Unfixable

Bad News

With no clock in the spare storage room, I was completely unaware of how much time was actually passing. It felt like none was, really. There was nothing to do but sit and count how many boxes filled the room. Sixty-seven, in case you were wondering.

Around the twenty-sixth round of counting boxes, somebody pushed the door open.

"There you are," Foxy said.

Ballora popped up from behind his shoulder. "We tried asking the Bidybabs if they knew where you went, but they wouldn't tell us."

"We're closed for the day. You can come out."

"Thank Scott." One of my knee joints tried to give out on me when I stood back up, but I still managed to stay upright.

"Woah, you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

Both of them stepped aside so I could leave the room, and I followed them down the hall, taking Ballora's hand. "Everything go alright today?" I asked.

Foxy laughed. "No."

"The Bidybabs were gone for the entire shift because they refused to be in the Gallery with Freddy."

"Bon-Bon was gone too. Not by choice, though. Somebody popped him off of Freddy's arm and bolted. Found him two hours later holed up in the unisex bathroom with the perpetrator."

"Freddy's routine was awful without him."

"A kid got an entire pizza stuck to the ceiling."

"There was a little girl that was very upset that her birthday was spent with me instead of you and cried for an hour and a half."

"Two of the stage lights in my Auditorium got busted."

"And then somebody started a fire in the trashcan by the door."

"Didn't catch the person, but we did see them trip an employee on the way out."

"Wow, okay. I expected a couple of minor things to go wrong, not...well, all of that."

"Yeah, so did we," Foxy muttered, sounding drained.

"Oh, by the way, Freddy apparently has something super important to share with us."

I raised an eyebrow. Well, I only had one to raise with my faceplate missing. "Any idea what that could be?"

Freddy never really takes anything seriously, so he's sort of the last animatronic I expect to deem something as 'super important'.

"No, he refused to share anything until you joined us," Ballora explained.

When we arrived at the Funtime Auditorium, we found the aforementioned bear sitting on the stage, arguing with his puppet. Foxy took a seat on the stage next to him and got the bickering to stop. There was a pretty painful stretch of silence after that. "So...?" he eventually asked.

"S-s-so what?"

"You said you had something to tell us!"

"Oh y-yeah, I f-f-forgot!" Freddy scooted forward a bit. "I h-heard the employees t-talking when they were c-c-closing the place up!" For what was possibly the first time ever, his voice dropped to a whisper. "They're al-already planning on r-r-r-replacing y-you, Baby."

'Huh.'

Maybe I should've felt strongly about that, but I didn't. I guess I could just sort of feel it coming. Definitely easier to replace an old animatronic than to try and fix everything wrong with it -- especially when half the parts for it aren't even being made anymore.

Wow, did I just call myself old?

"Oh. That sucks, I guess."

"But... but they can't replace you! It's your face that's on the side of the building!" Ballora held onto my hand a little tighter.

Foxy stood back up. "Yeah, they can't do that!"

"Guys."

"Wh-what are we g-gonna do w-without y-your guidance in the w-w-workplace? We'll f-fall apart!"

"Guys."

"Yeah, I agree. You fools won't last another day without the clown."

"Guys."

"Oh no, e-even Bon-Bon agrees with me! He n-never does th-that!"

"Guys!"

They all fell silent.

"Thank you. Now listen up. There's no reason to freak out if I'm replaced. All it means is that somebody else is going to be keeping everything in check. You all will be fine. I'll be fine, even if being in the storage room all day is unbe-fucking-lievably boring. This building won't go up in flames."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Bon-Bon cut in. "After all, there was a literal fire today. And if there is a replacement, it'll be a few days before they get here. A few days that will be opportune for new fires to start."

"Hush, Bon. Sure, today sucked. But you all survived. And if you survived today, then you can survive a few more. You guys are tough."

"Yeah, you're right," Foxy said. "I mean, how much worse could things possibly get?"