Chapter Text
DJ Music Man has only been active for four years when the writing appears on the inside of his right wrist. At first he thinks it’s just graffiti, something he is unfortunately quite familiar with as teenagers frequently seek to prove their mettle by antagonizing a giant robot spider after hours. Though why they think themselves brave for doing this is a mystery to him, given he’s forbidden from retaliating. He can’t even utter a protest once the dance hall’s speakers are turned off for the night. Not that DJ’s various warning buzzes make for particularly compelling protests anyway.
But this is no graffiti. Aside from the fact that he definitely would have realized if someone had climbed onto his stage and written on him, it’s far smaller than the hastily spray painted or sharpie’d graffiti he usually deals with. It’s 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 isn’t sure what to make of that. Most of the graffiti he gets on him is names and symbols, not cryptic, vaguely sympathetic messages.
A couple days after it appears he has his weekly maintenance with one of the techs, a middle aged man named Karter. Karter is more or less the only human DJ interacts with on a regular basis. DJ likes him well enough, and he considers Karter to be something of a friend. As much as a non-verbal robot can be friends with a human, anyway.
Karter never says much to DJ. What can he really say when DJ has no way to respond? But he is kind to him, expressing sympathy when DJ is graffitied or damaged, and he is mindful of DJ’s comfort when working on him. He always tells DJ what he’s doing and makes sure DJ is prepared before opening up panels or soldering wires or swapping whatever hinge or joint needs replacing.
DJ had taken this for granted until, a year after DJ was first brought online, Karter’d had his first sick day. The tech who had filled in for him didn’t speak to DJ at all. She’d almost seemed unaware that DJ could feel what she was doing, or that DJ would have any kind of opinion on it. DJ, of course, had still done 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 had been a small taste of what life could be like with less kind techs and DJ, unsurprisingly, had not cared for it.
But DJ has no qualms about trying to get Karter to pay attention to the writing on his wrist. He can’t tell Karter what it says, of course, but that hardly matters. It needs to be cleaned off, regardless of why it’s there.
But as DJ repeatedly tries to show Karter his wrist, even pointing at it with two of his other hands, Karter’s expression begins to darken.
“There’s nothing there, DJ. It’s fine,” he says, his expression troubled as he avoids DJ’s gaze.
DJ plays a noise through the speakers, a small synthesized chirp that he often uses as a way to get someone’s attention.
“DJ, please!” Karter snaps.
DJ flinches back, wringing his main pair of hands worriedly. Why is Karter so upset at this? He’s cleaned worse graffiti off the DJ before. Granted, this is small enough to probably not be noticed by most of the audience, but it’s still there. Why does it seem as if Karter didn’t even see it?
Karter sighs, his expression softening as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “...Okay. Tell me this. Is…is something written there?”
DJ brightens, nodding as a jingle of affirmation playing over the speakers.
Another sigh as Karter runs a hand down his face. “Goddammit. Goddammit, goddammit…”
DJ’s eyes widen at the language even as he cants his head in concern, replaying his questioning chirp.
“DJ. I’m only going to tell you this once. Forget it. Ignore it. It’s not there. Okay?” he says, looking up at 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 runs a hand through his greying hair, debating with himself on what DJ needs to know…how much the phrase “Ignorance is bliss” applies to the situation.
“Just promise you won’t tell anyone.”
DJ frowns, but eventually nods, glancing down at the writing. Is he the only one who can see it? Well…if that were the case, it’s harmless enough…if incredibly baffling. And despite DJ’s limited social skills, he can tell Karter is not interested in discussing it further. Not that DJ can even put his many questions into words.
So DJ lets the matter drop. What else can he do?
The next week, Karter is out, and DJ is serviced by another quiet, vaguely sullen tech. When DJ pulls Karter’s employee profile, he finds out that his former tech has quit.
…Is it because of him? DJ doesn’t understand what he’d done wrong, but something had clearly caused Karter to be upset. DJ just hadn’t realized he’d been upset enough to quit over it. He can’t help but feel he’s done something seriously wrong…and that it’s his fault Karter had quit.
DJ becomes sulky after that. Though he never lets it show in his performances of course. Those are just as lively and energized as ever. But between shows, and overnight when he’s not in his recharge cycle, he just…sits. He barely acknowledges Moon when the night attendant comes to visit him, nor does he acknowledge the trio of Little Music Men as they visit his stage to try to cheer him. They send worried pings over their shared network, but DJ doesn’t respond other than to make it clear he doesn’t want to be bothered.
More weeks go by, and each week there’s a new tech doing the weekly inspection. Not new to the Pizzaplex, of course, but new to this task. A quick glance at their employee profiles confirms many of them had been working here for at least a year or two.
DJ stops doing them any favors. He’ll move when asked to move and keep still when asked to keep still, but he no longer tries to anticipate what they need from him, or infer anything from whatever they might be mumbling to themselves. If indeed they mumble at all. Several are completely silent.
During those weeks, something else happens. Something that, before the incident with Karter, would have seemed completely innocuous and gone unnoticed by DJ.
One evening during his set, his gaze happens to fall on a young woman standing against the wall at the edge of the dance floor. She’s gazing down at her wrist, her other hand lightly tracing a pattern on her skin. She looks so happy; with a soft smile full of warmth and even the barest hint of tears of joy in her eyes.
His eyes flick down to his own wrist, curious. The track skips slightly as he turns his hand to check the inside of his wrist again, but he quickly recovers before anyone notices.
The DJ’s gaze returns 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 cries excitedly.
“Yes! I got my soulmark!” the young woman says, tearing up in earnest.
“What’s it say?” the second friend asks with a teasing smirk, her tone clearly indicating she doesn’t actually expect an answer.
“You know I can’t tell you!” she protests, 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 says!”
“Maybe your soulmate’s here in the room right now!” the first friend says, squeezing the woman’s shoulders.
The first woman blushes, shaking her head. “Oh no. I doubt it. I-It could still be months before I meet him…or years…” she adds, the briefest hint of worry in her eyes.
“Oh come on, be positive! Weeks at most!”
DJ doesn’t allow himself to skip another beat as he listens to the conversation. He can hear them perfectly, even over his own music.
Soulmate.
DJ’s familiar with the term. Besides having been loaded with a basic understanding of human society (much of which he can’t imagine ever needing to know), he’s heard talk of such things on the dance floor. Especially during the slow songs.
Could that be what the writing on his wrist means? He…has a soulmate?
But one needs a soul to have a soulmate, and animatronics don’t have souls.
Years worth of conversation snippets he’s overheard begin to fall into place. From what he can piece together, the words on his wrist are the first words his soulmate will say to him. And they will have the first words he will say to them on their own wrist.
But DJ has no voice. What could possibly be on their wrist if he never speaks to them? He knows there are humans that never speak, but he has no information on how that affects someone’s mark.
A chill runs through DJ’s circuits as he begins to process what this truly means. A human is bound to him. Him. Easily the least humanoid animatronic in the Pizzaplex. He isn’t like the Glamrocks or even the Daycare Attendant--humanoid and personable. He’s more of a set piece than a character. More like a piece of furniture than a person.
He looks across the dance floor, picking out several couples holding each other as they dance, or sitting on the benches along the edges of the dance floor leaning on each other…or even just holding hands as they walk.
DJ can’t do any of that. Not with a human. Not even with the other animatronics.
He’s aware that not all soulmates are romantic, but most of them are. He has to imagine he is one of the exceptions though. Much as he finds himself wishing otherwise.
Now why does 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’s still unfair to put that on his potential partner.
Partner? Him, with a partner? He can’t even believe he’s thinking it.
He realizes he has repeated the same one-minute loop multiple times, and people are starting to notice. He quickly switches it, forcing himself to get his head back in the game.
Yet once the show is over, the musings continue. They don’t help his mood. It all just seems so unfair. Not just to him, but to whoever is bound to him. Someone who, despite not having met them yet, is already so dear and important to him.
He lets out a silent sigh, or at least imitated the motion of one. An odd quirk of his AI that he sometimes has an urge to sigh or yawn despite having no lungs and no voice box.
DJ’s evening sulk is 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 can’t bring himself to bother.
Cans of spray paint come out as the kids begin tagging him and his stage. Flashes go off as they take selfies, causing his optics to rapidly toggle between day mode and night mode, which gets disorienting after only a few switches.
Though the disorientation barely matters when he doesn’t plan on moving. He closes his eyes and hunkers down to wait it out.
Fate is against him tonight, for that isn’t good enough for these kids.
“Let’s see if we can get a picture of him chasing us!” one of the kids says.
DJ tenses at that, though it isn’t obvious to the kids that he’s even registered their remark. He has never chased off intruders. Deep in his code is a never used, never completed bouncer mode…but he can’t even activate that himself. Not that he’d ever want to, of course.
Still, he knows somewhere out there, some kids have pictures and even short videos of him “chasing” them, but those are little more than them running in front of him as he scrambles around the dance floor trying to avoid their companions.
Well. Easy solution. Don’t move. As he is already not doing.
CLUNK!
DJ scrambles to his hands in surprise, his eyes wide as he clutches his left eye where the rock had hit his eyelid. 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 is silent, aside from the dull thuds of his gloved hands scrambling on the stage.
As soon as he lowers his hand to glance at the kids, another rock gets thrown. This too hits its mark, shattering the cracked plexiglass as the stone lands somewhere inside DJ’s eye socket, rattling around unpleasantly.
DJ keeps backing up until his backmost set of hands find the wall behind the stage. He tries to get the rock out of his eye socket, but recoils at the unpleasant sensation of his finger pushing against the wires that had previously been protected by the plexiglass dome. His frantic scrambling causes 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 sails over his head, hitting one of the spotlights above him. The heavy stage light is knocked loose and falls, In a stroke of bad luck, it lands on the elbow joint of his second left arm. The mechanism bends, seizing up and causing every movement of the joint to grind unpleasantly against the wires that run through his arm.
“HEY!” a deep voice calls out as the night guard finally arrives.
The kids quickly scramble, every brat for themselves and each one hoping the guard would grab their friends before them.
The guard doesn’t even glance at DJ as he runs after the kids, leaving DJ alone on his stage.
Just as well. DJ isn’t in the mood to see anyone else. He hadn’t been before and he certainly isn’t now. He lays back down on his stage, keeping one hand over his broken eye until morning.
The incident is reported, of course, and come morning two techs are at his stage looking over the damage. He removes his hand from his eye when he’s commanded to, and does his best not to flinch as they survey the damage he’d done to himself in his failed attempts at fishing the rock out.
The dance hall will have to be closed today. Probably longer. Karter’s backfill is starting tomorrow. They’ll have to be the one to fix up DJ and his stage. Quite a task for a newbie, but they have to learn somehow.
Great. Cold, impatient techs are bad enough, but at least they know what they’re doing and get it done quickly. Now he has days of being worked on by some novice ahead of him, and no performances to keep his mind off things.
When the techs leave, he stares down at the writing on his wrist.
“They really did a number on you, huh?”
He hasn’t yet realized that this is that number.