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cloudrumble23 · 5 months ago

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Puppet girl wanted her to get to know the other ghosts in the pizzeria. To help her "adjust." To prevent corruption from taking over her soul.

Well fine. Cassidy could do that, even feeling the rage boiling under her skin as she considered the thought of anything other than plotting her revenge on their killer. Did the puppet even care? Probably not.

Still, Cassidy could handle it. She could make friends with that quiet kid who never left the suit. Puppet girl hadn't even had a chance to have a conversation with him yet since she was too busy babysitting everybody else to prevent them from corrupting.

The golden suit was crammed far back in the corner anyway. Nobody really seemed to acknowledge it, and Cassidy knew that the puppet girl only knew about it because she'd put Cassidy's soul there. Unintentional companionship, Cassidy thought to herself, squatting down in front of the suit to examine the eyes.

Sometimes there was a faint pinprick of light when she did this. Other times, there wasn't hardly anything to spot. Today was a bad day. She squinted intently, trying to make out the spot of light that she knew was there constantly, but there was no sign.

Resigning herself to actually talking to this kid was maybe not a good idea. He was hard enough to communicate with on a good day, and today was definitely not one of those. Still, Cassidy dove straight into the suit, knowing she'd have to go deep to find the quiet kid who shared the suit with her.

"Are you down here?" Cassidy called, looking around the eerily red space. "Hello?"

She heard a faint sob in response and hurried over to it, seeing him curled up in a ball on the weirdly colored grass.

"Okay," Cassidy sighed, pulling him upright. "What's the deal?"

The boy had his face buried in his hands still, something that continually frustrated Cassidy. They'd encountered each other briefly before, and he never tended to speak. She knew there was the lingering mark of death on his face, a flag of red spilling down an otherwise monochrome appearance.

In life, Cassidy might've even said he was cute, but she didn't have time for such things anymore.

Her fingers looped around his wrists as she adjusted herself to sit in front of him. "Look, I'm not typically the pushy type, but you're the person I know best out of anybody here, and I'm supposed to be making friends so that I don't get corrupted or whatever. Which means you gotta deal with me."

He didn't respond, even as she managed to peel his hands away from his face, revealing thick, oily tears that spilled all the way down his face and coated his hands. Corruption, Cassidy thought suddenly, a chill running through her.

"Okay..." Cassidy exhaled slowly as he peered at her through his eyelashes, briefly distracted from his emotional turmoil.

She swiped at the substance, hoping it was easy to remove, but she ended up smearing it across his face more. "Umm, oops?"

He only blinked at her, seemingly unbothered by the mess.

"Look, I gotta be honest here. This is way out of my range of knowing what I'm doing. And uh... puppet girl says corruption is bad." Cassidy gestured at their hands, coated in corrupted something or other. "And this stuff looks like corruption."

"Oh," the boy answered softly. He glanced at his hands and then at hers. "I'm sorry."

"What? No, you don't need to apologize. We just need to-" Cassidy took a deep breath, something she wished was still helpful. "Okay, why were you crying?"

The boy's mouth thinned, trembling slightly.

"Never mind," Cassidy said quickly. "Could you tell me your name?"

"I... I guess..." he replied, shifting uncomfortably. "I'm... Evan..."

"Okay, Evan." Cassidy tried to smile at him. "I'm Cassidy. I possess Golden Freddy."

"That's not his name," Evan said immediately, his mouth turning down in a frown. Something flickered in his eyes, a memory of some kind. "His name is Fredbear."

"Uh huh." Cassidy didn't know what to make of that. She really did need to talk to the others, didn't she? Clearly, there were many things she didn't know. "I'm sorry, I didn't know that. I just kinda gave him a nickname, I guess."

"It's alright." Evan clasped his hands together in his lap. "That's a lot of blood."

"Oh, yeah..." Cassidy looked down at her torso, still unimpressed with the fact that the bloodstains had carried through with her death. "It's a symptom of death, I guess."

"Do I... Do I have one of those?" Evan asked, his mouth creasing in worry. "Is it on my face?" His voice seemed to get higher with every realization.

"I-" Cassidy didn't know how to respond as he crumbled into tears again. "Yes? I mean, we all have those. It's okay, don't cry."

Her reassurance didn't seem to get through to him.

"Hey," Cassidy pulled him into an awkward hug, making him tumble half into her lap. "It's not a big deal. Even puppet girl has some bloody marks on her face too. And her neck."

Evan hiccuped. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's something we all deal with. I mean, it still sucks because that's so invasive to just know how other people died, but-"

"At least we're all in it together?" Evan asked, the tears spilling from his eyes no longer dark and inky.

"Yeah." Cassidy tried to smile at him. "We've still all got some stuff we can keep private though, like what we were like when we were alive, but as far as dying and our killer go, we got stuff in common."

"Our killer?" Evan seemed horrified. "He killed other people? Besides me?"

"Yeah? He killed all of us," Cassidy's mouth twitched. "Did you not assume that?"

"I thought it was an accident. He said he was sorry and that it was an accident," Evan started muttering to himself, hyperventilating.

"Okay, I think you need to calm down a little bit-"

"Calm down? We're dead because of him!" Evan's eyes flashed, and the hysteria in his voice increasing as he spoke. "He lied to me!"

The black inky substance was leaking from his eyes again.

"Evan, we all had that feeling of hopelessness that you're feeling right now, and I know it hurts, but please. You'll be corrupted if you don't calm down!" Cassidy felt pressure rising behind her own eyes as she spoke. The threat seemed much more likely now that she was witnessing it happen.

Evan shuddered in her arms as she tried yet again to wipe away the tears. "I'm so bad at this," she said to herself as she continued to make it worse.

"Join the club," Evan whispered, gripping his elbows with what would've been bruising force in life. "I can't ever seem to get anything right, either."

"It looks like I made a finger painting on your face," Cassidy admitted, wrinkling her nose.

Evan huffed out a small laugh. "Probably an improvement to how I looked before."

"Nah, I think you're cute, but I made it worse." Cassidy scoffed.

Evan froze. "You... what?"

"I made it worse?" Cassidy answered with a questioning tone. "Like, I made you cry a bunch, and then I smeared it all over."

"Oh, right. Yeah, that makes sense." Evan shook himself out of something.

"Did you always used to cry this much?" Cassidy asked, suddenly curious. She'd never heard him talk so much, and he was going to probably never do this again.

"Always," Evan said regretfully. "My family hated it. Mikey and Lizzie said I was the crybaby of the family, and they were right. It was so stupid. Mikey told me to 'man up' all the time and be a better older brother to Lizzie, but I just..."

"Your brother sounds like a jerk," Cassidy said.

"He's worse than a jerk, since he killed all of us," Evan huffed, peering up at Cassidy's face.

"Wait, what?" Cassidy frowned, suddenly confused. "Jeez, how long ago did you die?"

"Like... four years ago?" Evan answered, sitting up.

"But..." Cassidy was even more confused. "You seem too young to have died so recently. Like, your brother is a full-grown adult."

"No he isn't." Evan's face wrinkled up. "He was only fourteen when I died, so he wouldn't be older than eighteen right now."

"That makes no sense." Cassidy replied, shaking her head. "I died two years ago, and he killed me while wearing that stupid yellow bunny suit."

"Rabbit suit?" Evan echoed. "No, that wouldn't be Mikey. Mikey hated Spring Bonnie. Father kept trying to convince him to have more interest in the animatronics, but Mikey only cared about Foxy."

"Then..." Cassidy's throat tightened. "We weren't killed by the same person. We couldn't have been, not if you were killed by your brother."

"You were killed by my father," Evan told her, his face twisted in a different kind of sorrow.

He's trying to tell me without making me cry, Cassidy realized. How could anyone end his life like that? Evan was too sweet for his own good, and clearly some people hadn't appreciated him the way they should have.

"How do you know that?"

"He never let anyone else wear that suit, Cassidy. Not unless something changed after I died."

"Oh..." Cassidy didn't know how to feel about that. "So, your brother killed you, huh?"

"It was an accident." Evan stood up. "I don't..."

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Cassidy said quickly. "I was just curious."

Cassidy stood up and glanced around a bit. "Do you ever wonder why everything down here is red?"

"Sometimes," Evan shrugged. "I don't see anything in any other color anyway."

"You... don't?"

"No."

"Have you ever left the suit?" Cassidy asked. "I only ever see you down here."

"I didn't know I could leave." Evan blinked at her.

"Come with me." Cassidy said suddenly. "You have actually been living under a rock, for real. Come see where we are."

"Oh. Okay..." Evan reluctantly followed Cassidy as she made her way out of the suit and back into the real world.

"So, this is Parts and Service." Cassidy gestured at the grungy room filled with broken animatronics.

"Who is this?" Evan asked softly, having walked away from Fredbear to trace a line down Foxy's snout.

"That's Foxy," Cassidy answered, coming to stand by his side. "Fritz doesn't tend to hang out around the suit much, not during the day anyway."

"Wow," Evan said, his voice wavering. "They actually made them all into animatronics?"

"Yeah, there's Freddy, and Foxy, and Bonnie, and Chica. They're a bit rusted out, and now they're just used for parts, but..." Cassidy shrugged. "I mean, the kids go around and have fun during the day, pretending to still be alive."

"You say that like you don't," Evan turned to her, clear tears running down his face. Does he ever stop crying? Cassidy wondered.

"I don't tend to join in. I'm a bit too aggressive for the things they like to do."

"What do you like to do, then?" Evan asked, his hand still resting gently on Foxy's head.

"I don't know. I just don't feel like playing anymore. I don't feel like pretending to be alive when I know we were all murdered, you know?"

"I guess..." Evan blinked. "What if you could help kids who were still alive?"

"Help how?"

"I don't know. Cheer them up when they're down or something, I guess. Like you did with me."

"I wouldn't say I cheered you up," Cassidy scoffed. "You're still crying."

"These are good tears," Evan replied.

"Well, I don't think that would work, in any case. Nobody can see or hear us."

"They can't?" Evan sounded disappointed. "Well, that's..."

"They can see the suits moving, at least," Cassidy offered. "It's just that you can't really communicate, and I've only ever used the suits to scare the security guards."

Evan stroked the fake fur on Foxy's head, not seeming to really be listening anymore. His shoulders drooped and the tears were darkening again.

"Hey, what's up?" Cassidy asked, finding herself reaching for Evan's face yet again to clear up the corrupted tears.

"It's nothing."

"Clearly that's not true," Cassidy pointed out, holding her inky hand in front of Evan's face. "Tell me what's going on."

"I want to see my family again. I guess I was just hoping that I could tell my brother that I forgive him and miss him and-" Evan cut himself off with another sob. "It's stupid."

"It's not stupid," Cassidy replied stubbornly. "I bet we can find a way."

"What if he doesn't even come here, Cassidy? What if he-"

"Foxy's his favorite, you said, right? Well, if that's true, we need to find a way to get him back in commission so your brother comes back. And then we can try to find a way to get communication between you two again."

"Why are you helping me?" Evan asked. He looked so silly with his face all squished like this, but Cassidy couldn't help it.

"Because I'd like to do something good for once," Cassidy whispered. "And I think it'd be nice to see you smile."

"Oh," Evan answered as Cassidy stretched his cheeks up to force his mouth into a makeshift smile. "Hey, stop it!"

Cassidy laughed. "Make me."

Evan swatted at her hand, a short huff of laughter escaping his mouth. "I can't!"

"Then you're stuck! Oh no, how terrible it is to smile again!" Cassidy grinned in his face, finally relenting in time to see him naturally smiling.

He giggled. "You're ridiculous, Cassidy."

And you're adorable, Cassidy thought fondly, surprised by the sudden protective urge that washed over her. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I dunno. Depends on if you're ticklish or not," Evan replied, the silver of his eyes gleaming menacingly as he dug his fingers into his sides.

Cassidy gasped, surprised that the same jolt of nerves she'd always felt when she was alive was still possible as a ghost. "Hey!" She laughed, even as she crumpled forward, tucked into Evan's shirt as she continued to struggle.

"You want to know the best part about this?" Evan asked, grinning down at her. "I don't even have to stop."

He was right, Cassidy realized. She was laughing so hard she couldn't draw breath, but since they were dead, it didn't make a difference. It's crazy how much joy there still is, even after dying, she thought, still struggling to squirm free.

Maybe the puppet girl had been right after all. Cassidy just needed to make some friends.

Or a friend, she thought looking up at the laughing boy who shared the suit with her.

There was still joy after death.

Especially with Evan around.

Thank you to @pixlokita for this adorable piece of fanart for this, by the way!

#cloud writes #I've returned!#evan afton #fnaf cassidy #golden duo #cc fnaf #and of course #thank you to Pix for this precious piece of art!

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