Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Just make it to Saturday.

That was what Michael had been instructed to do - not only by herself, but by the vaguely familiar voice (she had heard it somewhere before, she knew she had, she just couldn’t quite recall where) of the employee training tape. 

Make it to Saturday.

When he first heard that phrase, he had assumed that the training tape meant to work hard to build up his new Fazbear business’ reputation up this first week, and that after that he could simply relax and let it all go to shit. To herself, it was a tactic she’d been using since The Birthday - just make it to Saturday; if you can make it to Saturday, you can make it to the next week - a tactic she’d been using to drag herself out of bed in the mornings and at dawn, to get to work and school. 

Lately, she’d been using it to find the will to survive the last six days of her life.

They weren’t an idiot - if Henry’s presence hadn’t made it obvious enough, the salvage protocol every night had practically shaken them by the shoulders and shrieked in their face that this ‘business opportunity’ was a poorly disguised trap, courtesy of their uncle. 

They were all going to die and move on - and they were going to die and move on today.

Everything was in the building - the memorabilia; the animatronics made with the remains of the decrepit, haunted tombs of the past; the salvages (her family); the arcade cabinets. Besides, Henry had suggested - insisted - she spend extra time with her friends, which mostly consisted of her clueless employees and that strangely dressed girl - Vanny, she had said her name was - who he would’ve adopted had he had more time.

It couldn’t have been more obvious that today would be the day it all ended, the day all the tragedies and the agony that the Fazbear brand brought everywhere with it would go down with the company and everything associated with it. 

Clearly not obvious enough, Michael couldn’t help rolling his eyes at his sister’s speech, about how the whole restaurant was a gift for her, though a pang of sorrow struck their cold, cold heart out of pure pity for Elizabeth. She always did look up to their father the most - of course she’d idolise him after everything he’d done, she was still the same seven year old they once knew, the one that didn’t truly understand the severity of anything, as seven year olds do. Despite it all, Michael knew it was never her fault - he never blamed her, though he knew she blamed him. Not that they disagreed with her.

Her sister’s little monologue had almost successfully distracted her from their rapidly approaching ends, right until that seemingly deafening - though, in reality, quite miniscule - beep to indicate the end of Elizabeth’s communication with the rest of the building, and signaling the start of Henry’s speech.

“Connection terminated.”

Despite the fact she’d endlessly prepared herself for this very moment - donating all her belongings, giving life advice to Vanny, writing her will, and properly motivating herself - she still felt her nonexistent heart shrink in on itself at Henry’s voice, and, if she deluded herself for long enough, she’d feel herself unable to take in unnecessary oxygen.

This is it, they thought to themself, gathering the curiously fearful Helpy into their bandaged arms, hugging his cold metal tight to her body as her uncle continued on with his, frankly impressive, speech, we can finally rest.

She saw, rather than felt, the temperature rise, Helpy glancing around helplessly as flames began to lick at the corners of the vent openings. She shushed him comfortingly, mumbling consoling words as smoke slowly, but surely, began to creep into the security offices. It was only a matter of time before the whole building went up in flames and outlandish newspapers speculating the cause of the fire came out.

The screams of her family, of innocent souls and people she had once likely known, rang in her ears like sirens, like bells right next to her head, and she was glad she at least had one particular man’s screams to focus on - William’s.

Unlike everyone else’s shrieks and cries of agony, Father’s were like a soothing balm to Michael, like ice cream on a searing hot day, or a blanket during a snowstorm. He never knew just how much he craved the sound of his father's anguish until it was handed to him on a silver platter. And if it that made him just as bad as his father, then so be it - he had accepted that truth long ago. 

The flames were crawling up her legs now - even on her metaphorical deathbed, she couldn’t bring herself to tether her mind to the real world, her thoughts always wandering far, far from the situation at hand until she was tugged back to reality by someone close by. 

She probably wouldn’t have noticed her current situation if it wasn’t for Helpy, looking more frightened than she had ever seen him, pulling at her brightly coloured vest in an attempt to garner her attention.

Helpy never talked, and that, she appreciated - she could read what he wanted well enough without words anyway, and right now, he wanted, needed, an escape, he wanted out of this soon to be inferno. And if Michael could’ve, they would’ve grabbed Helpy and torn the trapdoor open just to get him out of here.

Alas, Michael was here to move on, and so was Helpy, if her theory of him possessing Remnant was correct, even if it was painful at first.

“It’ll be over soon,” they comforted, smoke and fire alike gradually limiting her vision until all she could see was her white and purple companion, who seemed to slowly be accepting his fate, “the sooner we come to terms with it, the less painful it’ll be.”

Had this happened a decade ago - hell, a mere few months ago - Michael might’ve still fought to stay alive, clawing out of the claustrophobic office with vigor, kicking and screaming their way out of their inevitable demise.

That was her months ago, she didn’t have any energy or reason to stay alive now - maybe, if Jeremy was still alive, and she had more time to bond with the clearly neglected girl with colourful hair, she would’ve tried harder to escape death like her father had once done, but that wasn’t the case. Michael had nothing, no one in the real world, but she had her friends, her family, peace, in the afterlife. The choice was clear.

As her skin slowly burnt to a crisp, the metal endoskeleton acting as her skeletal support melted and trickled into a puddle in her office chair, and her last friend succumbed to the fire right in front of her very eyes, her mind could only echo one last sentiment, one she’d felt for the last however many decades.

I’m so tired.

When her eyes fluttered open again, she wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting to see - pearly gates, maybe, or perhaps even just a white void. Preferably, she would have woken up to her newly freed siblings staring down at her, waiting for her to wake up so they could bother her into playing with them. 

He didn’t even catch a glimpse of any of the above when he finally forced his eyes open. None of his friends or siblings, no gates leading to peace, no - he awoke to what he could only describe as Hell. 

So I really did end up in the same place as father, she thought to herself, observing the inky black sky, almost taunting Michael with its endlessness, almost as if to remind him that there was no escape now - his soul had been freed, and he was in Hell now, surrounded by staggering trees the colour of blood, the colour of his old mask, with no way out.

Though, for a place that he had always heard described as fiery, raging, unforgiving, it was eerily quiet. No tortured screams, no pleading for mercy, no ear-grating begging from Father, no cracking of whips and flames alike - maybe he was in the special part of Hell where he’d go insane from isolation. A fitting fate for someone who had ruined the lives of all those around her - she didn’t deserve connection.

Well, no point in stalling by lazing on the grass - might as well explore their newfound afterlife; or was it purgatory? 

Heaving their body up into a sitting position proved to be more difficult than Michael had anticipated, her arms trembling and her stomach tensing from the effort - she thought she had gotten used to the weight of her endoskeleton by now, why was simply moving into an upright position suddenly such an arduous task? 

They managed it in the end, of course, but she was sure if she still had lungs, she’d be panting by now. Maybe she could postpone wandering around and exploring the unfamiliar area to a later time.

“Oh, good, you’re finally awake.”

Michael had always prided herself on not being easily startled, something that had kept her alive throughout her entire animatronic-infested life. Yet, the newcomer’s gravelly, almost robotic, voice had her jumping in place, head swiveling as she tried to find the source of the voice.

Right next to her, a ruddy crocodile, skin nowhere to be seen, sat and fished peacefully, beady eyes barely sparing Michael a glance as it hid behind its straw hat and worn-down cloak.

What kind of Hell is this? she wondered, though she was starting to believe this wasn’t the place she originally believed it to be.

“Wh-who-o-” her voice buffered as she attempted to wrangle her disorientated mind into a calmer state, staring at the infuriatingly calm fisher-man (fisher-person? fisher-crocodile?) with wide eyes, “Who are you?”

The crocodile hummed, though it didn’t respond for a while, simply sitting in silence, as though this was a casual get-together between old friends.

“I am Old Man Consequences,” It - he - responded, finally looking at Michael properly, “everyone else has already been here.”

Circus Baby has already been here today.

Stop, he chided himself, shaking his head as his hands gripped the stabbing blades of grass beneath him, you’re not there anymore; you haven’t been there for 28 years now.

“Why am I the last?” they questioned, staring into the glittering lake of blood.

The crocodile’s fishing rod was abandoned to the side, in favour of focusing the entirety of his attention on Michael.

“Because,” Old Man Consequences began, “I knew you’d be the one to make the right choice, unlike the rest.”

The right choice? her brows furrowed, confused. Haven’t I made enough right choices already?

Almost as if he could read her mind, the crocodile next to her shook his head. “There’s one last choice I need you to make, Michael, and I need you to take ”

“How do you know my na-”

“Michael, if I granted you the power to go back and prevent all the tragedies that took place in your life, would you?”

… What?

His offer completely derailed her train of thought, not just halting the original subject her mind had been focused on, but causing it to crash against the walls of her head.

“That- tha-a-at-” she stuttered, “that’s not possible,”

Old Man Consequences shook his head. “If existing in this realm is possible, why can’t returning to the past be possible?”

She didn’t have a good argument for that. Hell, she didn’t even have a good argument to support her original claim, she just… she didn’t want it to be possible. She was exhausted from running around her whole life, mopping up her father’s messes and sacrificing herself to fix what she had done to her brother all those years ago.

“... Everything’s been fixed now,” she tried, avoiding eye contact like the plague, “they’re all free, there’s no point trying to prevent anything.” 

They heard a sigh to their right. 

“The souls wouldn’t have to have been freed if they never became nothing more than souls in the first place, Michael,” the crocodile huffed, shaking his head in disappointment, unaware of the way it was turning the corpse’s stomach into a pit of despair, “you could prevent all of this, you could prevent innocent deaths, you could-”

“Why me?!” she snapped, grass breaking in her hands, “Haven’t I done enough?! Why can’t somebody else prevent the pain?”

She could feel Old Man Consequences’ stare on her, though it lacked heat, anger - it was just cold, like her entire life.

“Because,” he began, awfully calm, “the one best equipped to prevent a domino effect, is the one who pushed the very first domino.”

Her clawed fingers dug into the black dirt, eyes squeezing shut as she counted to ten, a useless method of calming down that she had yet to give up out of pure sentimentality.

“I didn’t-”

“The accident at his birthday party was catalyst for it all-”

“Shut up!” she yelled, counting to ten like a mantra in her head, “I didn’t mean to kill him!”

“You can prove it by preventing the tragedy in the first place.”

“I’ve spent more than half my life proving that I regretted ever doing it,” she hissed, watching her distorted reflection in the lake. She was convinced if she stared long enough, she’d find her teen self, blood splattered over her favourite grey flannel and her Foxy mask, glaring right back at her.

Old Man Consequences didn’t respond, and if Michael hadn’t been rapidly losing the energy needed to stay cross, he would’ve demanded a reply.

But Michael was tired. That’s why he was so unwilling to do this, because they just wanted to finally rest after all this time. Their metal joints ached, their brittle skin itched, and her broken mind weeped. 

After a while, she brought her knees up to her chest, hugging them close as her body slumped forward to rest on her thighs. “I just want to see my family again, without the added danger of dying,” she muttered, her anger evaporating into the infinite black sky.

“Oh, you’ll see your family,” Old Man Consequences promised, lifting a hand to comfortingly rub her back.

… Or, at least, that’s what Michael assumed he was doing, which was incredibly foolish on her part, because next thing they knew, they were screaming as that damn crocodile shoved them headfirst into the definitely cursed lake.

Old Man Consequences hadn’t promised she would see her family - it had been a threat. Of course it had. And now she was drowning in a blood-red lake, probably being sent to the past with the same omnipotent power that had brought her to this hellscape in the first place. 

That fucker, they thought to themself as their mind and body gave in to the strange water of the lake, he said I had a choice.

Chapter Text

Sluggishly waking up in unfamiliar and, quite frankly, disconcerting locations was starting to become a normal experience for Michael, and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever grow to enjoy or even tolerate like she did with most other uncomfortable situations, despite the increasing frequency of this irritating way of waking.

Light would’ve blinded her as soon as her eyelids cracked open, had it not been for her mask thankfully shielding her from most of the annoying sunlight in her face-

Wait, sunlight? Shit.

Alarm bells immediately began ringing in his head as he scrambled up into a standing position, ignoring the strain on his legs and the pressure on his hips in favour of scanning the alleyway he found himself for any sign of life and the entrance for any innocent passerbys, letting out a relieved sigh once he found none.

That would’ve been a disaster if anyone saw him. Sure, their uniform looked fine, from what they could see, but they had neglected to properly cover their exposed endoskeleton and rotted skin on their last day, and there were only so many excuses he could come up with as to why there were wires poking out of him and his skin was almost blue, especially if he sent back to the early 80s like Old Man Consequences implied he would be.

Damn you, Old Man Consequences. I hope you never catch another fish for the rest of your life, she sneered internally as she reached around the back of her neck to turn her illusion disc on - if anyone walked by, she, at the very least, didn’t want anyone seeing her undeadness. The bastard didn’t even have the decency to give her a functional body when he sent her back, or at least shove her consciousness into her teenage body. This was going to make her job so unnecessarily difficult, fuck this. 

Alright, she finally looked human again, check. Second order of business - figure out where and when on Earth that crocodile had managed to send her.

She braced herself with a hand on the brick wall behind her as she properly took in her surroundings, looking for any indicators as to her location and the date. Presumably, she was somewhere in Hurricane, Utah, most likely somewhere close to Fredbear’s, or Freddy’s. Not her house, though, because there weren’t any buildings close to her house with these kinds of alleyways, she remembered that much.

They caught a glimpse of a “Best Pals!” poster featuring Springbonnie and Fredbear plastered to a set of double doors with that oh-so-familiar checkered pattern bordering it, which immediately had them shuddering and turning away, while simultaneously allowing them to give a name to their location - the right alley of Fredbear’s Family Diner. 

The place where it all started, she painfully reminded herself, eyeing the overflowing rubbish bins full of discarded pizzas and used napkins. This was not going to be fun.

Based on the position of the Sun, it was still quite early - or late, she could never tell the difference - meaning the diner would remain closed for a little while longer, and staying in an alleyway waiting for it to open to the public would get her nowhere. So the question was - what now?

Just as he considered venturing out in search of a calendar and a pack of cigarettes, he heard the unmistakable creeaakkk of the doors to the alleyway, his entire body freezing in fear despite arguably having gone through much worse than being discovered in the alleyway of Fredbear’s Family Diner.

“Excuse me?” She heard someone call out to her in confusion from the double doors, and she swore that if she still had blood, it would’ve frozen to ice at that very moment.

Uncle Henry. 

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t face him - not again, especially as the first person she’d interact with in this timeline. How much trauma would he live with for the rest of his life if Michael just killed herself right then and there, in front of him?

“Can I help you, young… lady?” Henry questioned, and if she wasn’t busy panicking, she’d laugh at his uncertainty when it came to her gender, and his assumption of her being young when she was in fact currently older than him. Huh, that was strange to think about.

At that, she finally turned to face him - she had a semblance of a plan after catching sight of a “Now hiring! Manager needed at Fredbear’s Family Diner!” flyer on the wall next to her, but it wouldn’t work if she just kept on ignoring him.

“Mr. Emily!” they greeted, slipping off their mask and hanging it on their belt as they faked enthusiasm, praying he didn’t question their rare British accent, “just the man I was looking for - pleasure to meet you, by the way.”

She held her gloved hand out for a handshake, eagerly shaking the confused man’s hand. Her highschool’s Drama teacher had always begged her to join the school productions for a reason.

“Well, nice to meet you too, Ms…?” he unsurely echoed, faltering at the end.

“Benedict,” she replied with a surprising amount of confidence, “Peggy Benedict, though everyone calls me Eggs.”

Just as she suspected, her outlandish nickname immediately eased the atmosphere, Henry looking less doubtful and more incredulous and amused now. Why use one of his painfully average pseudonyms, when he could use the arguably funnier one that made everyone laugh?

“Well, Eggs,” he began, letting go of Michael’s hand and glancing at his attire curiously, “may I ask why you’re lurking in the alleyway of my diner?” 

… Alright, when put like that, she did look like a bit of a creep. Note to self, don’t hang around alleyways in the future, it gives the wrong impression to people, especially when you’re six foot two and dressed peculiarly.

“Ah, right,” she chuckled nervously, “I saw that your establishment was hiring - manager position,” she snagged the flyer off the alley wall to point at it, “and I came here to apply - however, since it was so early and I’d barely slept these past few days, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to rest here in the alleyway, so it didn’t look like you had homeless people hanging around your diner - terrible for business, I’m sure.” 

There was no reason Henry had to know that Michael was in fact homeless at the moment - she’d figure something out, sooner or later. If all went to shit, she’d just crash in the park or something along those lines.

Clearly, it was the right thing to say, as the man’s eyes lit up at the sight of the flyer in her hand, optimistically taking it from her. 

“Oh, we put this flyer up ages ago!” he exclaimed, glancing up at her as he returned the slip of paper, “me and Will were starting to think that no one was going to apply for the job.”

Oh, yeah, Michael remembered that - her father had come home, complaining about the lack of application for the newly open manager role at Fredbear’s, everyday for nearly a month . That had been between August and September of 1983, if she remembered correctly, and if Henry said they had put the flyer up a while ago, then that meant it was either late August, or early September, 1983. 

Around a month before Evan’s birthday.

Forcing a smile despite the grim reminder, she feigned shock at the information. “Oh, really? I would’ve assumed everyone would be clamoring for even a chance to work at a place like this.” Butter him up, authority figures like it when you compliment them and what they have to offer. 

Henry shook his head, waving their praise off. “Oh, please, it’s just an ordinary diner,” he denied bashfully, and even in their own, real, thoughts, Michael scoffed at that. An ordinary diner their ass, the bitch had animatronics in it.

“I’m serious! Hell, if I had been in town any earlier, I would have applied as soon as the flyer went up,” they insisted, leaning as much of their weight onto the brick wall as they could while maintaining a semi-formal posture. Old Man Consequences really couldn’t have at least thrown them back with their crutches?

It almost seemed as though Henry was going to deflect the onslaught of compliments once more, before he registered something else that Michael had said.

“Oh, are you new to Hurricane?” he questioned, raising an eyebrow, “I wondered why I didn’t recognise you.”

Michael nodded. “Yes, I’m from…” Shit, what was a good place she’d been to before that she knew pretty well? “... Oklahoma - Enid, if we’re being specific.” He’d lived there for a couple of years during the time period where he’d had absolutely no way to help the trapped souls due to all the Fazbear locations shutting down, meaning it was the best place to reply with, even if it was the most random place to move to Utah from.

There was a beat as Henry digested the information, and for a second, Michael worried that he’d see through her lies.

“I don’t mean to offend, but you don’t… sound like you’re from Oklahoma.” he chuckled, though it was clearly an answer-seeking statement.

Right. She’s still British. 

“My parents were British immigrants,” he explained, lying through his teeth, “but they had me in Oklahoma, I just moved cities when I was old enough. The accent never really went away, for some reason.”

Henry made a noise of understanding, and that was it before the conversation dissolved into silence. Michael kept waiting for Henry to keep talking, but he never did, and she was starting to forget why they even began talking in the first place. Something about managers… oh! The manager position! Michael was applying, of course!

“... Mr Emily?” he spoke up tentatively, cutting through the awkward silence.

Henry acknowledged him with a simple “hm?”

“About that open manager position-” Michael began, only to immediately get cut off.

“Oh, yes! I knew I was forgetting something - right this way Eggs, please. If all goes well, you’ll be hired before we open, and you’ll start immediately today.” he grinned, holding the door open for Michael.

“Perfect,” he mirrored the friendly face, pushing himself off the wall to head inside-

- only to immediately regret it as his knees almost instantaneously buckled underneath him, and he had to scramble for purchase on the brick wall as he was hit with a surge of pain in his legs and lower torso.

“... On an unrelated note, do you happen to have any spare crutches, or even a cane, that I could borrow?”

“So, Ms. Benedict, why do you want to work here?”

“I like working at diners.”

“Why this one specifically, though?”

“It has the best pizza, and employees get it for free.”

“... Good enough.”

-------------------

“Do you have any previous experience as a manager, Eggs?”

“... I was always the leader during group projects throughout my academic life?”

“Yeah, we’re not going to get any better than that.”

 -------------------

“How comfortable are you with being close to animatronics?”

“Not at all.”

“Hmm, that might be a problem… we need the manager to work closely with performers and animatronics alike-”

“Oh, no, I’ll work with them if I have to, but your kitchen will suffer when I binge eat all the food out of stress.”

“Oh, that’s fine, as long as we don’t have to pay your therapy bill.”

-------------------

“I noticed you seem to need crutches to get around - do you think this will affect your performance?”

“Walking around without my crutches will affect my performance more than when I have them, I think.”

“... Not quite what I meant, but alright.”

-------------------

“Are you good with kids?”

“Not really, but they seem to like me anyway.”

“That’s more than our previous manager can say - I’ll take it.”

-------------------

“Okay, last question: why should we hire you?”

“Because you need a manager and I’m the first one to apply for the position?” 

“Hm… fair enough. Welcome to the team!”

In Michael’s humble opinion, the interview had gone incredibly well - she was never good at extremely professional interviews, but fortunately, all the places she had applied to throughout the course of her life were desperate enough for new hires that they looked past her inexperience and lack of professionalism, and simply hired her on the spot. Just like Henry had done now.

The place wouldn’t open for another half hour, so Michael mostly just shadowed Henry as he set the diner up for the day, as it was her first day - and while, yes, she did know how to open the diner up as she helped her father and uncle with it many times as a kid, she wasn’t supposed to, and it would look extremely suspicious if she did, especially if she supposedly just moved to this town.

They asked about the uniform, mostly out of desire for new clothes - they didn’t sweat or anything anymore, therefore they didn’t really need new clothes, but it would be nice to wear something else for once - only to be immediately disappointed when Henry told them to keep their current clothing and the mask, as it was perfectly on brand for Fredbears; eccentric, stylish, and animal-themed. 

Fantastic. 

When he questioned the absence of William (“Shouldn’t Mr. Afton also be opening the diner?”) Henry told him they took turns opening, so that the other one could drive all the kids to school in the morning. Michael knew this already, but he wanted to make idle conversation, while simultaneously keeping up the ‘curious newcomer who doesn’t know how things work’ facade. 

He then asked some surface level questions about Henry’s kids, trying to suppress his flinch when Charlie was mentioned. Henry, unprompted, also told him about the Afton Kids, and, not for the first time in his life, he was glad he put the mask back on so Henry didn’t see the goofy grin overtaking his face as he talked fondly about Michael’s teen self. This was why he always preferred Henry as a kid.

“What about you, Eggs?” Henry questioned, only clarifying once Michael gave a confused hum, “do you have any kids?”

Her mind immediately flashed to striped rainbow hair and ungodly amounts of chunky bracelets, childish laughter and a bubbly personality, but she shut that down before her brain managed to delude her into thinking she could’ve been a good mother to Vanny.

“No, it’s just not something for me at the moment,” she replied with a half-hearted titter as she laid out a white tablecloth onto one of the tables, and left it at that. She could feel Henry’s curious gaze, though she didn’t have the heart to satisfy his intrigue. In her defense, how was one supposed to explain that “yeah I don’t have kids, but there was this one girl I knew for a week whose parents clearly neglected her, and I kind of saw her as my daughter, and if it wasn’t for me knowing I was going to die, I would’ve adopted her,” without sounding like a total psycho?

They settled into silence once more after that, though it was less awkward like before, moreso strained, and Michael had to resist the urge to facepalm. Could she seriously not hold a single conversation without instantly fucking it up? 

Unlike last time, she didn’t have any other conversation topics, and she was, quite frankly, struggling to come up with ways to ease the tense atmosphere between them like she did in the alleyway.

Questions about the job? No, she had asked just about everything she’d need to know, even things that seemed obvious. Questions about Henry’s family? Already asked the basic questions, any more and it would seem invasive. Questions about other employees? Knowing Henry, he’d just tell Michael she’d see for herself when she met them. Talk about the weather? Never lasted long. Questions about the animatronic tech? No, that-

Wait. That… was perfect, actually. It was a question that would guarantee a longer response from Henry and plenty of follow up questions, and it would allow her to refresh her memory on the springlock suits in case she got an opportunity to work on them in the near future.

“Say, Mr. Emily…” she began, waiting until Henry lifted his head and gave her his full attention. “I heard you use something called ‘springlock suits’ in the diner - do you mind giving me a quick rundown on them? I know all about the animatronics, but the springlock stuff is new to me.”

Maybe I’m not so bad at holding conversations after all, she thought to herself as she watched Henry light up instantly and start rattling off facts and figures about the springlock suits, hanging on to every word he said and asking far too many follow up questions. Not that he minded, Michael was sure the man was ecstatic to have someone who was genuinely curious about the springlock suits for non-business purposes.

Before she knew it, they were unlocking the diner’s front doors and flipping the sign from closed to open , and Michael realised with a start that shit, I actually have a job to do now. She had been a manager at her own pizzeria, the one she died in, sure, but that was her pizzeria, she could be as mean to rude customers as she wanted, and she could basically just fuck around and do jack shit all day long if she really felt like it. She absolutely could not do that here, especially since her father owned the place.

Oh, well, at least she had gotten an in depth explanation of springlock suits from Henry, and managed to worm herself a little closer to preventing the tragedy that started it all.

Around three employees came in as soon as the doors opened, each one greeting Henry and warily glancing at Michael, with Henry explaining that they were the new manager and introducing them. Michael shook hands with them all, cracked a couple of jokes, got them to laugh and somewhat relax around Michael, before being shooed off by Henry to go complete his managerial duties, which he went off to do with a snicker. 

It only took them another half hour to complete all the backstage tasks, during which they chatted some more with the employees they’d already met - Sam, Milly, and Jay - and met five new ones - Anderson, Hank, Lawrence, Caroline, and Anna. They introduced themself, shook hands, answered several questions that felt a tad bit too personal, but that they didn’t care enough about to ignore them. 

“What’s with the mask?” “Childhood gift, thought it went well with the diner.” “Cool.”

“Yeowch, those are some nasty scars - what happened?” “Got mauled by a fox, was not fun.” “I can imagine, sorry about that.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have a uniform too?” “I asked for one, but Mr. Emily insisted I just wear what I came in with.” “Wow, they’re getting too cheap for uniforms now.”

“Nice ring! Are you married?” “I was going to get married.” “Oh, did you guys break up?” “No, she died.” “Oh, sorry.”

…

“Wait, she?” “Get to work, you lot.” “Yes ma’am.”

And that was the end of it. She had successfully managed to connect with most of the employees she was in charge of, despite it being her first day - now if she could only do the same with the diner’s customers.

A quick glance at the clock told her it was only seven in the morning, causing her to heave an exhausted sigh. This was going to be a long day. At least she didn’t need sleep, just food and power. 

“Will! Glad to see you finally here, I’ve got news for you…”

Michael tensed, shoulders raising to his ears as he glanced up from where he was playing rock, paper, scissors with the Puppet as it playfully giggled at him. 

Oh, God, his father was here. He really didn’t think it through when he applied for a manager role at his father’s diner what the fuck was he thinking.

The Puppet stared at him curiously when his hands stilled, poking him in the shoulder to get his attention once more. 

Right, entertain the puppet, he reminded himself as he shook himself out of his stupor - that was, interestingly enough, one of his managerial duties, to properly stimulate and entertain the puppet when there were no kids playing with it - the phone guy from the two locations Micahel worked at must have hated that. Something about it having an advanced AI that resembled a child, which Michael had never known (probably because he never interacted with or heard much about the Puppet as a kid, and by the time he actually paid attention to it, it was possessed by Charlie). 

Well, it was a fun way to pass the time, and the bubbly animatronic was surprisingly nice to her, allowing her to push past the memory of her time at the newer Freddy’s location, and all the times she’d encountered Charlie after that. Besides, she liked the way the bells jingled on it whenever it bounced in place after beating Michael in one of her games, and its giggle reminded him of both Elizabeth and Vanny.

They’d been playing rock, paper, scissors for a while now, and it was clear the Puppet was growing restless. After about five seconds of brainstorming, she remembered the Poker cards in her pocket, and decided to really test the animatronic’s AI by teaching it one of her favourite games that she had been constantly told was “too difficult”, waving Milly, working the quiet Prize Counter, over to join in - the game was better when it had at least three players.

The Puppet was surprisingly good at Shithead (renamed to Shitzu by Michael on the spot, for the sake of appropriateness) and had absolutely demolished Michael and Milly in two of the three rounds they had played so far.

“You’ve shown this game to him before!” Milly accused Michael through a fit of incredulous laughter, “That- that’s why he’s so good at it!”

Michael quickly made a note of the he pronouns Milly used on the Puppet, making sure to use them for the animatronic from now on. The puppet’s intended gender had never been clear to her, but the general consensus seemed to be that he was a guy. “It’s my first day here, and you’ve been watching me interact with him the entire time - I physically could not have shown him the game before.”

In front of them, the Puppet giggled mischievously from his box, clearly intending to win the current round they were playing too. For quicker rounds, Michael only used one deck of Poker cards instead of the usual two, and he decreased the amount of hand-held cards to just three after seeing the Puppet struggle to hold the intended five. Clearly, this was a mistake, because it allowed the frighteningly intelligent Puppet to beat their asses at a game Michael was sure he had perfected over the years - ignoring the fact it was mostly a luck-based game.

He sighed. “Though, I regret showing him this game at any point in time - it seems I need to practice mo-”

“Are you teaching the Marionette to gamble?” 

If Michael had been standing up, they were sure they would’ve jumped fifteen feet into the air through the roof of the family diner. They had been so immersed in the card game that they completely failed to notice their father sneaking up behind them, and his voice had genuinely scared them. They thought they’d gotten over the fear of their father’s voice, but clearly not.

C’mon, say something, don’t just stare like an idiot, they urged themself as they twisted their body to face their father, having never been more grateful for the bear mask obscuring their facial expression from view.

“This isn’t a gambling game, Mr. Afton,” Milly helpfully explained after seeing that Michael was not going to respond, “Ms. Benedict showed me and the Puppet how to play to entertain him.”

William’s eyebrow raised at the name drop, calculating, icy gaze settling on Michael. “So you’re the new manager Henry told me about - I was wondering why you were nowhere to be seen.”

He’s accusing you, the voice in the back of her head helpfully supplied, defend yourself!

“Uh, Mr. Emily told me to keep the Puppet entertained when there was no one interacting with him, but I’ve been wandering around occasionally to check if I’m needed anywhere,” Michael replied. If this was any other authority figure, he wouldn’t have even bothered with an explanation - authority figures hated explanations, they just wanted apologies and immediate correction, but not his father. His father was the exact opposite, and that was one of the few things Michael had always appreciated about the man.

William hummed at the response, his features softening ever so slightly, which Michael took as a win. “Oh, yes, Henry did mention that as one of the manager’s duties. Apologies,” he quickly amended, to which Michael replied with a soft “no worries.”

Despite the overall normal, and even apologetic tone William had taken with her, Michael still found her chest tightening with every word the man spoke to her, and she almost felt like a sixteen year old again, terrified of every movement her father made near her.

I need to get away from him, she realised, I need to get away before I do something stupid. 

She knew she’d have to interact with William in the future, but she wasn’t ready, not yet, not after what he had done.

Sneaking a glance at the clock mounted on the confetti painted walls told her it was twelve fifty-five in the afternoon - five minutes from her lunch break. Mr. Emily wouldn’t mind if she took her lunch break five minutes early as long as got back to work five minutes earlier too, right?

“S- sorry, it’s time for my lunch break - I’ll see you around, Mr. Afton,” she said, ignoring the curious stares as she snatched up her crutches and practically dashed to the break room, sinking into the ancient couch in a heap of anxiety. 

That was pathetic. It was just her father - not even the one that hit her and murdered children and sent her to her death, no, this was the one that neglected her at worst and loved his children and took pride in his business and genuinely loved entertaining children. There was nothing to fear with that man, he was practically harmless - and even if he wasn’t, Michael had a metal endoskeleton inside of her, she could absolutely win a fight against him.

And yet, she still feared him like she did after The Birthday.

What a joke. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a calendar hung on the wall next to her, indicating to her that it was the second of September - the day after school started, and exactly a month before Evan’s birthday.

Damn you, Old Man Consequences, she bitterly thought to herself as she rose from the battered break room sofa, heading to the kitchen in search of food she could binge.

“I knew tall people needed a lot of food, but I didn’t think they needed this much food,” Henry attempted to joke, closing the break room door behind himself as he walked over to Michael with a concerned glint in his eyes.

Michael, in the middle of eating a pizza slice - halfway through her third pizza - lowered the slice almost immediately, ashamed at being caught like this by her uncle. Joking about her eating disorder was one thing, but actually being caught eating like a pig was entirely another.

He felt disgusting all of a sudden, pushing the cardboard box away from himself almost immediately without a word.

“Sorry you had to see that,” he muttered, curling his arms around his stomach - he felt full after half of the first pizza, and yet he kept wolfing the rest of it down like a starved man. Unbelievable.

“Eggs, you don’t have to apologise for eating, ” Henry consoled, albeit slightly incredulously, and Michael had to resist the urge to snap at him that it wasn’t just eating, “besides, you warned me about this - even if it was framed as a joke. If you’re hungry, keep eating.”

He tried to push the cardboard box back towards her to no avail, immediately receiving a frantic shake of the head and a barely audible gulp as she fought back vomit for his efforts.

“I’m not hungry anymore, it’s fine.” She pretended to ignore his disbelieving stare in favour of washing down the unbelievably greasy pizza with a glass of coke, wincing at the overly sugary taste and the chill against her teeth. Perhaps not.

They set the glass down with a little too much force and settled back into the couch, not making a move to acknowledge Henry joining them in favour of swallowing down the bile that rose up in her throat.

“You mentioned - what was it, binge eating?” Michael nodded, letting out a sigh in preparation for the conversation he knew was bound to happen, but dreaded anyway. “Right, you mentioned binge eating after interacting with the animatronics, but you looked fine playing with the Marionette. Was it Fredbear, or Springbonnie that stress-”

“It wasn’t the animatronics,” she huffed, cutting him off as she kept her eyes closed for now - were the lights in the room always this bright? “not this time, at least. I haven't interacted with the main duo yet.”

You’re just setting yourself up for more questions, dumbass, she scolded herself as soon as the words left her mouth, you should’ve just said that Springbonnie scared you or something.

“Oh.” She heard him say, and she didn’t need to look at him to know his confusion and concern were rising. “Well, what happened? William said you were acting weird when he talked to you, was it something before that?”

Don’t tell him, that's his best friend, one part of her insisted, which, yeah, Henry and William were always weirdly close and therefore protective over each other, but also…

This was Henry she was talking about; her uncle who never dared say anything she told him to anyone else, even if she didn’t specify it was a secret. And yeah, Henry didn’t know she was his niece at that very moment, but it was still the same man with the same morals and values - that counted for something, didn’t it?

They drew in a deep breath, eyes flickering open as they engaged the floor in a staring contest. “Mr. Afton… he reminds me of someone I didn’t have, uh, the best experiences with, and it just - freaked me out a little, ‘s all.” The conversation had their hand inching towards the half-eaten pizza box once more, and, after a moment’s deliberation, they snagged the abandoned slice and brought it to their mouth to finish eating it. They’d surely regret it later, but right now, they needed comfort that their brain decided had to come from food, of all things.

For a long, torturous moment, there was stunned silence, and Michael almost feared that she’d said the wrong thing to Henry, and he was going to dismiss her trauma and experiences and tell her to grow up and go work, or-

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Peggy.” Oh, nevermind. She felt a hand comfortingly squeeze her shoulder, and she let the pizza slice fall back to the cardboard box in favour of paying attention to Henry “Will can definitely be a bit… intense towards strangers, even if he means well, and I don’t imagine that lands well with someone who doesn’t have the best experiences with someone similar to him.”

What had she been worried about? Henry always understood, always , and he always knew exactly what to say in response. Had Michael been a little younger, or even a little closer to this version of Henry, she’d have curled up into the man’s side and sobbed her entire life out.

“I thought I got over it - I’m- I’m sorry,” she managed to stutter out, adjusting her employee badge and moving to stand up - the clock struck one thirty the second she rose from her spot on the battered couch, “I should- I should get back to work now, I’m five minutes late.”

Henry, gentle as ever, pulled her back down by the arm, leveling her frantic gaze with a reassuring expression. “Take another five, okay? - the real rush starts in half an hour anyway, and you look like you need it.”

All she could do in response was numbly nod her head, sinking back into the cheap-soft pillows of the sofa. “Okay.”

“Okay.” 

And that was that. Henry asked her if she would be alright if he left her alone, to which she insisted he go do whatever he had to do as the co-owner of the diner (even if she felt horribly uncomfortable without him in the room to keep her in check) , and right after he left, she proceeded to scarf down the rest of her pizza and guzzle her practically untouched coke.

She felt more upset, ashamed, and uncomfortable by the end of her forty minute lunch break than the start of it.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for Michael, she still had eight hours left of her shift after her lunch break, so she pushed through the uncomfortable ache in her artificial heart and stomach alike and continued doing whatever was required of her.

She dealt with hostile and immature customers (though not as harshly as she would like) , got her ass beat at Uno by the Puppet (only once, though) , fixed fallen down or faulty decorations, filled in for employees on their lunch break, and more, vehemently avoided William and the Golden Animatronics - the usual. 

The most interesting part of her day, by far, had been when a particularly inquisitive, yet debilitatingly shy, group of teenagers had followed her around for nearly an hour attempting to get a good look at her outfit and various accessories, all the while whispering and squealing in fright when she nearly caught them doing so. In the end, it had become a game of sorts - how close could they get to her without her noticing?

Answer: not very close at all.

The rest of their shift had been mind-numbingly boring. They couldn’t even entertain themself with the Puppet, because kids had begun to crowd around him at about two thirty, and they would rather springlock themself before even getting within a five meter radius of Fredbear or Springbonnie.

Apparently, his teen self and his past siblings were supposed to arrive at around four fifty, but his teen self (he really needed to figure out a name for that little cunt) had been invited to hangout with his friends at Freddy’s last minute, and her siblings had been dragged along with her. 

Michael couldn’t decide whether he was thankful he wouldn’t have to meet them just yet, or whether to be anxious at the fact he couldn’t stop Mike (he couldn't remember the last time he called himself that, and he didn't go by Michael here, so that’s what he’d call his teen self) from picking on her younger siblings. 

They forgot all about it in the span of approximately ten minutes after being distracted by an old man screeching about how them sitting down during their shift was “unprofessional”. If this had been back at their own pizzeria, they would’ve sarcastically apologised for being disabled before kicking him out of their establishment- alas, they were employed under someone who did actually care about profits this time, so they had to politely explain the fact they were disabled to the man and direct him to Henry when he continued harassing them.

When they looked at the clock after that tiring ordeal, the arrows mockingly pointed at five ten - four hours and twenty minutes left.

It was going to be a long rest of the day.

Their shift actually only lasted twenty minutes after that, actually. Turns out, dayshift employees only worked a twelve hour shift on their first day, as opposed to the usual sixteen hour shift that was mandatory for all other days of their Fredbear’s career, which Michael had never known.

She tried to gently insist on staying until the end out of polite courtesy, stating she could handle a sixteen hour shift - hell, she could probably handle a twenty-four hour shift if she had to - however, her father had interrupted her by telling her to “fuck off” in his overly nice way.

The actual reason first-day employees didn’t work full shifts, according to her father?

“We don’t want to pay first-timers for a sixteen hour shift before we know if they’re worth it or not.”

Of course. Why would Michael ever assume that any sort of Afton-owned establishment would genuinely care about anything other than money and cost-saving? How foolish of her.

Anyway.

Despite being let out of the diner early, that wouldn’t be the last she saw of it for the day - since Henry and William went home around an hour or two before the diner actually closed, whatever manager or highest power employee was working that day was expected to close the diner up after everybody trickled out. Since Michael was the establishment’s manager now, it was her job to lock the place up, even if it was her first day. Which meant she had about four hours worth of time to herself before she had to go back and close the diner.

So, that’s what brought them to the park near their childhood house. They didn’t quite have any money with them - or, well, they did, they had their wallet and everything, but they weren’t sure if money from 2015 would be accepted by anyone in 1983 - which led them to the cheapest place they could endure at the moment; the park. It was free, and everyone else was busy doing their own thing to even think about talking to them, making it the perfect place to relax after the horrible, no good day they weren’t even finished with.

Old Man Consequences was oh so kind as to somehow apparate a brand new sketchbook into Michael’s inner vest pocket, complete with a mechanical pencil, a black ballpoint pen and a soft, pink rubber. In any other circumstance, she would’ve started sketching something, anything - her emotions, something comforting - but what she needed the most right now was a plan.

He was here to help, “make the right choice” , as Old Man Consequences put it, and while he had a general idea on what to do, a plan was always better. A plan meant structure, and structure meant less mistakes and therefore overall better mental stability, which was essential for a mission like this.

She flipped to the last page of the new sketchbook - if anyone asked to flip through it, they would probably miss the very last page - and scribbled down a heading; “CHECKLIST TO SAVE THEM ALL.”

Underneath, she wrote down a quick, non-chronological checklist of things she needed to achieve in order to prevent Evan’s death, and therefore everyone else’s demise. Some things on the list included:

• get father into therapy
• fill mike with kindness not jealousy and hatred (therapy last resort)
• convince father to actually love his children equally
• convince mike to ditch our friends (or also convert them into nicer people)

Once she thought she had the basics down, she jotted down another title right underneath the list - though, much more hesitantly this time; “THINGS TO DO THAT WILL PROBABLY GET ME CLOSER TO SAVING THEM ALL.”

Beneath that title, much in the same fashion as the previous checklist, she threw down another bunch of disorganised ideas that would probably help her.

• gain at least one ally (probably henry) who knows EVERYTHING
• become weird but close friend of aftons/emilys
• work well enough to earn some money
• get mike and jenny together. somehow
• get mike to realise she is not a fucking boy
• fix/destroy springlocks
• bring springlock suits back to apartm

Her hand suddenly stilled, her mind screaming at her that the very last point she had almost finished writing was horribly wrong. Not even in a “that is clearly a bad idea” way, but in a “there’s something not right about that sentence” way - though, she couldn’t even begin to figure out what her brain thought was wrong with that.

The premise was incredibly simple, was it not? She’d sneak in after hours, nick the springlock suits, and bring them back to her apartment!

… 

Wait a damn minute.

She groaned as her head fell down to slam against the pristine pages of the open sketchbook. How could she have forgotten that she doesn’t have her goddamn apartment at this point in time? Her past self was still living with her parents, and, if she remembered correctly, someone else was currently living in her future apartment.

How does one forget they were quite literally homeless? She even held back giggles earlier today when she mentioned homeless people being bad for business to Henry, because she herself was without a home.

This made her job about ten times harder. She couldn’t just sleep on the street - William or Henry would find out one way or another, and that was not something she was looking forward to explaining to them - and the same applied to just about any publicly available area. She couldn’t rent a last-minute apartment or buy a hotel room, because, as previously established, she didn’t have any money that would fly in the 80s. 

So that left him with basically one option - break into somewhere, and pray to God no one would discover him. It was definitely risky, but what other choice did they have? None. So, breaking and entering it was.

But where? Probably not their own childhood home - His step-mother and father alike had always been big on security, and it was practically a full house, making it hard to not only enter undetected, but also remain unseen after getting in.

Henry’s house was also out of the question. For starters, he didn’t quite remember where it was, meaning he’d have to follow the man home, which would immediately give him away. Not to mention, the Emilys had a German Shepherd, and dogs did not react positively to intruders, let alone intruders who just so happened to be corpses.

And he wasn’t going to break into a stranger’s home for… obvious reasons.

So then where? All the abandoned buildings were ways away from Fredbear’s, and they didn’t have a car, so they couldn’t stay there, and breaking into businesses tended to be fairly difficult unless they had a key of sorts-

Wait. A key. They had a key to lock and unlock Fredbear’s. 

Of course! Henry had given them a key to Fredbear’s Family Diner because they were the manager now, and they were the ones in charge of closing the diner - not opening, but they’d find a workaround for that - meaning they’d be the last person in the building, so they could just stay the night and everyone else would be blissfully unaware. Besides, Fredbear’s didn’t have a night shift, that was exclusive to Freddy’s.

It was perfect, and they honestly felt idiotic for taking such a long amount of time to reach such a painfully simple conclusion.

Either way, they still had over three hours before closing, meaning they had time to gather any bare necessities they’d need to get through daily life - and maybe some things they didn’t exactly need, but would be more satisfied if they had them.

And by gather, Michael obviously meant-

-Shoplift. 

As previously established, Michael didn’t have any money to exchange for goods and services, and, in addition, lacked any close friends who could buy certain essentials for her. So, stealing it was - not that she was complaining.

There was a five year period where she was truly at her worst - physically and mentally - and was unwilling and unable to get employment anywhere. Since she had yet to gain access to her father’s inheritance at that point in time, she was dirt poor, and had to resort to stealing whatever she needed, and five years of practicing had made her fairly skilled at shoplifting from small stores without being noticed, especially when she had an empty chest cavity practically begging to be used.

Usually, she’d prefer to steal in more conspicuous clothing, but her bright work uniform would have to do for now, until she managed to snag a couple of normal articles of clothing.

Her first stop was a local drug store - she desperately needed a copious amount of air fresheners and perfume, as well as enough mouthwash to last her at least a month. 

The store was surprisingly packed when she walked in, which certainly worked in her favour - less likely to be singled out or caught. A quick, yet subtle sweep of the ceiling showed no CCTV cameras, as she suspected - it was the 80s, smaller stores like this one didn’t really use those yet - still, she swept her bangs forwards to cover most of her face, just in case an employee did notice her. She planned to snag some hair dye and a pair of scissors so that if she did feel like she got caught in the act, she could cover her bright hair dye and cut her hair shorter, even if it would pain her to so (wigs don’t grow back, alright? it was a reasonable thing to get upset over.)

Wandering the aisles and pausing every now and again to ponder products she didn’t care for allowed her to blend in, fighting back a smirk as an unsuspecting employee passed her without so much as a second glance. Perfect. 

Despite praising the crowd when they first walked in, they did in fact need a clear coast in order to actually steal something. They had unbuttoned their button up and loosened their tie before they walked in for easier access to their chest cavity - they didn’t fear anyone seeing their purple skin, thanks to the handy illusion disc, but it wouldn't do them any good to be caught stealing.

Getting an aisle to themself was fairly difficult, but when they finally did, they hit the jackpot - shelves lined with different perfumes and air fresheners, and hair products on the opposite shelf. Now all they needed was to be quick, which was something they had struggled with ever since they began requiring crutches, but they managed to nick everything they needed with surprising speed. 

As they feigned interest towards the products in a different aisle, they saw a five dollar bill fall out of a man’s pocket as he stomped away, ranting angrily to himself under his breath.

Michael felt himself grin, bending down to swipe the bill off the polished floors as soon as the man was gone, shambling his way towards the check-out counter after grabbing a pair of scissors off a nearby shelf with a satisfied smirk.

Should’ve been paying more attention to your wallet, he thought to himself, feeling only the slightest bit guilty. What could he say? His father wasn’t exactly the best influence when it came to money. The only thing setting the two apart financially was Michael actually cared about safety and people’s wellbeing when it came to owning a restaurant, and his father… well, his father’s management didn’t need explaining.

Could he have just stolen the scissors like the rest of the products? Absolutely he could have, but actually buying something would make him less likely to be deemed a shoplifter.

The store didn’t have an EAS system, making the tedious task of peeling of detectable stickers pointless, but it was nice to feel secure and sure that nothing would give him away when he left the store.

She repeated this process for other essentials - batteries for her illusion disc and her endoskeleton, clothing, a watch, an alarm clock, and a pack of chewing gum - as well as certain things she didn’t need, but that she used so much they might as well be essential, such as; make-up, a messenger bag, various art supplies, and a range of accessories.

Did she steal more than she needed? Oh, absolutely. Did she regret it? Only a little - she’d pay the owners back via an anonymous tip at some point. 

Her watch read nine o’clock on the dot, which meant her impromptu ‘shopping’ trip ended just in time, and that she should start making her way back towards Fredbear’s to lock the place up, and find an unknown room to make her home in. 

As she walked along the sidewalk that led her to Fredbear’s, she took the time to observe her surroundings for once - not for any practical reason, just out of pure curiosity to see if her memory served her right, and if things truly were as she remembered them.

They took note of the things they didn’t quite recall correctly.

I don’t think I remember that store over there, they thought to themself, tilting their head at it as though that would make them remember it better, and I thought that park was called something else.

To their utter disappointment, they found they had forgotten more than they had remembered about their hometown. They hadn’t spent that much time away from here… had they?

Sure, she had moved away to a different part of Utah as soon as she turned eighteen, but she moved back soon after, to find her father! And she’d stayed for a full six years, she only moved to Oklahoma after finding out no other Fazbear locations would open - but then she moved back!... twenty-two years later. And only stayed for two months before the fire.

… Huh, maybe she really had spent that much time away from Hurricane. 

It was for the better, she tried to convince herself as Fredbear’s came into sight, at nine twenty-nine, I would’ve lost my mind here - there wasn’t anything for me to do.

Whatever, that was in the past now - or, well, the future, technically, but it was the past for her… sort of. She still wasn’t quite sure how this whole thing worked yet.

At precisely nine thirty, she was standing in front of the doors of the diner, greeting Lawrence pleasantly as he exited.

“Hey, Lawrence,” she nodded at him, receiving a soft “hey, bosslady” and a smile in return, “you the last one out?”

“Yup,” he confirmed, popping the ‘p’, “everyone else left already, I just had to finish up by the counter real quick.”

Michael nodded, fishing the diner’s keys out of their pocket. “Yeah, no worries. Work alright today?”

He huffed. “As good as working at Fredbear’s can be.” He eyed the keys, pointing unsurely at the double doors. “Are you locking up now?”

“I hear you. And yeah, I’m in charge of that, unfortunately,” Michael huffed, rolling his eyes and swinging the keys around.

Lawrence nodded, stepping away from the doors. “Yeah, I was just wondering since it’s your first day and all.”

“All good. Have a goodnight, yeah?” she called out to Lawrence’s retreating form, hearing a faint “you got it!” from him as he left.

Right. Time to find a mostly-unused room she could use as a temporary living space.

Thankfully for her, locking up also included going inside of the building to clean the place up before she actually locked the doors - though, on second thought, Lawrence might have done that already, based on the way he seemed vaguely surprised when she mentioned she’d be the one closing tonight.

Oh well, he appeared far too bleary to really care how long Michael took to lock the doors anyway.

Less work for me this way, she shrugged as she swung the doors open, glancing at the dark and lifeless diner with clear wariness, an unsure frown tugging at her lips.

Hm. Maybe staying at a place with animatronics overnight when most of her horrible experiences with her father’s creations took place after hours wasn’t the best idea.

But where else did she have to go? Nowhere, that’s where. She’d have to suck it up.

Still, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing over her shoulder every now and again as she strode from entrance to entrance, convinced Springbonnie or the Puppet would jump out at her from within the darkness.

Springbonnie and Fredbear don’t have a free-roaming mode at night like the others, she reminded herself with a shaky breath, staring at the where the two animatronics stood unmoving, shut off, and the Puppet likes you now - quit worrying before you overeat yourself sick again.

Still, despite the completely truthful reassurances she whispered to herself, she still found herself reaching for her flashlight with shaky hands and clicking it on, swinging it around the eerily empty party room. 

Obviously, there was nothing in the dark waiting to kill her - why would there be?

Yet her feet remained rooted to the place, breath just barely picking as it fully settled in her mind that even if this was her best - Hell, her only - option, it didn’t mean it was a particularly great idea in terms of her mental health.

It took her twenty minutes just to get out of the damn party room. Hopefully she would gain some confidence and shed some fear after surviving this night and seeing that nothing truly was out to get her.

After finally finding herself in the hallway, she had to admit that she was simultaneously shocked and utterly relieved to find a grand total of zero cameras there - or anywhere in the building. Cameras and security were most definitely factors she should have considered before deciding to break into - was it really breaking and entering if she had the keys to the place? - her place of employment; though, she was just relieved that security at Fredbear’s was just as lackluster as she thought it was.

Tap tap tap tap.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

The sigh that escaped her perhaps could’ve been quieter, but she was just so tired of coming across complications today - she just wanted a place to empty her stomach cavity and sleep!

As expected, the Puppet’s curious eyes stared down at them, its nightgown-like dress giving him an undeniably ghost-like appearance that had Michael struggling to separate this Puppet from the one that had Charlie written all over it.

“Hey, Puppet,” they greeted warily, wondering why they ever thought they’d be able to sneak past the security marionette, “please don’t snitch on me, I don’t have anywhere else to stay.”

The Puppet just stared at him, and for a terrifying couple of seconds, Michael worried that he would rat them out to William and Henry, making them lose their job, possible hide-out, and any chance at preventing possible calamity.

To their utter surprise, the Puppet just nodded with a giggle, before reaching out to wrap his spindly fingers around Michael’s wrist - which did not make their heart leap into their throat, not at all - and dragging them towards the Prize Counter.

Despite their best attempts at wriggling out of the Puppet’s grasp, the lighter Funtime endoskeletons were no match for the clunky, original endoskeletons’ strength, so all they could as they were forced down the hallway was gaze longingly at their abandoned crutches on the floor.

I’ll just crawl back for them later, they affirmed, after the Puppet’s done with me.

Turns out the Puppet was just bored and wanted to play Uno with Michael for a little while. He vaguely remembered Uncle Henry mentioning that the Marionette stayed active for a little while after closing and then periodically turning on and off every hour as a teen - something about making sure no one remained in the diner after hours and checking for intruders.

Poor guy, he thought to himself as he placed down an Uno Reverse, only to immediately have to draw a card, he must’ve been bored out of his mind after closing.

Maybe if Michael continued entertaining him after closing every day, the Puppet would keep Michael’s presence after hours a secret out of gratitude - kind of like keeping the music box winded, just with the threat of getting fired instead of getting jumped by an animatronic.

She was snapped out of her thoughts as the Puppet waved his last card in front of her - he couldn’t speak, so Michael had instructed him to simply draw her attention to his last card instead of saying “Uno” - causing her to sputter and glance down at the throwing deck in frustration. An animatronic should not be this good at Uno - he had won the last ten rounds!

“You’re cheating, I swear,” he muttered as he drew another card, glaring at the yellow 2 that mocked his all-red cards, with not a single 2 in sight, “there is, mathematically, no way you could have won every single round without foul play.”

The Puppet just giggled at him, placing his last card down and clapping in victory as Michael huffed and threw their cards down onto the deck. 

He sighed, glancing at his new watch - ten twenty-eight.

“About time for you to go to bed anyway,” he told the animatronic, who practically deflated and whined in protest, “hey, don’t look at me! If you’re going to blame someone, blame your programmer.”

The Puppet whined again, but did not complain anymore after that, as was requested of him. Though, he did petulantly bap Michael on the head as he descended into his box and closed the lid behind himself. Time for Michael to go rest too.

Nimble fingers collected the Uno cards strewn all about in front of the Puppet’s box, giving them a quick shuffle once they were securely in his hands before slipping back into one of his many pockets. Only once the pocket was zipped back up did she fully relax - the entire building was asleep now, except for her. Even though the Puppet had been nothing but kind and playful towards Michael, old memories of fighting for her life were hard to erase - sue her for being on edge around him.

Alright, scouting time - she needed to find a room that nobody really went into where she wouldn’t be discovered if she lived there for a little while.

Her hand swung around herself in an arc, tapping at the floor in an attempt at blindly finding her crutches, confusion clouding her mind when she couldn’t feel them anywhere. Strange - she never went anywhere without her crutches, because she quite literally could not so much as stand without them.

After another minute of swiveling her head around the dim room, trying to find her trusty crutches did she realise that oh, shit, I dropped them in the hallway when the Puppet dragged me away.

She let out a bone-tired sigh. Of course she did. 

And unless she wanted to deal with hip and knee pain later, she’d have to crawl to go get them - which would still fuck her knees up, but at least it would do so in a less permanent way,

Off to find her crutches she went, crawling through the dim, eerie hallways of the diner.

Don’t get her wrong, she was no stranger to crawling on her hands and knees - through the vents at Circus Baby’s, in the many maintenance jobs she breezed through during her twenty-two year stay in Oklahoma, when she didn’t want to grab her crutches at home, and in other instances - but it didn’t make it any more comfortable, especially on hard floors.

In a poor attempt at distracting herself, she lifted her head to look at the various posters and children’s drawings lining the walls - she found herself cringing at all the official posters of Fredbear and Springbonnie, but she had to admit some of the drawings containing them were pretty cute - especially the ones where she could tell the kid was genuinely an artist, as those reminded her of herself.

If only I wasn’t a pussy when showing my art to others as a teen, she snickered, mostly to herself, maybe then one of my drawings would’ve been up there too.

Her hand suddenly bumped against something, and she suppressed a relieved sigh when she glanced down to see what it was.

My crutches, she thought, pleased as she finally got off her fragile knees and finally stood up, positioning her crutches comfortably against the backs of her forearms. Alright, mobility regained - bedroom time!

The first room that he went to check that seemed incredibly obvious to him was one of the storage closets, as he knew that there was a whole bunch of rarely-used clutter in them that he could hide his own belongings under - and even if there wasn’t, no one would notice some extra crap there.

Problem? The storage rooms at Fredbear’s were far more empty and organised than he remembered them being, and someone would absolutely notice if he started living there, so he crossed that off his mental list of rooms he could stay in.

Next up: the saferoom. 

That one felt like a fairly safe (pun absolutely intended) to hide away in - when people came in, they usually didn’t stay very often, and only performers (so only a handful of people) were allowed in.

However, Henry and William were also performers, meaning they’d also be coming in - and quite frequently too; those two tended to get in and out of costume quite a lot - and the owners of the diner would not miss extra belongings in the saferoom.

So that left them with one place: the vents.

The vents in Fredbear and Fazbear locations alike seemed to be unnecessarily large, which worked fine for them. Besides, nobody ever checked the vents - except for the cleaners, but those only checked them maybe once a month, and got paid so little they could probably be bribed into silence. It would be a bit uncomfortable, and maybe a bit of a tight fit, but otherwise perfect. 

They only had to search for another five minutes before finding a vent comfortably close to the ground - though, practically, a bit dangerous; what if a kid got in there? - and subsequently finding out that actually, the vents were much smaller than those at Freddy’s. They could’ve sworn they remembered them being bigger as a kid… then again, that might just be because they were smaller in stature as a child.

Well, she didn’t have to sleep in the vents - she just needed somewhere to put her stuff, she could very well just sleep out in the hallway! Or better yet, she could sleep on the couch in the breakroom.

Would she prefer to sleep near her belongings for some strange, psychological reason? Yes. Would she and her belongings survive if she didn’t sleep in the same spot as them? Also yes.

So it was decided - she shoved her stolen borrowed belongings into the vent (far away that no one could see them at first glance, but close enough so that she could reach them without squeezing her entire body into the vent) , changed into a large t-shirt and some sweatpants that she had nabbed and replacing them with her ‘uniform’, and grabbed some mouthwash to rinse her mouth out with in the washroom.

(Brushing her teeth had ended up with her having to manually screw her teeth back in place last time, she was not making the same lapse in judgement again.)

The ladies’ restroom wasn’t as clean as she had expected it to be - though, this was an establishment mainly directed towards kids, it made sense - yet simultaneously not as filthy as she feared it would be. It was somehow perfectly in the middle. 

Didn’t mean she was going to spend a second longer than necessary in there - as soon as her mouth felt clean enough, and she had emptied her stomach cavity (being part endoskeleton meant you had to reach into your stomach and empty out whatever you ate that day with your own hands) she was practically sprinting out of that bathroom and towards the staffroom, making it there in record time.

She closed the door behind herself, just about dragging herself to the couch and flapping on it face-first, uncaring of the crash her crutches made as they clattered to the ground - if they weren’t broken, it was fine. Her hand snuck up her neck to click her illusion disc off, silently thanking herself for remembering to grab batteries for that thing - it didn’t need a battery change yet, but it would probably need one soon.

Finally, finally, she could sleep and shut herself off and hopefully forget about everything that had happened these past however many hours.

As her eyes began to flicker shut and her body relax into the old, barely comfortable sofa, she began to wonder if this was all just some incredibly fucked up dream - a test from Old Man Consequences, maybe.

Maybe, just maybe, when she woke up again, she’d finally be greeted by her family - her real family.