Just for a few hours, not today, just... Sometime in the future, give them something to do" A comment from Fritz from a while ago, about arranging a playdate for the kids cropped up in the back of his mind, and he really hoped that Bonnie wouldn't catch onto the same line of logic that the other man had, but thankfully, beyond being given a weird look, Bonnie just said.

"Alright? You're house, if that means being a bleeding heart, then do what you want"

"I mean, I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable with someone else here, you live here just as much as I do Bonnie. I don't want to make any choices that will affect you without you being involved, even if it is just someone visiting" Bonnie didn't say anything for a long moment, before suddenly sitting up, staring away from Jeremy, so the only thing he had to go off of was the way the rabbit's ear's twitched and bounced a little bit, before Bonnie just said with an almost forceful level of normalcy.

"Like I said, whatever" Jeremy... Just sighed, quietly, to himself, before giving a short nod.

"Right, well, let me know if you have any more thoughts on the matter or if you want anything. I'll be back in a few hours" The rabbit didn't say anything, so Jeremy just grabbed his keys on his way to the door and stepped outside of his apartment. Sighing to himself as he did so... He really hoped that was the right call, he had thought about bringing it up for a while now, but had mostly talked himself out of it at the last moment.

At least Bonnie hadn't blown up over it, the rabbit hadn't actually done that in a good while now, which Jeremy was pretty sure was a good thing, he was comfortable here now, not always on edge anymore, it was... Well, it was nice. Still, he really needed to get the rabbit to socialize more, and hopefully that's what would happen with Plushtrap, maybe he could ask one of the three Minireenas to chaperon?

Even though the trio were definitely the smallest of the animatronics that Jeremy had interacted with, they also had been, while playful, pretty responsible and alert. He had the feeling that they were on the older side of the animatronic age range that they tended to fall into. Maybe not as old as Lolbit, who was in his mid to late twenties, but probably at least as old if not older than Goldie.

Those three hadn't complained any about being left along with Plushtrap or most for the day, so they probably had some way to keeping an eye on the little green rabbit...Something to think about, as he exited the elevator and made is way out of the apartment building to head to where his car was parked. His mind shifted to make an idea of a plan as to where the first place he should go would be to make everything as fast as possible when a voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Excuse me, sir" Jeremy paused, more froze, at the sound of the voice, as he turned around to look at the person who had apparently been calling out to him, as he watched a stocky older man who had a solid couple of inches on him, maybe about half a foot taller, in a casual business suit attire, walk over to him, seeing his attention being grabbed he asked, "Jeremy Fitzgerald right?".

Jeremy didn't say anything for a moment, already feeling a sense of dread pool in his chest as he said back.

"Uh, yes, that's me. I'm sorry, do I know you?" The man shook his head.

"Probably not, Clay Burke" The man held out a hand for Jeremy to shake, which he found himself automatically doing in spite of himself, while the rest of his body tensed up. He tried to not let it show, but he apparently hadn't done a good job of it, as the man gave a disarming smile saying, "Nothing to be worried about. I guess your boss has mentioned me?" Jeremy opened his mouth before quickly closing it as he caught the way the man's smile had shifted just enough for Jeremy to notice the way his eyes sharpened. He was trying to gauge Jeremy's reactions.

Well, Jeremy wasn't a particularly petty person, but if that's how Clay wanted to play... He couldn't say he had a great poker face, but the man had an excellent one, to bad it wouldn't matter much longer, as Jeremy let that kind of drawn tight curtain in his mind and let it loosen just a bit, not enough to know what the man walking across the street from him was feeling about the phone call he was having, but enough to feel the ways of suspicion and intrigue from the man in front of him.

Right, now then... It wasn't too easy, but switching out what he was focusing on made it a bit easier and hopefully harder on Burke to get anything from him as he quickly responded.

"Oh? No, not really, I just didn't know your face, I know your name though, been in the papers recently with the... whole thing" That felt really awkward, he tried to use it to make a pained grimace as he continued, "So, uh, what's up? I hope I didn't do anything wrong?"

Burke gave a good humored laugh, saying quickly.

"No! Nothing like that, I did have some questions for you though, about your boss, as I'm sure you've realized by my other question, the two of us have something of a history" Jeremy kind of shoved his hands into his pockets to help hide the way he wanted to ball them into fists. The way the man said that and the faint spike of deception running through him, he was trying to make Jeremy suspicious of Mike. He had no idea what to say though, so he just said back the first thing that came to his mind.

"Oh, well, I mean if you know him you could probably just talk to him" A faint flash of annoyance, it didn't show on the man's face, he supposed being in control over that kind of thing was important when you were police chief, it just made Jeremy more nervous. He was beginning to remember one of the good parts of his ability, too bad that 'good part' also ended up hurting him more than once in the past. Just because you knew you were being lied to didn't stop the hurt of being lied to.

"Well, let's just say that knowing each other isn't all that good. He's been in trouble with the law before, even served a few years" Jeremy was really glad he kept his hands in his pockets, otherwise the man would have seen just how much Jeremy suddenly wanted to punch this man for bringing that up of all things to him.

"Well, I'm not sure any of that is my business"

"You don't want to know what your boss gets up to?"

"I'd like to repeat my point" Burke didn't seem to care, and Jeremy's patience was sadly beginning to lose out. Something about the needling feeling he was getting from the man was wearing down on him more than he was used to.

"Well, it's just you spend a lot of time working there, I was just curious if you happened to notice anything off about him. Anything you'd think was troubling" Jeremy just huffed, turning away, ready to keep going to get to his car, though Burke just followed, so he spat out something quickly in a hope to get him to leave Jeremy alone.

"No, no one else would say that either"

"So everyone has a good working environment under him as your boss?" What does that even mean?

"Look, he's a good friend, we all are, Mari, Fritz, Janet, just... I don't know what the point of this is but-"

"Who's Mari?" Jeremy found himself freezing before he could help it and hated the way the man suddenly looked a bit too interested and that spike of focus in his head. Jeremy hadn't meant to mention Mari out loud, but the talk was about Mike, and the two had been linked in Jeremy's head for so long it was kind of hard to talk about one without mentioning the other. It wasn't like they didn't talk about the others outside either, they just made sure to use other names if they were in public, Mari didn't have one though... Or well...

"Mike's, uh... Roommate. Marion" Burke's eyes widened a bit at that, and Jeremy winced at how he had stuttered over roommate, that wasn't exactly the two's relationship after all, and the man clearly seemed to notice his almost slip and was probably drawing some kind of connection there.

"This Marion have a last name?" Jeremy just turned and walked away, he already felt awful enough, guilt burning at his chest as he said a bit snappily.

"I'm done talking to you" Burke seemed to be fine with that, as he just let Jeremy march off without a second thought, as the man found himself slamming himself into his car's driver's seat, before groaning as he dropped his head against the steering column, that... That had been a mistake. He'd have to call Mike about it, make sure he was aware so they could come up with some excuse about why 'Marion' wouldn't be around to be attacked with surprise questions.

The party at the Cove was going for about another two or so hours, he'd get some of his list done and then call when he knew he wouldn't be interrupting something. At least it seemed like Burke didn't know anything, if he was just asking what Jeremy of all people thought about Mike. It still didn't sit well with him that the man was going after his friend, and he had to admit his heart was pounding a little bit from being so snarky with a police officer now that he was looking back on it.

This whole thing just didn't feel good. He hoped Burke would give up soon.

Mari shifted, slightly uncomfortable but not enough to stop his actions as he drifted through the warehouse, a place that had become something of a come and go place for just about all animatronics. It had been Goldie's home for the longest out of any of them, but nearly all of them had spent some of their nights here, Mari had been one of those few who hadn't, he had always had a place with Mike.

He refused to consider the time he had spent trapped in this place, locked away and drowned out by music, as anything that could have made this place anything but a former prison.

But, in spite of his past with this place, and the areas of it he did his best to avoid, he nowadays spent a lot of time here, visiting one of the newest additions who called this place their home for the time being.

It had slowly gotten easier over the last few months, not... perfect, seeing her was still hard, not because of who she was, of course not, Charlie would never scare him... But the suit she was in? That monstrous thing? That was a bit harder to handle being around.

Her codes still worked, the machine still wanted him, still tried to pull him in, Charlie had confined him in that it felt like a buzzing in the back of her head, a sense of need, purpose. It was something he knew the feeling of all too well, the marionette had been coded the same way, just for less deceitful reasons. She didn't like it anymore than he did. Fritz had said he'd try to look into it, but it was difficult on a living animatronic to go messing with their code.

Foxy had been lucky, it had been an added on patch that Fritz had to just remove that had kept him from being able to do anything but perform expect for at night, and back then, when everything had been new and changing, no one had really realized just how dangerous rooting around in their heads could be. It wasn't a part of his very core, if that hadn't been the case, then Mari would have demanded every ounce of musical programming be scrubbed from his processors.

But there was no do overs, it was basically brain surgery, and he wasn't that desperate, not yet, none of them were.

So he dealt with knowing his will could be overrode, and Charlie, his sister now confined to Lefty, the bear trap, dealt with it. She had been so incredibly resilient throughout the entire process, had listened to what he and the others had said and understood it. If it had been him, who was changed so much later in his life... He wasn't sure he would have been able to deal with it.

Still, he found himself pausing, just before entering the office room that was more like a bedroom at this point for the two bears living here. Goldie wasn't yet back from the party today, which had gone so incredibly that it still warmed the puppet's chest to think about the way that little girl had lit up when she saw him come in with a whole tray of cakes for her and her family to dig into.

The bear and fox both, if Foxy was planning on spending the night here, were probably on their way back here now with Janet in the van bringing them, Mike had gotten a call around the end of the party and had just waved Mari off from waiting up on him, so Mari had just popped over on his own. The only ones that were around right now was the bear in the room in front of him, that he still wasn't going into, as well as the smaller animatronics, Plushtrap and the Minireenas.

He should look in on them at some point, Plushtrap at least, the kid could probably use the company, he knew Goldie tended to avoid the little rabbit, they looked far to much like the bear's old friend, Spring Bonnie, Cassidy, whatever she felt like being called, who, for all they were aware, could still very well be out there... That thought put a sharp dampener on the puppet's mood as he took a deep breath and decided it wasn't going to get better, as he reached up and politely knocked on the door, letting out a short but audible chime to announce who it was.

There was a short thud from inside, before the sounds of hollow footsteps came from the other side of the door before it was opened up to reveal... Charlie, in all her animatronic glory.

Fritz had been looking for another eye for her for a while now, but she had said she didn't mind, Mari however still found it harder to look at the bear's face when it was the exact same. Idly, he wondered if he could convince Goldie to switch one of his eyes out with her, a silver, or rather blue if it went back to normal once it was removed, eye would probably help build some kind of difference between the animatronic in front of him and the sister he knew was inside.

He banished that thought down as deep as he could manage it, instead putting on a happy smile that wasn't really forced, he was happy to see his sister, even as he studiously ignored the faint way her suit jerked and shifted, her arms jerking out on an automatic response that was quickly and seemingly forcefully culled as her limbs moved to be rooted in place at her side.

"Hello, what are you doing here?" Her voice wasn't the same anymore, well, it was, but it was more like everything she said came out in a hushed tone. It did a lot to take away from the warmth and comfort that her voice used to have. It made him wonder just what his own voice used to sound like, before it was covered in musical notes.

"Nothing, just finished with a private party at the Cove and figured it had been a while" Too long, nearly two weeks, he hadn't meant for that to be the case, but it was easier to just let time pass than to think about it. Mike had understood, he had been doing these visits more than the puppet had, acting something as a courier when it was necessary, because he was just the best like that, but for the most part Mari had only managed to see her in person a few times.

It was easier over the phone, it was just talking, words bounced back and forth like nothing was weird or different. But that wasn't fair to Charlie, who had to be struggling just as much as he was about all of this, trapped away here, she didn't even have the same freedom that Mari had nowadays, nor the years of learning to cope with being stuck to a sole building as your entire world. She was still so at the start of it all, so... Here he was.

Even if there was still a small part in the back of his mind that screamed at him that he needed to run... Not for the first time he wondered if this is what Fritz and Jeremy felt like every time they had looked at him for those first few months... If they still felt like that and were just good at pretending otherwise.

A faint flash of a man, whose face was half obscured by the bear head his own was trapped within, went through the puppet's mind before being replaced with another man, held down, wires around his throat, tightening until-

"Well, it's good to see you. Evan and Michael aren't with you?" Mari was grateful for being knocked from his thoughts as he quickly shook his head, even as Charlie leaned out of the door, looking around for the sight of the brothers.

"Oh, no, Mike's taking a call at the Cove, and Goldie is probably on his way over now with Foxy if he wants to hang out here, we don't have anything scheduled for tomorrow so probably" Charlie gave a short soft nod, something in the way she was holding herself relaxing just a bit, as she looked away just for a moment, before saying.

"Do you want to come in? I can finally show you what I've been working on" Mari paused, not for long, but just enough to be noticeable, as Charlie was just about to wave it off, making a plan to herself to step out to give the puppet more room, the puppet said just a tad too loudly.

"S-sure! You sounded excited about it over the phone" Charlie, obviously a bit taken aback by actually being taken up on the offer, didn't waste a second in quickly and happily explaining as she moved back into the office room, as the puppet quickly followed after.

"Yeah, well, I've not had much else to do" She said it lightly, but it still made something carefully fragile in the air crack just a little bit, as Mari let out a faint short chime that he hoped didn't convey the anguish in his chest. Charlie didn't comment on it at least, though the tense case back, just the slightest bit, at the sudden casual mention of just how different everything still felt.

Time had passed, but not enough for it to feel normal.

There were still times where Charlie would find herself waking up, bleary and a bit confused about not being in her familiar bed, or the way one of her eyes couldn't quite manage to get itself open until it all came flooding back. Where she suddenly realized she wasn't a young adult woman anymore, instead an animatronic designed to hurt one of the most precious people in her life, designed by her own father to hurt his own son, her brother.

She was grateful, so grateful to Sam for saving her life, though she had to admit, some part of her wished she had been able to be as lucky as to get a deal like Michael had. He got to keep himself, his own body, his own hands, his own life... But thinking like that did nothing to help, so she did her best to not, instead just kept herself as occupied as she could get. Thankfully this place was a whole treasure trove of things to keep herself occupied with.

With that, the black bear's focus turned back to the room she found herself leading her brother into, trying to not feel to giddy about him actually being here, he didn't visit often, talked to plenty yes, over the phone, but in person was a bit to difficult for both of them for to long, and Sam never came here without either Michael, his boyfriend, which Charlie herself was still really trying her best to wrap her head fully around when that little piece of trivia had been wormed out of a very embarrassed and awkward Sam, or Evan, her now bear counterpart. He never had been really and truly alone with her, er, well, Lefty, since everything, and it made her glad that he was getting comfortable again.

She ignored the faint whirling insistence in the back of her mind that, as the door closed on the office room, that this would be an ideal time for her chest to open up and her head to snap back. Frankly, learning that she could unlatch her chest and have it swing open was one of the weirder parts of this whole experience, especially when she had done some light poking and prodding at herself, mostly out of a professional curiosity. She had been studying engineering after all.

Shaking the thoughts away, she looked over the room itself. It wasn't exactly spacious, and frankly she mostly only spent time here when Evan wasn't, the golden bear didn't exactly kick her out, but there was only at best room for two animatronics in here to be comfortable, and Foxy stuck by the other bear's side like glue. She had repurposed one of the containers as a small little place for herself, but the office had better lighting.

Still, it had changed since she had first woken up in this place in the middle of March.

The game cabinet had been moved off somewhere, the couch having been moved in it's place with a massive set of two mattresses on the ground stacked up on top of each other to actually lay down on, the desk was much the same, but the file cabinet had been moved off to one of the containers for reasons she wasn't sure she was ever told beyond just wanting the space, same with the computer that used to sit in here, now leaving the desk bare, if not for all the slowly accruing knickknacks and tools that were on it from both Foxy and Charlie herself.

One of the walls was covered in papers that had been taped up, showing a wide array of levels of artistic skill, most crude looking approximations of red foxes and yellow bears, an occasional one of a certain puppet, Foxy had made a point of starting to store them here as well as on the back wall of his stage. Charlie... didn't really get it herself, but it seemed to make the fox happy, and Evan himself seemed to go with the fox's whims enough that she felt like the strange one if she did ask about it, so instead she just let it happen and watched as every now and again another drawing joined the wall.

Sam noticed the wall as well, but until her, who had seen it slowly go, to him it must have been like the drawings up there must have doubled, as he let out a quick little happy sounding chime and quickly floated over, as Charlie moved out of the way, the closeness of them apparently not registering to the puppet in that moment, as he moved over to the wall, looking over them all with an excitedly little hum being released from his chest, probably without his notice.

"Why are you all so interested in the drawings?" She couldn't help but find herself asking that before she realized she was speaking, though Charlie quickly followed up, trying to correct herself somehow, "I mean, you could ask Michael for one if you really wanted a proper drawing of yourself" Sam let out a small little sound that made Charlie think that there was probably a good chance that Michael had already done so, and then decided it was still weird to think about her brother dating anyone, much less Michael, especially with how... coupley they were when they weren't trying to hide it.

Charlie equally ignored the faint crushing weight on her chest at the reminder there was a chance she'd never get to date anyone again, and the last person she had a relationship with both thought she was dead and had been left waiting for an answer that would now never come.

She did her best to not think about her friends, which was very, very hard to accomplish, no matter how busy work could keep them truly off her mind. Thankfully Sam spoke up before she could think too much more about it.

"It's not about just having something of yourself to look at, it's the fact that there are kids out there that enjoy what we do enough to remember us to bring us drawings. It... We aren't real, not to the parents that came with the kids, and to the kids themselves in a few years they probably will barely remember those funny machines that moved around and felt real... But for right now, they don't see robots or strange creatures, they see people who they can give a drawing to, a gift to... It... For a long time at Freddy's it was the only thing that made us feel like we were still people, now? It's a nice token of appreciation"

As he spoke, Sam had reached out, placing a hand to just barely graze his fingertips over a picture of one of the few drawings of himself, a faint quiet lulling in the air afterwards as Charlie did her best to try and wrap her head around the weight of what she had just been told. She hadn't been naive enough to believe the tells that Sam had told her of his time in the pizzerias had been everything, but sometimes she wasn't sure even if he did explain it, she'd ever truly be able to understand just what he felt as he explained it, much less what he had gone through during those years.

Before Charlie could figure out just what to say, Sam had already moved over, leaving the wall to redirect his focus onto the table where a simple project was laying half disassembled on the desk.

"So! What do we have here!" His voice was just a hint too cheerful to be fully genuine from what Charlie could gather, but she didn't want to press, not when she had already been the one who had brought it up, so instead she moved over and began to explain the basics. It wasn't complicated, she had just found an old and nonfunctional set of speakers that had been laying around, it was mostly just a wiring problem that she had gathered after cracking the thing open, something that took a lot of nimble finger work.

If she was her normal-... Her old self, she could have gotten it done in a day or two, as it was, her arms were longer, her hands much bigger, with bulky fingers that didn't work as well as they used to. One palm even had a hole in it, with wires that had basically been just pressed back into the slot and ignored, it's not like the purpose of them mattered anymore.

Anyways, as such, it had been a much longer, and frankly much more frustrating undertaking that had taken a lot of patience and had been slowly but surely good for her as well, she hadn't really thought about it at the time, but all the small little bits of detail work was helping her get used to the hands at the very least. Even if she still felt off balance when standing, her weight not being anywhere near the same as before, nor her height, or vision, or... Well, frankly just about everything.

So, yeah, it was probably good for getting adjusted to herself, at least that's what Charlie told herself when every little thing about her new body felt like it was wrong and awkward.

Sam just listened with rapt attention as she went about explaining it, neither noticing the sound of the secondary entrance of the warehouse being shuttered open as a familiar company van opened up enough to let a pair of animatronics to lumber themselves out.

Jeremy and Mari focused for our second chapter, we're going to be rotating around the cast to start things off, so, you know, keep that in mind while everyone is being reintroduced. We're taking some time here to get into things compared to the first book where it was off the gate into insanity.

But there's plenty to talk about here, at least I think so, Jeremy and Bonnie are getting along a lot better nowadays which is nice to see, the two has had a lot of rough false starts, but they managed to get something of a common ground at the end of the last story, and now we're here to start building on that more solid foundation now that Bonnie isn't throwing a fit all the time, instead being more like a normal moody teenager.

While on the other side of things, there's Mari and Charlie. I'll be honest, this one was fun. A lot of characters were finding their footings for most of the last story, and that was very much intentional, and while that's very much still the case in a way here, it's also nice to jump into old established bonds that have been twisted around into something new and much more interesting. In this case the fact that the Marionette and Lefty are two separate sentient animatronics...

Ooh, it's fun, because the two are literally twins who care a lot about each other, but currently have a massive bear trapped shaped wall between them. Because, you know, sibling trauma is a staple of my writing when it comes to Fnaf, last time around it was all about Mike and Goldie's trauma bonding and getting over issues between each other, and now it's the Emily family's turn... For the time being we all know the Afton's aren't going to be left alone for that long.

But, yeah, it's really nice to get to do a more Charlie focused chapter with her new situation. I didn't put it at the end of last story, at least not in depth, because that wasn't really... the focus, and if I did, then we would have been there for another fifteen chapters longer than it should have been, but that just means we get to have it now, which is very fun! Anyways, I'm out of things to ramble about, so, See ya!