Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His skull cracked, white matter seeping out and mixing with the dirt beneath him. His skin peeled away at the joints, exposing sensitive flesh and muscle to the smoke. His fragile hands clawed at his throat, desperately trying to take in oxygen when there was none. Even the cartilage in his ears began to dissolve. Bone fused to bone and skin fused to skin, melting him away into oblivion. His lungs collapsed as the flames reached his torso, the last air he’d ever breathe escaping his body with the membrane beginning to fray. He knew fire was going to be painful, but god- 

A scream rings out and he can barely register the fact it wasn’t his own. Metal scraped across the vent behind him, bringing burned rot along with it. He turns his head with the last of his strength, vision practically unusable as his eyes shriveled from the heat. There, a flash of old yellow filled him with dread. A metal hand reached for his face and he does his best to jerk away from it. He’s trapped in the crumbling debris, the hand gets closer, the screaming gets louder, and he guesses the emotion he’s going to die with is regret. It yanked him by his scalp, and he can hear the tendons in his neck snap, he can hear himself being beheaded, he can hear his laughter, he can hear the satisfaction in his final victory, he can fucking hear-

Michael hadn’t heard anything for a while. He’d been quite dead, in fact. He’d stared Henry in the eyes as they burnt. It was the ending, it was supposed to be the fucking ending. But, as he’d been having a wonderful time discovering, the Afton family has a bad habit of coming back to life with no warning.

A faint buzzing fills his senses, slowly waking him up. He’s in pain, a lot of it. Which isn’t particularly surprising considering the last thing he vividly remembers is burning alive. His head aches and his chest hurts and his bones feel wrong to their core. He reluctantly opens his eyes as he’s, admittedly, more than dazed. 

In front of him is an unfriendly familiar site. 

He’s in an office chair sat in front of a security desk, looking over various cameras placed above a retro arcade. The walls of the office are covered in posters of familiar and new faces, ones he hates to see still around. 

His stomach (which he apparently has now) twists as he stares down the Freddy poster. It’s a new design, clearly made to capitalize on the remembered aesthetic of his childhood. There’s a version of Chica that’s been made in the same vein, along with two completely new animatronics and the implications of that is not something he wants to think about right now. He never quite understood all the loud colors and random shapes, but his version of the 80s was more-so defined by screaming, abuse, and grief rather than whatever was on TV.

Cycling through the cameras, there’s not much in his immediate area besides an army of cleaning robots. They circle around in predetermined paths which he thinks should defeat their purpose, but they did seem to have a lot of these fuckers. That raises the question of what the budget of this location is. He doesn’t want to know.

Off to his side are two metal doors with buttons and power meters. Both have pretty clearly defined dents adorning them. Always nice to see Fazbear Entertainment taking their employees’ safety seriously.

With that, it hits him. 

This is a new Fazbear location.

One made after he burnt everything down to the ground.

After he sacrificed everything to end it. 

After his dad was supposed to be dead.

He slumps in his chair, clutching the top of his head. He hoped that if he just sat here and waited it’d turn out that this was some weird purgatory his arrival had been delayed from. 

On the bright side, he has hair again. So, he at least isn’t a rotting corpse at the moment.

A sudden crash and a grunt brings him out of his thoughts. It came from his right, slightly out of view. Mike begrudgingly kicks his feet and rolls over to the door frame. 

On the ground is a kid. He’s small and covered in bruises, probably because he’d just shoved his way through a metal grate. He stares at the vent he’d fallen out of intently, frozen in his spot on the ground. A small animatronic rounded the corner and glared down at the boy before turning back from where it came from. Worse yet, the thing is a tiny replica of the music man he’d designed and built in the months leading up to his suicide. 

“Are you fucking with me.” He groans, startling the kid enough to make him scream.

He turns around, and he seems familiar too.

“Gregory, are you okay? Did something happen?” A voice sounded from the boy’s watch.

He hesitantly replies, not once daring to break eye contact. “F-Freddy, Vanessa is the only one who works the night shift, right?” 

Barely a second passes before the voice answers, “That is correct, has something gone wrong?”

Both of them stare at each other. Mike is so close to closing the door and smashing his head in, but leaving the kid here is more than a death sentence. 

“I’m guessing the animatronics have been less than kind to you?” He comments awkwardly, hoping to get any sort of response. Which he does, in a way, as the kid is now bolting off in a different direction.

Mike curses to himself before running after him. Luckily he barely has to walk 5 feet to find him, as he’s stuck rattling a doorknob on the far end of the hall. When he turns and catches a glimpse of him he starts kicking at the thing, but it’s not doing anything.

He sighs, crossing his arms, “I’m not here to hurt you.” He doesn’t stop what he’s doing.

“You don’t have the security clearance to open it. The pass is in that office.”  He continues trying to brute force it.

Now he’s starting to get annoyed, “They can hear you, are you trying to get us killed?” He keeps going. 

He closes the gap between them and grabbed the boy by the shoulder, shaking him, “Seriously, do you have a death wish?!”

Mike's heart drops as he looks down at the kid. He looks exactly like him. On instinct, he lets go. He can feel the urge to cry building up. He wants to run and hide but now is not the time for any of that.

“You’re not with her?” The kid speaks up, eyeing him suspiciously. Which is fair enough.

“I- I don’t know who ‘her’ is.” 

The kid doesn’t look satisfied at all with his answer. “Then who are you? Why should I trust you?” 

He hesitates, because he doesn’t have the answer to that question at the moment.

“You probably shouldn’t,” He doesn’t wait for a response, instead grabs his arm and drags him back into the security office, “but I’m not about to let a child wander around a Freddy Fazbears at night and get brutally murdered.” 

Mike automatically goes to check the cameras, and sure enough there’s an animatronic wandering around. It’s one of the new ones, a big gray wolf. It stops for a second to smell the air- he can only hope they didn’t give them more sense receptors. Hearing is where they should’ve drawn the line, let alone the weird facial recognition Henry had played around with. 

“Do you know if there’s any exits around here, kid?” 

“My name is Gregory. And there’s supposed to be one in the next room over.” Gregory mutters and glares at him. 

He tries to ignore it, “The one you didn’t have clearance for?”

He nods.

“Alright, cool, great.” Now he just needs to find the security card on this desk. Which seems impossible with all the random shit piled on. “Say uh, you wouldn’t happen to know where they keep security cards, would you?”

Gregory stands up and shoves him lightly. He trashes some papers before picking up a small freddy head. “They keep them in these things. I don’t know why.” He presses the nose of the thing, and a small squeaking noise follows before the mouth slowly opens. 

Inside is a small card, just like he said there’d be. And then there's a blaring alarm, because of course there is.

“WARNING. THIS AREA IS OFF LIMIT TO GUESTS.”  The lights go out, the doors open with a slam, and a droning noise plays on loop incessantly.

“Shit! Shit! Freddy, they know we’re in here!”

Loud, rhythmic stomping is heading straight for them. Mike goes back to frantically checking the cameras, showing the wolf heading through a door leading directly to the office. He shuts off the monitors and grabs the panicking boy, crouching to match his height. “Gregory, I need you to listen to exactly what I say, or we're both dead, got it?”

His eyes are full of terror, but he nods. 

He shoves the boy to the left button and sprints over to the other door, peeking his head out to see where the animatronic is going to come from. 

It’s still outside the front door, but just by his luck a second one busts through the door behind him.

“YOU CAN’T HIDE.” It’s the other new one, a gator. 

“They can fucking talk now?!” 

“Yeah! Where do you think you are!” 

Mike slams the door shut and closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see it through the glass. It pounds against the steel harder than he’s ever seen any animatronic, and he struggles to keep his hand steady on the button beneath it.
                                                                         
He hates this part, he always has and always will.

The pounding stops, so he listens for the footsteps getting quieter. He let go of the button, quickly glancing over at the other. 

“Listen, if they get close, close the door and hold the button down-“

The wolf spots him and he quickly does as he’s told.

“-past 12 am they tend to go into some hunting mode.”

Somehow, he’s not crying and choking up. He just stands there, waiting for the thing to leave. This is probably one of the weirder door games he’d been forced to play. 

Their power is running out quick, and there’s no chance in hell they’re making it to six. He has to think of something, anything, but the layout of this place is a complete mystery to him. He could always try to brute force it, but he doesn’t have his gun. He can’t run, since these models seem to be decked out with every new piece of technology to make them as realistic as possible.

Why the hell couldn’t this have just died with him and his family already.

He presses his door shut, barely avoiding a giant metal claw by a few inches. 

“Freddy, please hurry!” Gregory cries at his watch.

Mike looks around the office for any kind of weapon, coming up with nothing but Gregory’s light. It wouldn’t be the stupidest thing he’s ever done. So if worst comes to worst, he has at least an idea.

He’s free to let his door open again. “Kid, toss me your torch.”

Gregory has the nerve to laugh at him, “Torch? Do you larp minecraft in your fre-“

“Flashlight, whatever! Do you want to die here?” He snaps back a bit too harshly, but he’s really not in the mood for this. He hasn’t dealt with children in decades, not living ones anyway.

He catches it and sticks his head out of the door, looking for either of them. He steps one foot out the doorway, swings the light left and right, but there’s nothing there. 

On cue, Gregory screams. Mike turns around to see the wolf’s hand caught under the door, somehow not torn off by the metal crushing it’s hinges. It scratches at him, trying to force the whole thing open.

“Guy!” He yelps as the thing grabs the foot he’s been kicking at it with. Mike rushes over and pulls at him, but damn, these things are strong.

“Fucking, why’d you have to be smart god damn it.” Mike mutters to himself and lets go. He brings down the light as hard as he can on its arm, slightly denting it. Horrifyingly, It yells and retracts its arm, allowing the door to finally close properly.

“Don’t tell me these things can feel pain.” 

Gregory still looks unphased, though his shaking goes against his face.

“I sure hope they fucking can.”

Chapter Text

The doors slam shut for a final time, the lights flip back on, and the alarm stops.

They’d been fighting off these things for what felt like hours, but according to Gregory’s watch had only been about five minutes. Everything about this sucks, very badly. He’s already tired.

“So…” Gregory said, fidgeting with his watch. “See you later.” And he takes off running for the next room.

“Hey-!” He dashes after him, but by the time he crosses through the next door he’s already disappeared into the dark. The little idiot is fast, for sure.

The door leads to a small storage area, connecting to what was probably a shop. The walls are covered in merchandise, each labeled with a different amount of tickets. As he would’ve expected, anything a kid would actually want is priced in the thousands, far too high for them to ever reach. He’d heard him talk about it once, back when fredbears was still scheduled for an expansion.

He hops over the employee counter -and yes, the rest of the place is just a normal shop. There’s not a lot of places a kid could hide, with all the robots running about. He scanned the room for a minute, weaving between the small displays. 

Everything looks so innocent. He hates knowing that that’s what people really think of them in whatever time he’s in. There’s stuffies and figures and posters and candy, everything a kid was supposed to want. 

He picked up one of the Chica stuffies. It’s soft. Staring back at hm. It resembles one of Henry’s later designs, something he was planning to do with the toy animatronics. Mike had never seen any of those in person, but he’d heard enough from the incessant complaining his father had done for those few weeks.

But Gregory isn’t in here, so he dropped it and turns down the next hallway.

He rounds the corner behind the elevator and stopped dead. He can feel bile creep up his throat, but his body is too frozen to move even for an involuntary reaction. 

On the other side of the room is the wolf. Roxy, or whatever it’s name was on the posters. There’s only a few seconds before it finds Gregory, hiding in an abandoned pram. He can see the boy shaking, muffling cries as it nears. 

“Come on kid, we’re only trying to help.” It spoke, it speaks, and he wanted nothing more than to run in the opposite direction. It’s voice is horribly natural, the only thing even distinguishing it from a human’s was the hum of it’s voicebox. Everything about it screams ‘dead kid possessing an animatronic.’ But it can’t. Because he’s dead. 

There are literally no good options in a situation like this. He needs to save him, but the only way to do that is by taking out the threat. Which, sure he has done before. He still doesn’t want to. But looking back at the kid and the animatronic, he can’t logically give himself the choice.

Mike charges at it, slamming his body into its side. The thing is fucking big , but he manages to make one of its leg joints give out. It hit the ground with a huge crash, startling Gregory even more.

He knows not to waste the little time he has. He climbed onto it’s chest, searching for the plating’s giveaways. Sure enough, there are small buttons under its eyes, disguised with the color of its fur. The facial plating swings out, nearly hitting him in the head. There’s lots of intricate little wires and color coded buttons, each carefully screwed into their respective spot. These ones are better maintained than any of the animatronics, not necessarily a good thing at the moment.

It starts to move again, so he does the first thing he can think of and ripped the eyes out of their sockets.The thing screamed, loud and angry. It swiped at him with the arm he already tried to crush, sending him backwards. 

He scrambled to his feet, trying to think of something before it tears him apart- which is probably about 5 seconds. His arm is somehow bleeding, he needs to get out of here before it does anymore damage. But it doesn’t move. 

“My eyes… you took my eyes!” It grovels on the ground, reaching its hands around itself to feel for anything.. Did they program that? How does she know to do that? Why does she know how to do any of this really? Even Henry hadn’t gone this far to program for every random situation. And he’d… Well, he was Henry.

It clawed at the cheap carpet beneath them, and part of him pitties her. She still hasn’t noticed him. Which either means she’s stupid as hell, or it’s eyes are where they actually stored her optical sensors. Either way, great news.

Mike took a step forward, and it instantly turns in his direction.

Fun.

It stands back up on her feet and growls, staring in his direction. As well as it could, at least. Behind her eyes are plenty of familiar mechanisms, eerily similar to the funtime generation. He really, really doesn’t want to think about it, but it was far more likely than not that there’s something inside of her.

He stilled himself as well as he could. Looking over it for any sign of extra sensors, it seems like the only thing it can do to find him anymore is listen. He’s done this game before.

Mike tosses his torch to the hallway opposite of them (hopefully that doesn’t come back to haunt him later) and sure enough she launches at the noise like an actual wolf. He takes his chance, darts to Gregory and grabs him. 

They only have one option on where they can go safely, so he runs back for the security office. Though Gregory doesn’t seem very happy about it. Mike skips heading back through the aisles and drags him over the counter with him. He doesn’t bother to wait and see where Roxy is, hoping that some of the weird immortality luck he hates will save them both. 

He nearly avoids running into the metal shelves. They crash through the door; loud footsteps are already heading for them.

“Kid, go get that chair!” He pressed his body against the door as hard as he could. He hoped to god that she trips up on something before reaching them.

“What the hell! The exit is in there!” Gregory yells back at him.

Great news again, but they don’t have time to regret anything. “Just- too late, do you want to die or not?” 

Gregory rolls his eyes, but caves and runs back to the room. Mike took the chair, jammed it up against the door handle. It won’t do much besides delay the animatronic a few seconds, but he’ll take what he can get.

He grabbed Gregory by the arm again, which he seems to be getting very tired of. He really doesn’t know where he’s going, but the one direction away from the danger is the door in the front of the room. 

They run, ending up in the arcade he saw on the monitors. He doesn’t care about avoiding any of the security robots, they’ve already been noticed by now. So he keeps running. The whole place smells like grease, which he shouldn’t be surprised about, but he really hates it. The walls hurt his eyes and the alarms give him a headache. But he doesn’t stop, not when he has a kid with him.

Roxy comes out the security door, but ran directly into a few of the cleaning bots. She claws at them, growling and whining about whatever. 

They hit a metal door and he forces it open to let Gregory through. It  may not be sure which noise they’re making, but she isn’t far behind them either, so he gives up on lifting it any higher and rolls under.

It falls shut as soon as he lets go, finally bringing them to some sense of safety. He’s really tired now. His breath comes in and out ragged. His arm aches, his head hurts. He doesn’t bother to get off of the floor.

Gregory, on the other hand, leans over him. “Why are you here and why do you talk so funny?” The fucker looks unphased again, like this is some kind of game and they hadn’t almost died. Mike can’t tell if he’s really not blinking or he’s just imagining it.

“What…?”

“You talk weird.” He repeated himself and sits down on the ground next to him. 

Mike forces himself up on his good arm. Now he understands why Gregory is acting the way he is. He’s covered in old bandaids, he’s skinny, short for his age. He’s someone like him. “You mean… how I’m British?” Is he being serious?

“That’s what British people sound like?!” His eyes open wide and he yells . “I thought you guys all talked like, like uh…” 

“Are you fucking six?” 

“I’m eleven!”

He forces himself to stand, wincing. “Whatever you say.” He hadn’t actually had to deal with any kind of wound since… 1995. He’s still bleeding, red running down his right arm. Seeing normal skin on his body has probably been the weirdest part of the night so far. He’s out his dominant hand, so they need to find something to make a splint or whatever people do with this. “Do you know where first aid is?”

Gregory nods before going back to tapping on his watch. 

“...Where is it then?”

“Give me a second! Freddy took me to one in the utility tunnels but I can only get down there with him.”

Mike pauses, trying to decipher exactly what that meant. There’s a good two options, one being a person in a mascot costume took him and two being the actual Freddy animatronic did it. He hates both of those. “Freddy?”

The kid looks up at him and nods again, though this time significantly more confused. “Yeah… Freddy.”

“The animatronic ‘Freddy’?” 

“What other Freddy is there?” 

Oh boy. He states it so casually, despite the fact they’d both nearly been killed by one of the exact same things.

“Are you kidding me?” 

“No? We need him to fix you!” 

Mike has to restrain himself from just walking away. “So we’re just going to pretend the wolf wasn’t about to maul you?”

Gregory looks confused for a second, before the point he’s making clicks in his brain. “Freddy is different! He’s been the only one not trying to kill me all night!” Annoyance rises up in his voice, “Plus I don’t even know who you are.”

He’s going to respond, but it’s a fair point. He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face and pauses to think for a few seconds.“Okay. Name is Mike Schmidt. I used to work as a technician at another location.” He still doesn’t look convinced, so at least he’s smart. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen this happen, and I’ve seen people lost to it.” He cringes, “Please, let me protect you kid.”

Gregory glares at him for a long time. “Fine. But we’re still going to find Freddy.”

They exit through the next shutter, bringing them to an atrium the size of a damn airplane hanger. It’s covered from top to bottom in branding. Only the backup lighting is on now, but there’s plenty of annoying neons disconnected from the main power grid blaring at them. 

“Holy shit.” Is the only reaction Mike can bring himself to muster.

“What?” Gregory hasn’t stopped moving, going ahead of him and checking over the glass railing. They’re on the third floor of the room, each connected by a set of elevators and escalators. It’s intricate and complicated, far… just more than he expected in every aspect. Especially out of this company. He turned around, leaning against the glass, waiting for him. “Are you good?”

He hesitated, because he is not doing good. Gregory’s eyes are brown like his; he’s so small against everything around him, like this is some kind of joke that god is playing on him directly. He wants to jump over that railing, but he knows that’s not going to do anything. “Nothing.” he sighed, “Where are we going next?”

“Well, I need to call Freddy so you don’t die. Then, I don’t know.” Gregory shrugged.

“Do not do that.”

“If you don’t want to see Freddy,” He walked up to him, looks up and stared him directly in the eyes, “then I’ll find him alone.”

He’s leaving again, he’s being carried away, there’s a sheet over his face covered in blood and his arm is hanging limp. There’s a hand on his shoulder, holding him tight. It’s him. It’s always him. Nothing changes. He wakes up every morning and shuts himself in the basement. Like he always had. But there’s one less of them now. He doesn’t care.

Mike grabs him on instinct, “Okay, don’t do that either!”

A smug smile is spread across his face. “So…?” 

His throat closes up, but he nods. “Fine! But if it does anything I’m going to throw it over this railing.”

Gregory takes that as an enthusiastic yes. He taps away on his watch, ignoring him.

Everytime Mike looks at his surroundings he notices more and more stuff. There’s rooms jutting off in nearly every direction. A huge stage at the far end. Random arcade cabinets strewn about. It’s fucking ridicoulous put bluntly. Whoever designed it must’ve had some knowledge of the company’s origins. How in the hell did they even manage to get people to trust them again? Fazbear Entertainment and Afton Robotics weren’t companies held in high regard by anyone, let alone whatever investors had enough money for this shit.

Was Henry alive again too? Did he actually die in that fire at all? He had to be in his 80s by now, though. And he hated his father just as much as him. He’d sold Fazbears to someone else in the 90s, so the name couldn’t be in public domain. Sure, no one had ever been convicted of the murders but it wasn’t like no one tried to. It wasn’t like no one knew. There just wasn’t any reasonable explanation as to how this could happen again- this shouldn’t be happening. 

But, he had been living out the plot of a B-tier slasher film since the day he was born. It wasn’t like he had much room for talking.

Yet still, that was an Afton family gimmick. That was the remnant and the ghosts. The narcissistic asshole who avoided cops by the skin of his teeth.

Normal people shouldn’t have anything to do with this. The last time they had they turned everything he grew up witnessing into an urban legend. That, sure, five children did go missing but they weren’t murdered! Their bodies were never found and there were never any suspects within the company! But he’d seen their blood on his father’s shirt. He’d seen the kitchen knife with little scratches and claw marks in the wood of the handle. He’d been called into the office to talk to officers where he’d ultimately end up saying nothing.

If anything like Fazbear Frights was happening again he’d have to add another arson charge to his name.

Gregory suddenly screams and darts to hide behind Mike.

Panicking, he forces Gregory between the crack of a planter and the wall. He looks for any sign of an animatronic; that Freddy had backfried while he was spacing out. But the only thing in front of him is an ordinary woman. Again, no ball joints, no hydraulics. Just a run of the mill security guard. 

He’s going to try and talk to her, “I do not get paid enough for this shit.” but she spoke first. “Are you the kid’s guardian?” 

“...No. He’s not mine.”

She looks at him and then shines her flashlight on the planter. “I don’t want to know. But if you get blood on the carpet I’m definitely getting fired, just come to first aid with me.”

Gregory violently shakes his head no, there’s clearly something off about this woman to him, and Mike would trust a kid over Fazbear's anyday. But, she could do a lot less harm if he can stop her. And he still doesn’t know why he’s here.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

“She’s trying to kill me!” Gregory nearly immediately yelled at him. He jumps out of his hiding spot in an attempt to possibly intimidate Mike, but a pissed 11 year old is just funny.

“Gregory.” He gestured to the woman, who was still standing in the exact same spot she had been. He turns his head to her again, yelps, and darts behind Mike’s legs. 

“You think I’m- I’d never hurt a kid!” She sounds genuinely taken aback; which is a good sign. “I may get tired of dealing with you guys but I’m not a monster.”

Gregory’s grip on him only grew tighter, the fucker is strong apparently, “Then who's the creepy bunny lady running around?! You’re the only other one in the building!”

“How do you know it's not him? He's a random person, I'm the security guard.” She retorted and crossed her arms.

He opens his mouth to correct her, because ‘I’m not human, your honor.’ is the best thing to say to a random guard apparently. He ends up awkwardly laughing and rubbing the back of his neck before Gregory comes back with a wonderful retort.

“He doesn’t have boobs!” 

She stared back at him, mouth open. Mike has to physically restrain himself from laughing. 

“T-That wasn’t my point!” They’ve only been talking a few minutes, but her voice is rising, they’re getting too loud for this to be safe.

“Okay, okay, can you guys shut up so we can figure this out?”

They both look to him; Gregory annoyed and the woman confused. He can’t keep calling her ‘woman’. He freezed up for a second, but he invited the attention onto himself. “Okay… First off, that’s Gregory and I’m Micha- Mike. Who are you?” 

She hesitated and looked him up and down. He’s sure he looks insane, because as much as he wants to believe he’s entirely normal again, he’s probably not. He gets it, he really does, but they are running on borrowed time. 

She huffs exaggeratedly before speaking, “Vanessa. I’m the head night guard here. And the only one, since they replaced the others with robots.” Vanessa tapped one of the circling robots with her torch and it stopped in its tracks. She has to hit it a few more times before it gets going again. “What I need to know is why you think I’m trying to kill you and why you are in an old night guard’s uniform.” 

Mike looks down at his shirt and sure enough it’s the one he died in. A dark shade of blue with the dumb logo right above the unusable chest pocket. He still has the walkie talkie clipped on his waist, everything's just as it’d been that night.  “Uhm… that’s a long story.” 

“So, you stole it from the displays, got it.” Before he can respond she turned to Gregory and kneeled down to his height, despite the two being at least 8 feet apart. “I promise I’m not gonna hurt you. I don’t know who the bunny is, but it’s my job to protect you.”

“I’m not stupid!” He yelled back at her. He’s physically shaking now, hugging his leg like he’ll die if he goes without it for more than a second. Looking at him, Mike cannot comprehend for the life of him why he was such an asshole when he was younger. This wasn’t funny, how could he have possibly found this funny?

“Listen, Gregory.” He detached him from his leg, gently guiding him to stand in front of himself. “I don’t trust her either-” 

“Hey!”

“-but she knows more about this place than either of us. We’re far more likely to survive with her.”

Mike expected him to at least think about it, but, “No.” Gregory immediately responded. He squirms his way out of Mike’s grip and starts backing off. “You’re creepy and she’s a weirdo.”

“Gregory, wait-” Vanessa quickly stood back up and started approaching him. 

“Fuck off!” He presses his back up against the glass railing, eyes darting between Mike and Vanessa to survey an escape route. 

Mike swallowed hard, trying not to let instinct take over. “Kid I know that you’re scared but I promise we just want to help.”

Gregory flips him off, cool, before turning his head to look behind him. Instantly, he knows what he’s about to do. “Hey, hey, Gregory that's like-!”

But he doesn’t listen, instead pulling himself up and over the railing as fast as he can. “Shit!” He dives for the glass edge, but he’s not fast enough, and Gregory dropped off to the second floor below them. 

Vanessa yelped and ran over to his side. Down below them Gregory is collapsed on the floor and clutching at his chest. 

“Holy shit!” She screamed.

Mike dropped his head against the railing, “This fucking kid…”  He runs his hand through his hair and groans. There’s no blood on the ground he hit, thank god, but the impact of that did not sound pretty. 

“We have to go get him! God but you’re injured too-“

“I’ll be fine. He won’t.”

“You're still bleeding a fuck ton!”

“I don’t need it anyway.” He doesn’t bother waiting for a response and instead rushes over to the nearest set of stairs. 

The next floor is nearly the same except the connecting rooms are wide open. On his right is a small pirate’s cover homage and something called Gator Golf, each barely separated by a single wall. The place just keeps getting bigger with every step he takes. He chooses to ignore it and runs over to the boy.

He’s breathing heavily, curled in on himself and coughing. Mike kneeled down beside him, careful not to touch him. Again, there’s no blood. No sign of head trauma either, thank god. He’s seen this exact kind of injury before, had it too. 

“Is he okay?” Vanessa called to him while running to catch up to his side.

“He'll live, most likely bruised his ribs. Definitely had the wind knocked out of him.”

Gregory weakly lifted his hand and attempted to push him away, but he wouldn’t even be able to do that normally. “Le-leave me alone.” He can barely even choke words out.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Vanessa said, exasperation filling her voice. Mike gently grabbed Gregory’s shoulder and tried to sit him up, but he shakes him off.

“It was-” cough, “a better idea th-” cough, “than getting murdered by you!”

She groaned, “I told you I’m not trying to kill you.”

He tries to ignore them for a second, checking Gregory for anything more severe. It's what he thought; fresh bruising along his ribcage. Plus whatever the hell happened for him to get all the older bruises and cuts. It looks so much like what he'd done to him, well, what both of them had done anyway.

“Y-you’re the one kidnap-napping all those kids! He yelled back at her again, and Mike’s heart dropped. Everything stops for a moment. He’s not back. He’s dead. “I know y-you are!”

“I’d NEV-” She tries to defend herself, but Mike cuts her off.

“What?” His voice is dangerously low. He knows it, he doesn’t care. He relents his grip on Gregory for now. He shouldn’t hold him at the moment.

“You know th- the disappearances!” Gregory’s eyes are wide. His hair is a messy brown and his shirt is stripped and he’s injured.

“What disappearances?”

“The kids! D-do you not know?”

No, he does not know. He doesn’t want to know, but missing children and Fazbear Entertainment have historically been linked. It’s partly his fault.

“I have nothing to do with that! That's been happening all over the city!" 

Any logical adult would believe her at this moment. She was an authority, someone who could definitely have him arrested if need be. Gregory was... a very defensive pre-teen. But Mike, Michael Afton, is not a normal man with a normal mindset. He'd stopped trying to convince himself he was the day he died.

"Gregory, how many kids? How far apart?"

He only looked back at him, confused.

"Fucking-" Mike took a deep breath, trying to stabilize himself, "How many kids have been taken?"

"Uhm... nine, I think." His stomach twists. Nine. He doesn’t know whether to punch a wall or fall over and cry.

"Okay... okay, alright. I can deal with this- this is fine!"

"Mike?" Vanessa called to him again. She's still right behind them, she seems fine. Non-threatening. That's what people thought of his father. He’s not taking the chance.

"Look, I am going to be very blunt. I trust this kid over you. So we're going to find his Freddy friend even though I would rather scream and cry than see that bear again." 

She just stares at him. No response, nothing. 

“Uh, where are we going, Gregory?”

"Vanessa p-put Freddy in parts and services because she's mean." He answered with no hesitation. His hyperventilating finally starts to slow down and he slowly pushes himself up.

"You saw him earlier, he's malfunctioning like crazy.” 

"You didn't have to leave him there."

Mike sighed. They are not going to stop arguing. "Whatever, let's just go."

"What about the animatronics?" Gregory tugged on Mike’s hand as he tries to stand, staring up at him with scared eyes.

"What about the animatronics?" Vanessa echoed him, though significantly more confused.

“The eight foot murder machines you work with every night.”  He took Gregory’s wrist and pulled him up, lifting the kid onto his back to carry him. His arm still ached, but being practically immortal means he doesn’t care. “We’ll have to be careful, but if worse comes to worse than I-“

“Wait, murder machines?” 

“How do you think I got this giant gash in my arm?” He shifts Gregory’s weight and holds up his arm for her to see, “If you want to die to them then feel free, but you aren’t taking us with you.”

Looking over the railing, there doesn’t look to be anything nearby. The ground floor is covered in more security bots but luckily seems to be lacking any animatronics. 

“Whatever. I don’t know why I’m doing this but parts and services is underneath the main stage.” She put up much less of a fight than Mike was expecting, but to be fair she’s the night guard in a giant mall. She’s probably dealt with weirder.

They move down the frozen escalators quickly, bringing them down to the next floor. The stage looks to be about 150 feet away. If they’re lucky they can make it in one straight shot.

“So uh, where are we going from the stage?” 

Vanessa shrugged, “It’s literally underneath. Press a button and the whole thing drops down.”

“Interesting choice.” He muttered. He begins to mark out a mental map in front of him. There’s a plant, some chairs, photo booths. He can work with this. Or at least he was going to.

Vanessa tugged on his arm and suddenly they’re both darting for the stage at one hundred percent. He nearly trips and drops Gregory in the process. 

“What the fuck!”

“You were gonna take too long!” 

She drags them up the small steps before finally stopping to let them go and jots over to the pedestal with a button on top. 

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?!” Mike yelled at her, probably a little too loud. 

The platform suddenly shifted beneath them. Loud, rumbling hydraulics start contracting, beginning their descent into the utility tunnels.

“The robots are not going to murder you.” 

“Are you- I don’t care what stupid shit you do, as long as it doesn’t involve putting a kid’s life at risk!”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms before turning away from him, “Okay, jeez.”

He really wants to punch her right now, which is maybe a little harsh, but whatever.

The platform stops and settles into its position on the floor. Vanessa is the first off. walking across the hallway in front of them just to fumble with her keycard at the end of the hall. 

“Can you walk?” Mike gently shifts Gregory off his back, setting him back down on his own feet. 

He nods awkwardly before quickly limping behind Vanessa, obviously avoiding eye contact with him. He can’t say he’s not used to it, but he’s never enjoyed it either.

The inside of parts and services is a bit of a mess. Excess steam floats throughout the room, bits of mechs and endos litter the floor, and none of the cables are tucked away. The best they’ve seen to have done was zip tie bunches of them together every few feet.

Vanessa is stood in front of an honest to god analog computer, loose switchboard and all. 

“Shit!” She cursed to herself before slamming the board and groaning. “The thing already detached his head and I’m not a mechanic.”

“What?”

“Freddy. In there.” She points to the giant metal chamber sitting in the middle of the room, and inside of it is indeed Freddy Fazbear. It’s head is suspended above the rest of its body, staring up at the ceiling. His stomach twists. Freddy had always been his least favorite, always. “It’s really dangerous to fix these things- something about their-“ 

Michael never liked Henry’s garage. It was always weird. Creepy. All of the metal looks like a one way ticket to the emergency room. He doesn’t need to deal with explaining his bruises to adults again.

“Uncle Henry, why does that- thing- always watch us?”

“The what?” He doesn’t stop working on whatever is in front of him, he’s always in here. Every single time he’s been at this house.

“The bear.”

“Fredbear?” He laughs lightly before setting down his wrench and turning to look at him. 

“That bear plushie! Evan takes it EVERYWHERE and it’s ALWAYS looking right at the three of us.”

Something in his face changes, a muscle or two, “I’m sorry Michael, I’m not sure what you’re talking about buddy.” He smiles, but he doesn’t seem happy. He doesn’t ever seem happy. It’s insufferable, honestly. Michael can’t imagine feeling sympathy for someone who has everything he wants. The one thing he’s wanted his entire damn life.

“Whatever. It’s stupid anyway.”

“I’ll fix it.” Mike sighed and began to approach the chamber. 

“What?! Were you not listening to me?” Vanessa protested. 

He tapped on the metal door and it slides open with a hiss of the pistons. The animatronic inside is big, bigger than any of the ones he’s seen before. His throat dries for a second, it’s probably just his eyes playing tricks on him. Again. “I used to be a mechanic for these things. I’ll be fine.” 

Vanessa tries to protest again, but the door shuts with a slam, closing him off from everything else. He’s just about to take a look at what he needs to deal with before a familiar voice starts up.

“In case of an emergency, the protective cylinder will protect important service personnel outside of the protective cylinder. Deactivating animatronic safety protocols now. It is recommended no mistakes are made during the procedure.” 

He laughs, at least they’re up front about it this time. Even if a bit deceptive.

Now that  he’s got a better look at the endo, mech, whatever, it’s relatively different from his father’s renditions. The only real concerning similarity are the segmented faceplates. Which these people had managed to make significantly less creepy anyway.

 The wires connecting its head to its power box are color coded, which makes his job easier. Blue to blue, red to red, green to green and yellow to yellow. He fumbled about while ignoring the hand unit talking directly into his ear and in a short time it’s reconnected.

Another panel swings down in front of him, “Use the testing console to run diagnostics and complete the procedure.” It lights up, green, green, yellow, and red. Each accompanied by their own pitch. Fazbears really likes making games out of life and death situations.

Green, green, yellow, red, and the panel goes back up towards the ceiling. 

“Good job. You may now exit the protective cylinder.” The door opened revealing a very exhausted looking Vanessa and a very excited Gregory.

“Freddy!” He all but launches himself at the bear, who is now lifting itself off of the chair.

“Oh superstar! I am so glad you are alive!” Freddy’s voice is painfully human. Just like Roxy’s. It pulls Gregory up into its arms and the two hug each other. Everything in him is telling him to disable it, get rid of it and get it away from the child. But for once that’s not going to be any help. 

“He jumped over the third floor railing so be careful with him.” Vanessa spoke as she fiddled with the ancient computer at the side of the chamber.

“He what?!” The thing’s facial expression twisted into concern, or as concerned as it’s plastic face could let it. “Gregory!”

“They cornered me!” He protested lightly, not bothering to lift his head from the bear’s chest. He clings on so tightly to it.

“Mike tried to stop him.” She huffed lazily. She doesn’t seem to be that big of a fan of it either. 

“Mike?” It questioned. Gregory taps it’s shoulder and then pointed at back at him, much to his horror.

He cleared his throat, “Uh, I’m Mike Schmidt.” 

It turned to him quickly; smile plastered onto its shell. “My apologies! Thank you for fixing me, being taken apart is never much fun.” 

He laughs, or scoffs, he can’t really tell, “You can say that again buddy.”

It’s eyes glow before looking him up and down. It’s ears twitch and it tilts its head innocently, as though actually confused. “You are not Mike Schmidt.”

He freezes in his tracks before making direct eye contact with it. “I mean- I- my name-“ He desperately tries to come up with a cover story. Please god do not let that thing have facial recognition. He doesn’t need this shit right now.

“According to my database, you are Michael Afton.”

“What?” Vanessa’s voice is suddenly dark. Sharp and cold, a tone he was all too familiar with. She stands up straight, slow. She turns to meet his eyes. It’s a gaze he’s seen before. One he can’t forget no matter how hard he tries. “Are you sure Freddy?” Her hand slipped into her back pocket.

“I am certain, Officer Vanessa! The Fazbear database is (up to) one hundred percent reliable.” 

Well. Fuck!

Chapter Text

Michael had noise in the back of his mind. It had never stopped, not once. A constant hum of paranoia, those stupid intrusive thoughts that consumed him his whole life. He was always right behind the next door, always just around the corner, always hiding himself as his only friends, always one step through the mirror. 

Jeremy once told him that “it’s PTSD” and that he “needs intense therapy”, but there was a reason one had outlived the other. You learn to expect the impossible when your dad is an immortal prick inside an ugly rabbit mech from the 80s. 

So, as Vanessa pulls out a taser and points it straight at him, he’s a little surprised he wasn’t more prepared for this possibility. It's not a shitty plastic fake like he had while he worked at Freddy’s, it’s an honest to god police-grade taser. 

“Jesus christ-!” Michael held his hands out in front of himself, as if that’s going to do anything against 50,000 volts of straight electricity. “What's with the violence?”

“Cut the shit, Afton.” Her tone is painfully serious. Her stance is big; a cat watching a bird squirm under its grip. “You know as well as I do what’s going on here.” Her footsteps are the only noise echoing through the cold metal room as she gets closer and closer to them.

“No, no I do not actually!” He carefully moves just barely in front of the two, trying to shield them. “And that guy committed suicide like- a while ago.” 

For whatever reason, she doesn’t seem to buy something he knows should be fact. He had died, he’d burnt every last ligament and muscle, right down to the bone. He knew that, he’d felt it, every last excruciating second.

She just rolls her eyes. “These assholes are always right. Some stupid facial reconstruction tech.”

But apparently, neither him, Henry, nor his father had accounted for the possibility that whatever god did exist could say, ‘fuck you’, and put you back into reality at least somewhat intact.

”I fucking told you!” Gregory hissed at Michael. 

But Michael doesn’t believe in god. Maybe he should, he’s seen some pretty unscientific shit. But the universe has been far too cruel to too many people for any higher authority to exist in his eyes.

Both anger and fear pass over him in flashes. He wants to run, or fight, or disappear- really he just wants to be anywhere but right here at the moment. 

“Yeah-“ Vanessa’s finger is horribly close to the trigger. “You were right, do you want a trophy?!” He bites back at him.

Gregory smirked, “Actually-“ but he’s quickly interrupted by the sound of 50 fucking thousand volts hitting the floor. The teeth aren’t able to hook into the concrete, thank god, but it’s still too close for comfort. 

Every plane of reality is the same as the other. There are no people in charge, it’s a free for all between who wants to control what. And unfortunately he’s gotten stuck with multiple, very angry, and very dead children.

“Officer Vanessa, I can not allow you to harm a guest!” Freddy shields Gregory by shifting him to the side while also holding a hand out to block it from hitting Michael. He’s… really not sure whether to accept it.

She frowns. Whether it’s genuine sadness or pity, he can’t tell. It doesn’t matter. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be Freddy.” She dumps out the used cartridge and swaps it for a new one all while not breaking eye contact with him.

“I don’t know what the hell you have against the Aftons but-“ He can very well guess what it is, he has issues against himself too, “Good news for you, they’re all dead!”

“I fucking wish they were!” She snapped back at him. Her eyes fill with water for just a second before she quickly wiped her face with her sleeve. “Just, come with me and no one gets hurt.” Red flags instantly pop up at the ways she’s phrasing her words. He isn’t back, he can’t possibly be back.

Don’t you remember when you wanted to be like your father?

He does. He tries not to. He really, really tries not to. 

“Okay. Let’s assume by some insane impossibility that I am an Afton.” He wishes it was impossible, “What do you want with me?”

Vanessa doesn’t respond. Her eyes are dark, a little watery at the edges. Her mouth is twisted down, contorted in some sort of uncertainty. Her grip remains tight on her gun and her gaze remains unwavering on Mike. 

“You really look just like him.” Her words are soft. She doesn’t seem to have any malitent with it, she doesn’t seem like she even intended for him to hear it, but it’s enough to make Michael’s blood boil. It’s always him, they always mean him when they say that.

You’re his kin, his heir. It’d be so much easier if you just- 

He knows that, he’s painfully aware. Especially at moments like this.

Mike isn’t sure when he pushed her against the metal cylinder, or how the taser changed hands to him, but it’s not particularly surprising. It’d be so easy, just a squeeze from his finger. A little higher up with his aim and at this distance it’ll kill her- but he can’t. He won’t. Unlike him, he still has some empathy left in his shell of a body.

He tossed the taser behind him and kicked it with his foot, making sure it’s out of reach for both of them.

“Look, I don’t know what you want but do not fucking compare me to that man.” His words are snippy, his grip on her shoulders is probably painful, with the amount he’s tensing his muscles he’s gonna end up popping a blood vessel.

Vanessa, on the other hand, doesn’t seem too bothered by anything. Her expression is the same, she isn’t trying to fight against him at all. They both just stand there. Staring. Not even Gregory is moving.

It goes on like that for a good few moments, maybe even minutes, until Michael can’t stand it, “W-What do you want?!” He grabs at the sides of his head, desperately trying to not let his stupid emotions settle in and choke him.

You asked for this. This is your fault. Everything since then has all been direct consequences for-

There’s a sharp pain in his neck, a sliding feeling, like a quarter being slipped into a vending machine. 

“HOLY SHIT!” Gregory screamed- maybe it was Vanessa? No she’s- she’s right in front of him- right there-

But she’s not.

Michael falls to the ground, blood flowing down his neck and staining his clothes in droves. 

Ah. 

There’s a knife in his throat. 

A hand that isn’t his own tries to grab it, pull it back out, but he stops it. His vision quickly adjusts now that he knows what's happening. Vanessa is on top of him, trying to grab at the knife. She looks strangely unphased for this.

“You fucking-” His hand is lower on the handle, letting him pull it out first. He pushes himself onto his knees and tries to stab at Vanessa but only just barely grazes the side of her arm. She, understandably, took that as her que to leave and took off running to the next set of stairs.

Michael fell back over again. It’s not like this will kill him, but it’s not exactly pleasant either. Gregory is yelling about something, screaming maybe. All the noises in the world could play at him right now and he wouldn’t be able to discern a single one.

From what he’s learned from being gutted while fully conscious and burning alive just before being beheaded by his own father, remnant can’t cancel out pain the way it can death. Not the bleeding or the rotting or the excruciating exhaustion that comes from fatal injuries. It really couldn’t do much other than force his soul to be tied to a dying body like some sort of reverse voodoo doll. Remnant is really how one might describe a living hell. 

He wants to just lie there and wallow in the terrible reality that Vanessa is somehow connected to his bastard of a father while waiting for the bleeding to stop. That there’s still children being stabbed and forced into animatronic mechs until their bodies are destroyed beyond recognition. That some poor kid might have to see that, the way he did, the way that he had been forced to.

Michael knew something was wrong with his father when he barely reacted to Evan’s death. When he gripped his shoulder and scoffed before slinking off into the backrooms, away from his son’s lifeless body without so much as a second thought. But he was so young back then, he couldn’t do anything. He never expected for him to open up Chica’s chest cavity to reveal a young girl so mangled that she resembled day old roadkill. He never expected to see the small jaw hooked around the mech’s spine. Never the two shriveled blue eyes that rolled out of the animatronic and landed at his father’s feet. Never real human flesh so flat and compressed that it peeled away from its involuntary metal skeleton like a dirty piece of tape giving up its grip on a wall. Never the flat SLAP it hit the floor with, covering his shoes in old blood and guts. Not the way it looked like store bought meat, like bloody dog food, like crushed up paper mâché dyed red, like someone had forced a human girl into an industrial shredder and tossed the result inside uncle Henry’s pride and joy.

And by god, did he never expect for his own father to react to THAT by cussing out his sister for having such a bratty best friend.

But that only reminds him that there’s a living kid behind him, currently watching what he probably thinks is a normal human man bleeding out to death.

He forced himself up by his good arm, he’s really racking up these injuries today, and tore off a piece of his sleeve with his teeth. He wraps it around his neck as best as he can with his left hand; making sure to pull it tight on the last loop. It cut into his wound just a bit deeper causing him to wince heavily.

“Mike!” Gregory had jumped out of Freddy’s arms and was now clinging at his side. “How- How are you not dead?!” His eyes are full of pure panic, small hands grabbing at his arm like he’s searching for something.

He hesitated for a second to check if she’d hit his larynx and ripped through his vocal cords, but the cut lays a few inches above his collarbone just deep enough to pierce the first wall of his trachea. He grunts to clear his larynx of any blood and realizes that he can feel air blow through the cut as he breathes, “I-”

“OH MY GOD DON”T FUCKING TALK!” Gregory flinched back and yelled at him before he can even get out a full sentence. He looked downright terrified, which is reasonable at least.

“Language, Gre-” Freddy tries to make him tone it down a little, but the kid only does the same thing to him.

“FREDDY, HE IS DYING!” He pauses for a second, “There- There has to be something you can do? Right?” 

The bear looks utterly horrified as it’s eyes dart between Gregory and Michael. It opens its mouth to speak but comes short several times before seeming to give up.

“Gregory, I…”

“I’m not gonna die.” Michael struggles to stand for a second before leaning against the metal cylinder for support. “Although I’d definitely prefer if I could stop the bleeding so this body doesn’t rot on me too.”

That only causes Gregory to scream when he turns around to face Michael again. 

“Kid, I know this is weird but-”

“WEIRD? THIS IS JUST ‘WEIRD’ TO YOU?” He retorted, slowly backing up, back to Freddy’s arms again.

“Well.” It’s actually incredibly normal compared to the things he’s seen, “Yeah.”

Gregory stares at him, hand outstretched as if accusing him of something. He's at a complete loss for words, which again, is reasonable. “You- You’re-” 

“I’m technically immortal. That’s all you need to know.” Mike pushed himself off the metal and stands straight up. It feels like he’s going to collapse at any second, but he doesn’t have time to deal with that, “Now, I have to go deal with-”

But he stops when Gregory starts talking again. “No- I’m sorry, but you can’t just- this isn’t roblox you can’t just-”

“Roblox? Really?” He snorted.

“I am eleven and freaking out, fuck off!” He yelled back, before a quiet fell over him suddenly.  His shoulders slumped and his eyes begin to water a little. “If- Since she tried to kill you…. is she- is she going to kill me?”

You should do it first, Michael. He’s right there. He’s right there and he’s letting himself be vulnerable. He deserves it.

He hesitates, he’s never been good with children. Definitely not when he was 15 and still not now. The answer of course is ‘yes, she’s going to try and kill you.’ But he can’t just say that to a kid. But lying isn’t going to do any good either-

“Oh, superstar.” Freddy finally speaks up, or maybe he already has, “We will protect you!” It’s arms pull the kid into a hug, which he quickly accepts in return. “Right, Michael?”

It’s smiling at him and it says his name and he feels bile creeping up his throat. Which is not ideal with the literal hole there. As much as he wants to say no and straight up leave, the bear is right. It eyes him expectantly, it fucking knows he’s not gonna leave Gregory here. How does it know that? How does it even know what a normal adult Michael Afton looks like? He doesn’t know that himself. He doesn’t want to know, actually. With the amount of people who compared him to his father he’d rather die than see himself become a carbon copy of that man.

“Mike?” Gregory questions when he doesn’t answer, turning his head to make eye contact with him. His face is stained with tears and his hair is messy and his shirt is striped and he’s holding a Freddy close to him. But he’s not him . Michael will never see him again, and it’s his own fault. He was the one he tore away his life from him far too young. But he can’t see it happen again. He can’t, and he won’t.

“Yeah I- I’ll help you guys.”

Freddy nods in some kind of thanks and Gregory goes back to hugging him like his life depends on it.

“But hey- Freddy, next time keep that kind of shit to yourself, okay?”

“I apologize, it’s in the safety protocol to clarify the identity of guests to staff members.” 

“Of course it fucking is.” Michael mumbles to himself, “Where are we going now?”