now and forever

3

"No over to your left!"

"The other left!"

"There is only one left!"

Freddy chuckled to himself as he watched you play a game on one of the arcade cabinets with the others cheering you on. So far you were doing pretty good, much better than Monty had done, for sure. The gator preferred golf over other games anyway.

His eyes flicked back to you. You had your tongue sticking out the side of your mouth as you concentrated. It was rather cute, in his opinion. He was really glad that you were their friend now. They were fine before, but having a human on their side really lifted their spirits.

He was especially glad. You had this certain charm about you that he couldn't quite place, but it made him happy every time he was around you. Not to say that he wasn't happy around his other friends, but he guess it was from the excitement of actually befriending a staff member instead of being labeled as a machine and disregarded.

"Yes! In your face DAN! Whoever you are, I beat your high score!" You cheered as you placed your initials on the high score list.

He followed behind as Roxy picked the next game. It had been such a long time since any of them were this enthusiastic about just doing things at the PizzaPlex. They didn't realize it before you came along, but you were something that their lives had been missing. You gave them that little spark they needed to really enjoy their day.

____________________

It was only two weeks into your job when the earthquake hit. You were in the atrium, on your break to watch the band perform. There wasn't much damage, and all that happened was a light trembling that only served to unsettle the guests. It was what came after that caused pandemonium.

You had no idea just how many cockroaches were nestled deep in the walls until they all came rushing out, disturbed by the earthquake. People screamed and ran for the exits, you just stared in abject horror as you saw the plague of biblical proportions descend upon them. There was really only one thing you could think of in response to this unexpected scenario.

"What the FUCK?!"

____________________

"Well we found out why the building is infested." the exterminator said. Vaughn stood outside with pest control. Most of the guests went home, completely shaken up by the horror that no one knew existed. His employees, just as shaken up, stood in the parking lot, waiting for news. At least, the ones that stayed were in the parking lot. A handful quit on the spot, and Vaughn couldn't blame them.

"Okay, give it to me." he said, ready for whatever the exterminator had to say.

"My crew and I found several, and I mean several, pockets of stashed food and trash in multiple crevices hidden throughout the building. That is what attracted them." he explained, and Vaughn just felt himself wither at the news.

"Dammit, Chica." he mumbled, knowing the animatronic had a thing for eating trash, but didn't know she also had a habit of storing it away.

"Look, I'm going to be honest with you. Your best chance of getting rid of them is to fumigate the whole place, and then have a professional cleaning crew come in to make the place sparkle." the exterminator said, and Vaughn nodded.

The employees would get time off while the place was fumigated and cleaned, but what about the animatronics? DJMM he knew had a special warehouse to store him since he was too big for anything else. The others though? They needed regular maintenance, and the warehouses were only fitted for DJMM's maintenance. It never occurred to the higher ups that the smaller animatronics would be stored outside of the facility.