#soldered wires au

[thecryptidart1st]

Sometimes you jsut want to put two awful people in a room and make them kiss like paper dolls and watch as things get worse because they can't talk to eachother like normal human beings and mutally assure destrcution. This is universally liked among all character types, espically middle-aged men, and I am always correct.

……I mEaN wHeN yOu PuT iT lIkE THAT……

[victhetiredartist]

@thecryptidart1st was cooking something good about their AU and the fnaf movie so I had to put the ingredients

[vernallagom0rphs]

It begins...

[thegraveyardsh1ft]

Attention, Macabre Mart Shoppers!

Celebrating the í̸̼̀n̸̈́̍͝ͅe̴̡͊v̵̫̅̆͝ḯ̶̛̳̣̬͐t̷̙̄̽́ą̴̫̈́́̍b̶̮̝͚͛͝l̷̦̏ę̸̤͝͝ deaths of employees cannot be satisfying without celebrating their existences on their mortal plane as well. Today, we celebrate the birthday of one of our most beloved employees, Michael Afton.

When asked what he wanted for his birthday, Mr. Afton responded with: "A whole day to do whatever I want to this hellplace of a store, a brand new Keurig, a pay raise, and permission to shave Doug's eyebrows so his costume is more accurate"

Better start running, Mr. Houser...

[sammike-sims-4-anon]

@thecryptidart1st Hi it's me, that Sims 4 Anon from like two months ago lol

I found my old sammike sims 😭 I updated them to make them ~prettier~ but here's how I pictured Sammy and Mike back in like 2020

I think the story line that I came up with is that after Charlie died, their mom left Henry and took Samuel with her. Now years later, Samuel has come back to Hurricane to investigate the truth of his sister's death and his father's disappearance. He starts looking into the Freddy's locations, equipped with an old camera in classic teen sleuth fashion, and slowly starts to connect William Afton to the murders of the missing children. Cue Michael's entrance (pre-Sister Location—I was thinking this is probably around 1993 at this point), and while the two strongly distrust one another at first, they begrudgingly start working together to uncover and undo whatever William is up to. They slowly get closer and then, well ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Yes I did create a new blog for this because I'm shy and I didn't want anyone on my main blog to see this 🙈

[carogdraws]

Doodles of the many different Michael Aftons, page 1.

Drawing those purple zombie men because I love those doofuses :)

(Also drew tiny versions of them cos I wanted to and it's cute)

Includes:

Fitz-Afton Michael by @birdie-ghost

Megapizzaplex Security Puppet Michael by @moonfang182-magic

Soldered Wires Michael by @thecryptidart1st

Phoenix Michael by yourresume1 on Twitter (and u/yourresume on Reddit)

And of course, Afton's Return Mike by me :)

Since I'm drawing more Michaels, feel free to suggest some more you wish to see :D

[Page 2]

[preetkiran1016]

Electricity for wip Wednesday pls!

thank you for the ask!!! and of course! hope you enjoy!

The toddler twitches, little fingers jerking as it sleeps.

Sam blinks, staring down at the creature while Henry waits. Mike’s a bundle of nervous energy at his side, fear and hope warring for control. He knows he has to stay logical- has to be the sane one.

The temptation to take Henry at his word, to take the child without question-

He knows better.

“What’s the catch?”

[soysaucevictim]

Yet more Gymrat!AU snapshots I want to fic about later.

Remus is such a workplace hazard - yet he’s just too damn good at it to be fired.

(He has flung/dropped a coil of soldering wire and/or hot iron and/or molten solder all over himself and the workbench. On multiple occasions.)

Logan can say one thing, it’s never a dull moment. :,D

[ghouljams]

Hello! I love your posts and have actually been following you for a long time, but through hashtags. I really enjoyed your posts about ghost!ghost and cyberpunk au. I would be very grateful if you could write a short piece of fiction. ☺️

Sorry, English is not my first language and I've never made a request before! I'm hiding behind the fence and watching you. 🫣

Let's do more cyberpunk! I love my big android Ghost <3

You sit in a loose fitting tank and shorts, your goggles pulled over your eyes to guard against the soft glow of heated metal. It's boiling in your workshop, you'd try to fix it yourself but despite your mechanical know-how, you're not an air conditioning repair expert. Not that that's stopped anyone from stopping by your cramped shop to ask about it. You curl forward, rub the leather of your glove against the burnished surface of the bot you're working on. The filigree is coming along nicely, you always enjoy being able to add your own special touch to mechanics. There's a knock against your door frame. You ignore it.

"I can't fix the a/c, take it up with the captain if you're that desperate," You toss over your shoulder, pressing the super heated wire against metal again.

"That all you're hearing today?" Ghost's voice fills the air. You sigh and lean back to switch off your machine, pushing your goggles up to look at the android. The sleek black of his face plate is unreadable as always, but his posture is casual. His arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the wall to watch you.

"What's broken?" You ask, not bothering to rise to whatever bait he's throwing you. He takes the opportunity to push off the wall and pick his way towards you, stepping over tubes and wires, computer cases pulled open to keep them cool. You're doing everything you can to avoid a system failure here.

"Fingers are twitchy, need a screw loosened," He tells you easily. Thank god for diagnostic checks, makes your job a hell of a lot easier when bots know what they need. You reach behind yourself for an extra stool, pushing off the casing to make room for your newest frequent flier. You pat the stool and go to grab your tools as Ghost takes a seat.

Micro-screwdrivers for micro-screws, a mini-soldering iron, a few spare wires and circuit connectors, your magnifiers, you even drag the big light over. Ghost watches you, his cameras clicking as they adjust to the new light, as the adjust to your movements. He makes a quiet noise when you get tangled in the wires hanging from the ceiling that sounds suspiciously close to a laugh. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

You take your seat and hold your hand out for his. You trace the seams of his synth-skin when he gives it to you, looking for the latch on his hand. Synth-skin always makes you a little squeamish, something Ghost obviously doesn't share when he shoos your hand away and tugs the synthetic skin off his hand like a glove. You put aside how nauseous that makes you in favor of studying the new mechanics.

You turn the dial on your magnifiers to look closer at the intricate overlay of his hand. The mechanics of it are mostly familiar to you, but you've never seen anything quite like it. One of his fingers twitches and you shift your focus to it. Curling closer to his hand, your light follows your movements, shining clearly on the interlinking strands that slip around the wires and metal. You poke one of the white ribbons with your screwdriver and his hand flinches.

"God this is beautiful," You mumble to yourself, tipping your head to try and find a new angle to work at. You tap the metal plating at the tip of his twitchy finger, following the lines of spring and ribboning to the root. You're gentle as you can pushing wire and cording(?) aside to inspect the inputs at the base of his finger.

"Fuck," Ghost grits, you glance up at him, his head turned to look away from you.

"Sorry, trying to be gentle," You offer, unsure why you're even offering it, when you look back at your work, "You wanna walk me through the specs? Might help."

"What do you wanna know?" It sounds forced. Strange as that seems to you, you find bots are just as reluctant to peak at their insides as humans are. Traces of their creators still stuck to their servos.

"The tensioning," You decide that's what it is as you locate the offending screw and grab a different screwdriver from your kit, "I've never seen this material before, it feels almost organic."

"It is organic," Ghost's hand twitches when you look up at him, pressing a little too hard against a ribbon.

"What?" You frown, "No it isn't, no one manufactures with organic materials."

"I'm a custom job." Is the only explanation he offers you. You sigh and give his tight screw a good turn. You suppose that makes sense, military made, custom for... well for the 141 you suppose.

"Military really shouldn't be using organics," You grumble, "it's illegal for a reason." You push check the other screws in his hand. Precision is always the name of the game for androids, you don't see any sense in including something as unpredictable as organic material. Not to mention is all has to come from somewhere. You eye the ribboning, the tendons of his hand that lace mechanics together like muscle, likely feeding into some sort of neural net that reads the signals of it.

"Lot of things are illegal," Ghost grumbles, his voice slipping in and out of modulation as his tone lowers, "doesn't stop folks from doin' it."

"Hows the hand feel?" You ask, redirecting the conversation somewhere more comfortable. Ghost flexes his fingers, and you watch with gross fascination as his hand moves, the tendons tensing and releasing with the metal and wires.

"Better."

"No twitches?" You hear the soft processing noise of his diagnostic before he shakes his head. Ghost grabs his glove from the top of your tool kit and tugs it over his mechanics. He locks it to the rest of his synth-skin and flexes his hand again to check everything is in order.

"None to report." He stands, pushing up with his hands on his knees. You carefully replace your tools into their respective holders, try not to think of the feeling of his- your stomach rolls at the thought. This is exactly why you became a mechanic and not a doctor.

"You don't-" You start, unsure how to phrase the question, "you don't have any other organic matter in you, do you?" Ghost stares at you for a long moment, his face plate unreadable, not even the click of his camera could clue you in to his thoughts.

"No." He replies, and the relief that passes over your face is almost worth the lie.

[kelpie-bael]

@strawbubbysugar I should be sleeping but I can't so I threw together a quick fic of a personal head cannon I have of your au. (I have grey/blue eyes so i think it'd be cute that the reader has grey eyes and after the reader confirms Moon as their soulmate blue starts to appear in them)

This is after Moon soulmate confession while Sun is still not confirmed. I hope you like it!

It's during a small break you're spending with Sun that he notices something different about you. At first you don't really pay attention to it. Continuing to talk about what you enjoy about being a mechanic. Despite the handicaps of being colorblind, you enjoy working with wires. Fixing the little panels that get bent out of place and replacing components with newer better models, all things that bring fun into your work. You're about to continue on about the intricacy of soldering wires together when Sun interrupts you. It's not the energetic and soft way you're used to his speaking with. No he calls your name with awe and surprise, making you turn to look at him with a small smile and raised eyebrow.

"What's up Honeybee?" 

You're not too bothered by the interruption. He always listens to you so well and always so interested in whatever you say that you're curious what could distract him enough to get your attention.

"Your eyes…they're different."

Out of reflex, you touch a hand across your eyes feeling for any scratches or bits of scrap covering them. A pretty common occurrence. But you feel nothing so you pull your phone out of your back pocket and open the camera. And you don't really notice anything unusual. You're still the same shades of grey you always are and nothing is out of place. Shifting your eyes back to Sun, you let concern coat your words as you reach a hand out to his face. You're careful not to touch him unless he wants you to and he leans forward without hesitation to rest his cheek against your hand.

"You sure your sensors are working correctly? I don't see anything that unusual. I can take a quick look and fix it up?"

It takes him a moment to process your words and then he's pulling away, gripping your hand in his own a little tighter than comfortable as if he doesn't want to let go.

"No, no! Everything's working fine, I promise! It's just your eyes have a swirl of blue in them."

You give him a smirk and tease lightly.

"And that is different from normal? I can't exactly see what color my eyes usually are Sunny."

He tilts his head to the side and then drops your hand, reaching out instead for your phone. You glance from him to your phone then give it over to him easily. He takes it eagerly and slides up next to you, a little closer than is appropriate. You feel heat rise to your cheeks and you stifle the movements of your fidgeting hands. Don't think of how nice it is to have him close, to touch shoulders. Think of Moon and how happy you are to even have a soulmate. You shouldn't regret not having another. He pulls your attention away with a finger pointing to your eyes displayed on the phone screen.

"Look here," and he traces a swirl of darker grey around your pupil that you missed before. "This is blue. It's quite pretty…Ah, but the usual color is grey. It reminds me off the pictures the kids show me of storms. Grey mixed so prettily with blue."

Transfixed, you trace a finger along the swirl and resist doing the same to your actual eye. 

"Pretty?" You look into his eyes with wonder. "I can't imagine it…"

There's a slight pull of sadness in your chest as you try to conceptualize what it would look like and fail. You've had your whole life to get used to being different and you manage for the most part, but for some reason calling it pretty makes you desperate to know more. Loud whirring of his fans startles you out of the thoughts and you pull away slightly embarrassed for a reason you can't explain. 

He's turned away from you now with your phone held out for you to take and you do so. The screen feeling too cold against the heat of your flusterment. Then he's pulling away, going off to the children's nook.

"Sun?" 

You call out hesitantly, worries that you pushed him away somehow. He shuffles through a box of papers and pulls a stack out, triumphantly shouting a little and holding it over his. Skipping back over to you quickly, he shows you the first paper. It's a children's drawing, the lines wonky and crooked but you can easily identify the clouds and water droplets falling down.

"Whenever there's a storm, the kids like to draw the storm clouds and rain! A few have left their drawings here for me to keep!" He pulls out another drawing, but this one has a little girl splashing in a puddle. "I can't quite find the best visual aid, but the swirl is kind of like the ripple of this puddle. I can imagine a few drops of rain landing in the puddle of your eyes dyeing it with blue!" 

He taps the drawing funnily with his fingers and makes little droplet noises and you laugh at the silliness.

"Is that so?"

"Mmhm!" He nods fervently and his sun rays spin lazily as he looks fondly into your eyes. "Very pretty!"

And wow, is it hotter in here? Because it feels like it's 10 degrees hotter. You flash him a nervous smile and fan yourself, making an excuse to escape the feelings bubbling inside you.

"Oh hahaha um suddenly I'm feeling quite hot, I should go get some water. My breaks pretty much over anyway. SeeYouLater!"

You rush out of the daycare as fast as you can without outright running away and you miss Sun reaching out to you, the words asking you to come back getting stuck in his throat as Moon begins to Wreck havoc in his thoughts

[ultragift]

FROM: @zerosocialskillz TO: @vicesario A Gift For The Security Bot

A/N: V1 goes by it/they, V2 goes by he/they.

Also this takes place in an AU I made but it ain’t really that important.

It’s Christmas right now.

A red robot sat underneath the Christmas tree, making a replacement for their left arm after someone stole his original arm.

It is going to be a replica for his original arm after it is made clear that his predecessor is not going to give it back, as it has taken a liking to that bulky thing. That bastard.

V2 thought as he soldered a couple of wires in place. It’s going well so far, his predecessor not entering the room he is in, which is somewhere in the lust layer, where everyone is staying. For some reason.

He didn’t really care for the history of this place.

A knock on the door.

V2 stopped soldering. He got up, then opened the door.

It’s his predecessor, V1. It’s carrying a present, lovingly wrapped in red with yellow ribbons. Knowing them, Gabriel helped with that too.

V2 pointed at himself while tilting his head. V1 nodded gleefully. Remembering that one prank that has something to do with a box (and a lot of glitter, courtesy of that angel), V2 glared at them. V1 shook its head.

The security robot doesn’t believe them, but he lets the war machine in anyway.

...when the heck did they get along, after they tried to fight each other to the death?

Well, V2 did die, but that’s in an alternate timeline only V1 remembers anymore. Long story.

(Perhaps that previous timeline turned V1 into a magnet for enemies to friends—and even lovers—scenarios.)

Setting the present on another table separate from the knuckleblaster replica, the two V units unwrapped the box. It’s rectangular, very much so. It’s long, but it is a little wide. Long enough to fit a...!

Once the present is unwrapped, the two V units saw a brown box. Both of them are very hyped for what is inside, although V2 is pretty sure V1 already knows.

V1 and V2 grabbed the lid simultaneously, much to the two machines’ shock. They decided to do a little countdown and open the present together.

V1 brought up three fingers on one of their free arms, making sure V2 saw them. It then counted down from three.

Two fingers.

One finger.

A fist.

The two Vs opened the cardboard box that seemed to be custom made for whatever is inside, and wow was it gorgeous.

It’s V1’s standard left arm, the feedbacker. But... V1 already has one. Unless...

It’s a replica, isn’t it?

Oh, there seems to be a letter alongside the blue arm.

“I asked the angels (read: Gabe) if they could make a copy of my feedbacker! They agreed, even though I killed some of their inhabitants in both timelines.

Odd, isn’t it? I am a war machine and you two tried to kill me both times, and yet I chose to save and befriend you all.

And you know what? I prefer this over dying alone after running out of fuel! -V1”

V2 looked at the blue robot. He then mimicked a laugh, gently moving his shoulders up and down. They then gently pushed the war machine.

“Did the winged crybaby make it for me?” V2 asked through sign language with a smug look on his face.

V1 fell to the floor, ‘laughing’ very hard by the nickname V2 had assigned to poor little Gabriel.

While V1 was busy rolling on the floor laughing, V2 plugged the feedbacker on his left alongside his whiplash. Apparently, in the original timeline, V1 stole that too. After he died by falling off that pyramid. That bastard.

(To be fair, the knuckleblaster fell from his arm after the first fight, a fight it participated in after it was clear to V1 that it had no other choice but to, lest it die once more.)

(He’s still pissed that V1 decided to keep it, still.)

Moving the joints on the feedbacker replica, V2 tested the blue arm out. It seems to be well-made. Gabriel can seriously do that? Or did he actually get help from someone else?

Preferably not their creators. They suck. V2 and V1 can agree that much. V2 stood up, beckoning V1 to stand up. They seemed to know exactly what V2 was thinking. “Spar?” V2 asked through sign language. V1 excitedly nodded. They can’t wait to see how V2 does with the blue arm.

[thecryptidart1st]

The amount of positive responses to making Evan/CC Cassie’s dad further inspired more Alive AU content

[victhetiredartist]

Sorry not sorry @thecryptidart1st

[vernallagom0rphs]

Day 20: Vernal Lagomorphs

(Aka Goodbye Year of the Spring Rabbit, Hello Alive AU)

Hello!

To all of those who have followed The Year of The Spring Rabbit, I want to say thank you! Though I initially set out to draw 365 Williams, I went through a lot of life changes this year that impacted my mental health severely, and while I am in a better place and finally enjoying life, I knew that I would be unable to catch up by the end of this year.

But when a door closes, another one opens! And I've decided to go forward and convert this blog into the dedicated blog for the Soldered Wires' Alive AU, with a name inspired from its formers' namesake.

The Year of the Spring Rabbit pictures shall remain on this blog. And shall be listed in order in a new pin at a later date :)

The inbox only had a few asks, but you are free to contact me if you would like to delete an ask. Otherwise, any ask from this former blog shall be answered in context to the Alive AU!

And of course, to the fellow people who have followed me solely for the 365 billiams, you can unfollow if you wish as this project is no longer active. Eventually, it shall be filled with 365 peepaws instead.

Thank you once again!

from @thecryptidart1st

[thegraveyardsh1ft]

Do Mike and Ethan ever share stories about their kids during their breaks?

Day 5: Ethan & Mike are Dad Friends

[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

Untitled DJ x Reader Soulmate AU - Ch 1

EDIT: This is now being updated on ao3!

Throwing this up here for now. I have an ao3 but I don't know that I want this to be the first thing posted in it. Also it's in need of editing because the first chapter is in a different tense than the second chapter because I'd intended it to be a flashback-ish thing but that's not really clear in the finished writing. Alas.

Might delete these posts when it this story eventually makes its way to ao3, but we'll see.

[ Ch 1 - You are here ] [ Ch 2 ]

CHAPTER 1

The DJ had only been active for four years when the writing appeared on the inside of his wrist. At first he thought it was graffiti, something he was unfortunately quite familiar with, as teenagers frequently sought to prove their mettle by antagonizing a giant robot spider after hours. Though why they thought themselves brave was a mystery to him…he was forbidden from retaliating. He couldn’t even utter a protest once the speakers were turned off for the night. Not that aggressive, lyricless techno music was all that readily understood as a “protest” anyway.

But no, this writing on his wrist was not graffiti. Aside from the fact that he definitely would have realized if someone had climbed onto his stage and written on him, it was far smaller than the hastily spray painted or sharpie’d graffiti usually was. It was as if a human had simply written on him with a black pen the way they would write in a notebook.

“They really did a number on you, huh?”

DJ wasn’t sure what to make of that. Most of the graffiti on him was names and symbols, not cryptic, vaguely sympathetic messages.

A couple days after it appeared, he had his weekly maintenance with one of the techs, a middle aged man named Karter. Karter had been more or less the only human DJ interacted with with any regularity. DJ liked him well enough, and had thought he and Karter were friends. As much as a non-verbal robot could be friends with a human, anyway.

Karter never said much to DJ. What could he really say when DJ had no way to respond? But he was kind to him, expressing sympathy when DJ was graffitied or damaged, and he was mindful of DJ’s comfort when working on him, always telling DJ what he was doing and making sure DJ was prepared before opening up panels or soldering wires or swapping whatever hinge or joint needed replacing.

DJ had taken this for granted until, a year after DJ was first brought online, Karter had his first sick day. The tech who filled in for him didn’t speak to DJ at all, and almost seemed unaware that DJ could feel what she was doing, or that DJ would have any kind of opinion on it. DJ did his best to cooperate with her, trying to infer what she wanted from her occasional frustrated grumbles when he moved in a way she hadn’t wanted him to.

It was a small taste of what life was like with less kind techs and DJ, unsurprisingly, did not care for it.

So it was that DJ had no qualm about trying to get Karter to pay attention to the writing on his wrist. He couldn’t tell Karter what it said, of course, but that hardly mattered. It needed to be cleaned off, regardless of why it was there.

But as DJ repeatedly tried to show Karter his wrist, even pointing at it with two of his other hands, Karter’s expression began to darken.

“There’s nothing there, DJ. It’s fine,” he said, his expression troubled as he avoided DJ’s gaze.

DJ played a noise through the speakers, a small synthesized chirp that he often used as a way to get someone’s attention.

“DJ, please!” Karter snapped.

DJ flinched back, wringing his main pair of hands worriedly. Why was Karter so upset at this? He’d cleaned worse graffiti off the DJ. Granted this was small, but it was clearly visible. Why did it seem as if Karter didn’t even see it?

Karter sighed, his expression softening as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “...Okay. Tell me this. Is…is something written there?”

DJ brightened, nodding, a jingle of affirmation playing over the speakers.

Another sigh as Karter ran a hand down his face. “Goddammit. Goddammit, goddammit…”

DJ’s eyes widened at the language even as he canted his head in concern, replaying his questioning chirp over the speakers.

“DJ. I’m only going to tell you this once. Forget it. Ignore it. It’s not there. Okay?” he said, looking up at the DJ pleadingly.

DJ couldn’t help but repeat the querying chirp.

“I know it’s hard to ignore when it’s right there, but you have to.” Karter ran a hand through his greying hair, debating with himself on what the DJ needed to know…how much the phrase “Ignorance is bliss” applied to the situation.

“Just promise you won’t tell anyone.”

DJ frowned, glancing down at the writing. Was he the only one who could see it? Well…if that were the case, it was harmless enough. And despite DJ’s limited social skills, he could tell Karter was not interested in discussing it further, even if DJ could put his many questions into words.

So he let the matter drop. What else could he do?

The next week, Karter was out, and DJ was serviced by another quiet, vaguely sullen tech. When he pulled Karter’s employee profile, DJ found out that he had quit.

Was it because of him? DJ didn’t understand what he’d done wrong, but something had clearly caused Karter to be upset. DJ just hadn’t realized he was upset enough to quit over it. He couldn’t help but feel he had done something seriously wrong…and that it was his fault Karter had quit.

DJ became sulky after that. Oh, he never let it show in his performances of course. Those were just as lively and energized as ever. But between shows, and overnight, he just…sat. He barely acknowledged Moon when the night attendant came to visit him, didn’t even look up as the human guards passed through the arcade, and wouldn’t even spare the Lil’ Music Men a glance when they deigned to visit his stage overnight. 

More weeks went by, and each week was a new tech doing his weekly inspection. Not new to the Pizzaplex, of course, but new to this task. A quick glance at their employee profiles confirmed many of them had been working here for at least a year or two.

DJ stopped doing them any favors. He would move when asked to move and keep still when asked to keep still, but he no longer tried to anticipate what they needed of him, or infer anything from whatever they might be mumbling to themselves. If indeed they did mumble at all. Several were completely silent.

During those weeks, something else happened. Something that, before the incident with Karter, would have seemed completely innocuous and gone unnoticed by the DJ.

One evening during his set, his gaze happened to fall on a young woman standing against the wall at the edge of the dance floor. She was gazing down at her wrist, her other hand lightly tracing a pattern on her skin. She looked so happy; with a soft smile full of warmth and even the barest hint of tears of joy in her eyes.

His eyes flicked down to his own wrist, curious. The track skipped slightly as he turned his hand to check his wrist again, but he quickly recovered before anyone noticed.

The DJ’s gaze returned to the young woman just in time to see her being approached by two other women her age.

“Oh. My. Gosh. Did you--?” one of the friends cried excitedly.

“Yes! I got my mark!” the young woman said, tearing up in earnest.

“What’s it say?” the second friend asked excitedly.

“You know I can’t tell you!” she protested, hugging her wrist to her chest as if her friend would sneak a glance.

“Yeah, yeah. But as soon as you meet him you’re telling me what it said!”

“Maybe your soulmate’s here in the room right now!” the first friend said, squeezing the woman’s shoulders.

The first woman blushed, shaking her head. “Oh no. I doubt it. I-It could still be months before I meet him…or years…” she added, the briefest hint of worry in her eyes.

“Oh come on, be positive! Weeks at most!”

The DJ didn’t allow himself to skip another beat as he listened to the conversation. He could hear them perfectly, even over his own music.

Soulmate.

DJ was familiar with the term. Besides having been loaded with a basic understanding of human society (much of which he couldn’t imagine ever needing to know), he’d heard talk of such things on the dance floor. Especially during the slow songs.

Could that be what the writing on his wrist meant? He…had a soulmate?

But you needed a soul to have a soulmate, and animatronics didn’t have souls.

Years worth of conversation snippets he’d overheard began to fall into place. From what he could piece together, the words on his wrist were the first words his soulmate would say to him. And they would have the first words he would say to them on their wrist.

But DJ had no voice. What could possibly be on their wrist if he never spoke to them? He knew there were some humans that never spoke, but he had no information on how that affected someone’s mark.

A chill ran through DJ’s circuits as he began to process what that truly meant. A human was bound to him. Him. Easily the least humanoid animatronic in the Pizzaplex. He wasn’t like the Glamrocks or even the daycare attendant; humanoid and personable. He was more of a set piece than a character. More like a piece of furniture than a person.

He looked across the dance floor, picking out several couples holding each other as they danced, or sitting on the benches along the edges of the dance floor leaning on each other…or even just holding hands as they walked.

DJ couldn’t do any of that. Not with a human. Not even with the other animatronics.

He knew not all soulmates were romantic, but most of them were. He had to imagine he was one of the exceptions though. Much as he found himself wishing otherwise.

Now why did he wish that? Being unable to express any romantic affection would be just as bad for him as it would for his would-be soulmate, wouldn’t it? But then, he’d always been fairly separate from humans. He could make due.

But it was still unfair to put that on his potential partner.

Partner? Him, with a partner? He couldn’t even believe he was thinking it.

He realized he had repeated the same one-minute loop multiple times, and people were starting to notice. He quickly switched it, forcing himself to get his head back in the game.

Yet once the show was over the musings continued. They didn’t help his mood. It all just seemed so unfair. Not just to him, but to whoever was bound to him. Someone who, despite not having met them yet, was already so dear and important to him.

He let out a silent sigh, or at least imitated the motion of one. An odd quirk of his AI that he would ever have an urge to sigh or yawn despite having no lungs and no voicebox.

The DJ’s evening sulk would be interrupted by the sound of kids, probably teens, sneaking into the dance hall.

Great. Usually he would try to climb over the kids and hide in one of his tunnels until the night guard arrived, but tonight he couldn’t bring himself to bother.

Cans of spray paint came out as the kids began tagging him and even his stage. Flashes went off as they took selfies, causing his optics to rapidly toggle between day mode and night mode, which got disorienting after only a few switches.

Though the disorientation barely mattered when he didn’t plan on moving. He shuttered his eyes as best he could, given they weren’t designed to close completely, and hunkered down to wait it out.

Fate was against him tonight, for that wasn’t good enough for these kids.

“Let’s see if we can get a picture of him chasing us!” one of the boys said.

DJ tensed at that, though it wouldn’t be obvious to the kids that he’d even registered their remark. He had never chased off intruders. Deep in his code was a never used, never completed bouncer mode…but he couldn’t even activate that himself. Not that he’d ever want to.

Still, he knew somewhere out there, some kids had pictures and even short videos of him “chasing” them, but that was little more than them running in front of him as he scrambled around the dance floor trying to avoid their companions.

Well. Easy solution. Don’t move. As he was already not doing.

CLUNK!

DJ scrambled to his hands in surprise, clutching his left eye where the rock had hit. If the speakers had been on, the staticy feedback that would have come through them at DJ’s pain and shock would have surely scared the kids off. With them off, though, his distress was silent, aside from the dull thuds of his gloved hands scrambling on the stage.

As soon as he lowered his hand to glance at the kids, another rock was thrown. This too hit its mark, shattering the cracked plexiglass as the stone landed somewhere inside DJ’s eye socket, rattling around unpleasantly.

DJ kept backing up until his backmost set of hands found the wall behind the stage. He tried to get the rock out of his eye socket, but recoiled at the unpleasant sensation of his finger pushing against the circuitry that had previously been protected by the plexiglass dome. His frantic scrambling had caused one of the speakers beside the stage to topple over, taking one of the rainbow spotlights with it in a shower of sparks.

Another rock sailed over his head, hitting one of the spotlights above him. The heavy stage light was knocked loose, and in a stroke of bad luck landed on the elbow joint of his second left arm. The mechanism bent, seizing up and causing every movement of the joint to grind unpleasantly against the wires that ran though his arm.

“HEY!” a deep voice called out as the night guard finally arrived.

The kids quickly scrambled, every brat for themselves and each one hoping the guard would grab their friends before them.

The guard didn’t even glance at DJ as he ran after the kids, leaving DJ alone on his stage.

Just as well. DJ wasn’t in the mood to see anyone else. He lay back down on his stage, keeping one hand over his broken eye until morning.

The incident was reported, of course, and come morning two techs were at his stage looking over the damage. He removed his hand from his eye when he was commanded to, and did his best not to flinch as they surveyed the damage he’d done to himself in his failed attempts at fishing the rock out.

The dance hall would have to be closed today. Probably longer. Karter’s backfill was starting tomorrow. They would have to be the one to fix up DJ and his stage. Quite a task for a newbie, but they had to learn somehow.

Great. Just when DJ was thinking cold, impatient techs were the worst…At least they knew what they were doing, and got it done quickly. Now he had days of being worked on by some novice ahead of him, and no performances to keep his mind off things.

When the techs left, he stared down at the writing on his wrist. 

“They really did a number on you, huh?” He hadn’t yet realized that this was that number.