Deceptive

Cleaning Up and Clearing Out

"Where are you going?"

Riley threw a quick glance towards Ballora as she pulled the hood of her jacket over her head. "Out," she answered.

Foxy looked up from the table he had been cleaning, giving the redhead a funny look. "But... we open soon."

"I know, but it's important. I have to go. I'll try to come back as soon as I can, though. In the meantime, Lor is in charge. Don't let anything catch on fire." Without another word, Riley went straight out the front door and vanished somewhere around back.

There was a moment of silence following the strange behavior.

"...That's funny. She's normally super specific about where she's going."

"Yes, that was rather odd. But after all that we've experienced recently, I don't think that's the strangest behavior we've seen," Ballora said.

"I guess you're right." Foxy went back to cleaning the table.

It was around twelve in the afternoon when Baby finally returned, which was right about when they got kinda busy. Actually, they weren't just kinda busy. For the first time in a while, they were swamped.

She popped out of the entrance to the back rooms, pulling her mask down over her face.

Bon-Bon decided to open his mouth once he spotted her. "Oh, hey. You've finally decided to come back from your little adventure or whatever. What took you so long, Clown? Cops get an anonymous tip about the body you keep in the trunk of your car?"

Foxy could only sort of make out the puppet's high-pitched voice through the crowd of laughing, shrieking, and crying children.

Baby laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. You know I don't have a car."

Foxy was surprised for a moment but then realized that her response actually wasn't too unexpected. Foxy had noticed the animosity between the two of them had fizzled significantly since everything had ended... Well, it had on Baby's side, anyway. Bon-Bon still enjoyed pushing buttons regardless of whose buttons they were. Foxy would know, he got made fun of in the morning for deciding to wear stripes. And for accidentally getting eyeliner over the bridge of his nose when Freddy scared him. And for nearly falling on his face when he entered the kitchen.

Foxy started wading his way through the small blockade of children between him and his boss. He could hear Bon-Bon make some remark about how she probably stole a car as he managed to break through the end of the barrier, stumbling a bit.

"Baby!"

"Fox."

Foxy was tempted to ask her where she had gone, but decided against it and stuck to asking what he had originally planned to. "Are we still doing that thing after work?"

"Yep," Riley replied, popping the 'p'. "We can do it right after we finish closing up if you want."

"Alright."

With that, Foxy went back to actually doing his job, a slight feeling of anxiousness for upcoming events washing over him. He couldn't quite tell whether it was more fueled by fear or some sort of eagerness. And the fact that work seemed to go by ten times slower after that conversation didn't seem to help very much. It was also unusual, considering the fact that everything around him continued to be complete chaos.

There was running on the tabletops, there was screaming (lots of it), things were being thrown, Ballora at one point got quite literally swept away by a swarm of children.

After the last customer had left, Freddy and Ballora disappeared off into their rooms while Foxy and Baby got ready to check out the basement.

They both pulled off the outermost layers of their work clothes and tossed their masks onto one of the recently cleaned tables before making their way to the basement.