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dire-kumori · 2 years ago

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Hello! I uh, so

I was going to write a little ficlet inspired by @dire-kumori based on this post, but it got a lot longer than I expected. Since I feel less bad about tagging things poorly on Tumblr, I'm leaving it here. Hope you enjoy!

He couldn't breathe. No matter how much he struggled, no matter how many burning tears ran down his face, Michael wasn't strong enough to fight against the strange, rotting, purple man with his hands clenched around Michael's throat. As the world went black, the only thought in Michael's head was what did I do to deserve this?

Michael sat up in bed gasping for breath, shaking as tears ran down his face. His throat burned, but there was nothing wrong. "Michael!" his mother called from the kitchen. "Come eat some breakfast!"

Michael didn't acknowledge her. Those glowing eyes were still burned into his eyelids, but he couldn't remember the whole dream. It had felt so real, yet he knew it couldn't have been. If it had been, he would've woken up on the side of the road, not here in bed.

"Mike!" His mother called for him again. "Don't you want to say goodbye to your father before he leaves for work?"

Michael rubbed at his neck. It hurt so bad, and yet, there was nothing wrong, was there?

He heard his mother's footsteps outside his room, or at least, he'd thought they were his mother's. "Michael." His father stood in the doorway arms crossed. "Just because you don't have school today doesn't mean you shouldn't get up."

Michael turned his tear-stained face to face his father. The man frowned at his son. "Wipe those tears and get up. You need to watch your little siblings today."

Michael nodded, his hands slowly dropping from his face as his father left the room. It was always like that. Watch Evan, watch Lizzie. Couldn't Michael just have a day to himself for once?

A few hours later, Michael was leading his siblings to Freddy's as usual, when he spotted a strange man standing near the entrance. Michael stopped in his tracks, and his throat throbbed in pain. His hand drifted back to his throat.

"Is something wrong, Mikey? Did you forget something? Oh! I know! Evan forgot his toy again!"

Michael shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's nothing."

A tug on his shirt interrupted him. Michael looked down to see Evan offering him his hand. Michael scoffed and just started walking again. The man seemed to notice this, and Michael registered the frown on his face. Or rather, what should've been his face. Michael wasn't even sure the thing was human, the longer he looked at it. But those glowing eyes were too familiar.

He hurried his younger siblings into the building, breathing easier when he saw the security guard. Elizabeth went off to go play with her friends, and Evan hovered uncertainly at Michael's side. Michael dropped himself into a booth seat, and Evan hurried to sit across from him.

[The living remember more than the dead, Michael Afton. It's simple misfortune that Evan went looking and could only find your corpse. He may think it's a nightmare, but you'll both realize the truth soon enough.]

"What?" Michael snapped. "You don't have to follow me around, you know."

Evan ducked his head in shame. "...Mikey?"

"Spit it out." Michael was in a bad mood, mainly due to that weird thing outside. Was he really the only one who'd noticed it?

"Are you okay?"

"What kind of dumb question is that?" Michael's throat burned with the volume, but he couldn't have people hearing about his nightmare. Not here in the diner. "I'm going to find something to do." He shoved a handful of coins across the table. "Go play an arcade game or something."

Michael walked away, still frustrated. That nightmare shouldn't have lingered for so long. Maybe he'd just been imagining things, and this whole situation was stupid. "Hey, Mike!" One of his friends called out to him.

Michael ignored him and stormed back out into the parking lot. He needed to be alone right now. He needed-

"Forget something?" A deep strained voice said from behind him. "Your two younger siblings, perhaps?"

Michael whirled, and the monster from his nightmares stood in front of him. The same glowing purple eyes, the same rotting skin. It even had a terrible smell. Michael stumbled away, "You-"

"You remember, don't you?" The monster followed after him. "I know what day it is. What week this is. Nobody is going to come help you. Evan's probably hiding from you under a table somewhere, and Elizabeth's too preoccupied with her friends. And none of your friends are going to bother."

"You... you're delusional! I just talked to my brother!"

"Did you? Did you talk to him? Or did you brush him off, just like you always do? I know what you are, Michael Afton. And you don't deserve the chance to live." The fingers closed around Michael's neck again, and he let out a weak wheeze.

It burned just as badly as it had in the nightmare. Don't cry, he kept telling himself. It's just another nightmare. This can't be real, it can't. Those were the thoughts in his head as darkness overtook him once again.

This time when he opened his eyes, he remembered the rasp of the monster's voice, and something about his younger brother. Fear burned through him, and he threw the blankets off his bed as he got up. "Michael?"

"I'll be down in a minute, Mom!" Michael shouted back, his throat burning in protest. It'll go away, Michael told himself. He pulled his shirt over his head and combed his fingers through his hair. Staring at his reflection for a moment, Michael realized how terrible he looked.

He ran to the bathroom and washed his face, hoping that it would help before hurrying to the kitchen. "I'm awake," he said.

The events went the same way as before, and Michael tried again and again to avoid the purple monster that day, but he'd always wake up back in bed with a sore throat. As if nothing ever happened.

"I'm awake," he said after who knew how many tries of this. Maybe the solution was just to avoid Freddy's today. He hadn't tried that yet.

Evan tilted his head curiously, examining his face. Like he was searching out a lie. With a jolt of realization, Michael noticed it was the same look his mother would give after Evan said he was fine after a nightmare. Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Well, duh."

"Be nice to your brother, Elizabeth," their mother scolded.

Their father didn't even look up from his meal to notice Mike's presence. Michael shouldn't have felt a pang at that. Surely his father could have said something. But no, he never commented on the conversation. Evan blinked, looking about as dazed as Michael felt, but neither of them said a word.

"I'm going to need to ask you a favor again, Mike. They called your mother in to work again today, so you'll need to watch these two." Their father finally looked up from his food. "And you will watch them, you understand? No dumping them off at Freddy's to go hang out with your friends."

"I understand," Michael replied. Evan's mouth twitched slightly, but the younger boy didn't say a word.

"Good. I'm heading out then." He got up and walked out of the house without another word.

Michael poked at his food, even as his mother went to collect his father's abandoned plate.

"You're going to listen to him, right? We're not going to just go to Freddy's, are we?" Evan whispered, right in Michael's ear.

"Of course I'm going to listen. What do you take me for?" Michael replied. If they didn't go to Freddy's, he couldn't get replay that nightmare, didn't have to risk it. And whatever the monster wanted, he wouldn't get.

The day was boring, that much was certain. Evan apparently felt too afraid to even go outside the house, and Elizabeth spent the entire day pouting in her room as Michael sat watching his younger brother play with stuffed animals.

His sore throat was gone when he woke up the next morning.

"Got a call from Henry today," their father said at breakfast that day. "Wants me to figure out what's wrong with Foxy. What do you say to a learning experience, Mike?"

Michael blinked. "You want me to..."

"Come with me to Freddy's."

"Will, who's going to watch the kids?"

"Obviously they'll all come along. But I figured Mike would want a chance to see. Foxy is his favorite, or so I've heard." His cool gaze settled on Michael. "What do you say to that?"

"I... sure," Michael felt his face lift into a proper smile for once. "Yeah, that'd be cool."

Their father drove them in to Freddy's that morning, and Michael felt a twinge of relief at the lack of a monster pretending to be a man outside of Freddy's. Perhaps all it had taken was that one day.

Just as they walked in the door, however, something grabbed his arm, and a hand covered his mouth. Michael didn't even have a chance to scream as the monster dragged him down the hallway.

"The cameras have blind spots. Did you know that?" The monster said to Michael.

Michael couldn't answer as the smell of rotting flesh drowned out everything. He dimly recognized rooms and suddenly they were both in the saferoom. The monster knew about the saferoom.

"What did I ever do to you? Why do I deserve this?" Michael blurted out as the purple thing shoved him to the ground.

"Everything. You did everything to deserve this," the monster replied. "This isn't the answer to the puzzle. We've gone through this enough times for that to be certain."

"Then why are you doing this? And what puzzle are you talking about?" Michael was begging for answers at this point, knowing that the monster always answered before killing him.

"I don't know. It used to make me feel better. And even if it doesn't solve the problem," the monster chuckled. "Well, it stalls it. If the day always resets, there is no need for a real solution."

Michael saw the hammer in the monster's hand. "What are you?" Michael asked, hoping for something to make sense.

The monster smiled, stitches pulling free from its mouth. "I'm not a what, but a who. I'm your future." With that, the monster swung the hammer, over and over until Michael felt nothing at all.

[Evan's shoes clattered on the linoleum floor as he dragged his father down the hallway. He'd seen the monster again, and it had blood on its shirt. Maybe it had failed this time, Evan hoped, but the monster vanished soon after that. "Mikey?" Evan called as he forced his father to help him search.

He didn't understand the importance yet. Maybe he never would. Nobody else seemed to remember Michael's death, yet Evan would wake up with the memory of Michael's body burned into his head. The vacant stares Michael would give from the ground in the parking lot.

He froze when he got to the saferoom. "Insolent child," his father muttered. "What would Michael possibly need from the-" He stopped talking. "Michael?"

Michael's mangled corpse was lying on the floor, blood slowly pooling out around him. A hammer was on the ground next to him. Michael's hands were curled around his head, but it hadn't been enough to save him. Evan knew that for certain as he numbly dropped to the floor. Freddy's was the problem. He believed it as fact now.]

Everything hurt when Michael woke up again. He couldn't even move. "Michael?" his mother called from the kitchen. Michael couldn't be bothered to even try to answer this time.

He heard heavy footsteps outside his door, and when it opened, he said, "I don't feel very well, Father-"

But it wasn't his father at the door. It was his baby brother. Evan was crying in his silent way, the tears just streaming down his face. "Mikey..." his voice was so tiny. "I had a nightmare, Mikey."

"I might be contagious," Michael replied.

"I don't care," Evan whispered, creeping across the floor. He didn't sit on the bed though. He sat down on the floor, his chin resting on Michael's blankets. Not close enough to make Michael's body scream more than it already was. "You probably don't want to hear about my nightmare either." He sniffled. "But you can't get away from it this time."

This time? In some of the previous loops, Michael vaguely remembered Evan's strange clinginess, but that was normal for him. The nightmares were normal too. Michael was probably just paranoid. Evan was probably talking about one of the other times he'd been in the loop. (If that were true, why would Evan's behavior change from day to day?)

"Fine. Tell me about it then. But don't expect me to care."

Evan rubbed his face. "I told Daddy that you couldn't babysit today. I knew you wouldn't be feeling well. Because the monster hurt you yesterday."

Michael was more alert now, trying to sit up. "Wha-"

"Don't hurt yourself, Mikey." Evan's eyes weren't on his face. "He did it with a hammer. Maybe you remember, or maybe it all really is just a nightmare. But I've seen him. I see him Mikey. And I know it's him doing all this."

"Evan..." Michael felt tears building up behind his eyes. Don't cry, he told himself. "It's just a nightmare," he lied.

"It feels so real," Evan whispered. "I could smell the blood, could feel the fabric of Daddy's shirt when we went to find you. But you were already dead. The monster got to you so fast." His voice broke. "We were barely in the door, and you were gone."

His eyes fixed on Michael's face finally. "Please, please, please believe me. It's why everything hurts today. It's why you're not feeling well. Before he killed you in the saferoom, he'd been killing you outside. Strangling you when no one was looking. Mikey, we gotta stop him."

Michael felt tears leak from his eyes. "Evan..."

"It's not just a nightmare. I know it isn't. You remember too, don't you?"

"I do," Michael whispered back. "But how do we stop him, Evan? He's basically an adult, and neither of us are strong enough to overcome an adult."

"We'll figure something out. I don't want you to die, Mikey."

Michael nodded silently, and he curled up in his bed. "Well, I'm safe for at least one day, so long as we don't go to Freddy's."

"We won't," Evan replied. "Daddy put me in charge since you're sick."

"You're too young to be in charge. And you keep getting accidentally locked in the storage closet."

"You did that!" Evan responded in protest. "I wouldn't get stuck if you didn't-"

"No, you wouldn't get stuck if you didn't stick your nose where it didn't belong." Michael retorted.

Evan opened his mouth to argue, but Elizabeth popped her head into the room. "You don't sound sick."

"You don't need to sound sick to be sick, Elizabeth," Michael replied flatly. "It hurts to move."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't spend all day every day doing stupid things that could get you killed."

"Where'd you pull that speech?" Michael snarked. "I know you're not smart enough to come up with it on your own."

"Daddy says it often enough that I don't need to steal it. You just don't listen." Elizabeth seemed unfazed. "You just want an excuse not to do anything."

"That's not it!" Evan interjected. "He's really not feeling well, Lizzie."

"Wow, got him on your side, huh?" Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. "Well, at least I know the truth."

They got through it pretty easily. The first day, at least. Michael got cold and clammy the second day, since he knew the monster was actively waiting for him now.

"Does he ever... talk?" Evan asked after Michael refused to go to Freddy's with his father, and the man left for work.

"What are you two even talking about? Since when did Michael stop hating you?"

"Elizabeth," their mother replied sternly. "Be nice."

"Ugh!" Elizabeth threw her arm across the table, knocking a full glass of orange juice onto Evan. He yelped as the sticky liquid soaked into his plushie's fur.

"Not Fredbear!" Evan wailed, his question forgotten in the moment.

Michael plugged his ears to tune out his little brother. He did not need this. Not while he was already suffering through everything else. He noticed his mother wiping down the table with a rag, a frustrated expression on her face, and he dumbly decided to go outside.

"Mikey!" Evan called, sounding panicked. "Wait!"

Evan followed him out, and Michael immediately stopped. "This is stupid. I'm placing my trust in a nine-year-old."

"I'm smart for my age," Evan replied defensively. "I'm also the only one who knows what's going on."

"Right, I'll take you really seriously with that orange juice all over your shirt."

Evan looked down, and Michael started walking again. This whole thing was so stupid. He could just walk out of town, never to be seen again, and that would be his consolation. He could get out of all of this pretty easily since the monster had no idea of knowing where he'd turn up again. All he had to do was disappear.

Unfortunately, that idea was foiled by the small child following behind him. "Evan, you can't come with me."

"Where are you even going?" Evan persisted. "You can't just sacrifice yourself in hopes that it'll solve anything."

"I'm going to disappear. If the monster can't find me, he can't kill me."

"Mikey..." Evan's voice sounded whiney.

"You can't come, Evan. I mean it. If you're really stuck watching me die over and over again, then this should be a welcome relief. If I can stop the cycle, then I should."

"But-"

"Go home."

Evan stopped on the sidewalk, watching his brother continue walking. "You didn't even finish breakfast," he whispered.

Michael woke up in bed again, and he nearly cursed. That last one was a cheap shot. He'd barely made it out of town and the monster had managed to steal his father's car to hit him with it. He still felt sore, but this morning, he threw the covers off and got up for the day. He felt in the mood to yell at the monster today.

Evan's eyes followed him through the kitchen, and when Michael brought them to Freddy's, he couldn't be swayed. "I'm just going to talk to him, Evan. You don't need to be around."

"He waits until there's no one around, Mikey. It's why you keep dying."

Michael ignored him, pushing the door open. Surprisingly, the monster wasn't standing outside like he had been. Michael convinced Elizabeth to drag Evan along while she went to play, and he went to talk to his friends. He waits until there's no one around.

Evan managed to escape Elizabeth after a short while, and he went on his search. He found Michael with his friends, all of them chatting and laughing. "Mike." Evan tried to interrupt.

His brother scowled. "I'm fine. Go away."

"No." Evan stood his ground, looking braver than he felt.

"How about we teach him his place, Mike?" One of the kids said. Evan couldn't care to remember his name.

One of Michael's other friends grabbed Evan around the waist and threw him over his shoulder. "Come along, little buddy. It's time you learned an important lesson."

"Mike," Evan called out, more angry than afraid. "Michael."

Mike ignored him, even as the call got more desperate. "Mikey. You gotta listen-"

The purple monster was lurking, but for once his gaze wasn't on Michael. The monster's lip curled as he made eye contact with Evan. Don't hurt him, Evan thought at the monster. But the monster was already on the move.

"How do these things work again?" Michael's friend asked.

"They're suits," Michael explained unhelpfully. "This is a springlock suit, and if you move too much while in it, the springlocks activate."

"So it's a little trap, huh?" Michael's friends crowded around. Evan was the only one to notice the absence of Michael's third friend. The Chica mask had remained, but Evan already knew the poor kid's fate. He understood the implications now. The monster was trying to protect him.

"So, if we put the little guy in there, he won't be able to follow us around for a while?"

Michael frowned. "There's a certain trainging that you have to go through-"

"Yeah, yeah. But it's basically a mascot costume, right?"

Already, Michael's friend in the Freddy mask was dragging Evan toward Spring Bonnie.

"Wait." Michael's voice was more hesitant now. "You shouldn't-"

"Aww, boo hoo. Afraid, Mike? I thought you were supposed to be tougher than this."

Evan met Michael's gaze. They both knew that Michael would come back if he died in the loop, but that was after Evan saw his body. Every time Michael died, the loop wouldn't reset until Evan laid eyes on the body.

"Guys, seriously." Michael's eyebrows were bunched now. "Let him go. The suits can be dangerous."

"Who are you to lecture us on danger, Mikey Boy?" the other kid laughed. "Go on then, demonstrate why exactly we shouldn't put the baby in the suit."

Michael's shoulders straightened. He knew exactly how to set off the springlocks. "Mikey-" Evan tried. He didn't want to see Michael die like that.

"Shut up," Michael responded softly.

The two other boys looked nervous. "You don't actually have to, Mike. It's just a joke."

"Yeah."

But Evan was already inside the suit. The only part he didn't have on was the head, and that was only a partial victory.

"No." Michael's voice sounded guttural, dangerous. "If that's what it takes for you to leave him alone, then so be it." He was fluid as he put on the Fredbear suit, not hesitating during a single step. "This," Michael said, lifting his chin, "is a springlock failure."

It was like he knew exactly how to set them off. All of the springlocks went off simultaneously, and Evan dimmly registered his own screaming as the other two boys ran from the room. Michael's jaw was taunt, but his face betrayed his anguish.

Evan could almost cry when the monster arrived, set off by the screaming. "What have you done?" The monster snarled.

"Save him!" Evan's eyes were dangerously wet. "PLEASE."

The monster was swift, disassembling the springlock suit faster than Evan had seen a single person ever do it. Then the monster turned to the Spring Bonnie suit that Evan was trapped in.

A single tear dripped from Evan's eye, and the springlocks were in motion.

Miraculously, the monster decided against taking the suit apart, instead yanking Evan free from it. The suit scratched him as he pulled free, but Evan was safe. Evan ignored his bleeding scratches and rushed over to his own brother, unsure of how to stop the bleeding.

The monster rose from the ground. "I assume this was his idea?" the monster growled.

Evan shook his head desperately. "Mikey told them not to. They didn't listen to him."

Michael choked out a laugh. "Thought you knew what happened all the time. Like you were psychic or something. Always able to find me. Guess I was wrong."

The monster's mouth tightened, pulling free stitches. "That's not funny."

"You were the one that said..." Michael coughed. "You said you knew what was supposed to happen this week."

"It wasn't this," the monster almost seemed remorseful. "Evan, go find your dad. I have something to take care of."

"You're going to kill him again?" Evan asked, wiping his face. "After all that? If it wasn't for Mikey, I'd be the one-"

"I know that," the monster growled. "I mean, there was something else I came here for. Not specifically to kill him." The monster gestured for Evan to follow.

"But-"

With a scowl, or what should've been one, the monster pulled off his own shirt, revealing even more torn purple skin and stitches. Evan's vision swam as the monster offered it to Evan. "I'll take care of everything. Just..." he didn't seem happy about this next part. "How loud can you scream, Evan?"

Evan's voice was sore by the time Michael was in the hospital. He sat on his mother's lap, hunched uncomfortably so he could reach his brother's hand.

A medically induced coma. That's what his father had said, fury evident in his expression. "When I get my hands on those boys-"

"Don't hurt them," Evan whispered. "They've already earned their punishment." He could guess now at what the monster's objectives had been. It wasn't exactly clear, but the way the monster had reacted instantly to all of Evan's demands suggested that the monster thought he was doing Evan a favor in killing Michael all those other times.

Maybe Michael would've always put him in that situation, Evan reflected. But the time in the loop made Michael more reluctant to follow through.

Evan just hoped the monster would leave them alone now. That the monster's objective had just been to protect him from this situation. It could've easily been Evan in that hospital bed, he knew. But when Michael woke up, everything would be okay.

It just had to.

#this was absolutely incredible!#I feel like my heart was ripped out #chewed to a pulp #spat out #and set on fire #in other words I loved it!#Evan remembering! that was an amazing idea!#and young Mike springlocking himself!!!#dankeschoen so much for writing this!!!#FNAF #fanfic #fic rec #Michael Afton #Evan Afton #Paradoxical Reaper AU

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