#maaannn. this was kind of tricky to write bc it just kept getting longer 😭 there was an entire nextday part 2 i had to cut out

[fnaflucasverse]

It's You, It's Me

YEAAAAAH faithfic finally!! set in fnaf2 pre-jeremy. a little exploration of faith's psyche and her sense of self. and lucas is there too

CW: depersonalization, child death, blood (via nosebleed). if i missed anything that needs a warning let me know!

It was 6:15AM, and Mikey should’ve been home by now, but Faith still kept staring at the face in the bathroom mirror, waiting for it to become her own. It didn’t change anything. Blue eyes still stared back out at her from the shadow cast by the buzzing, stark-white lightbulb. She could hear the tap running, feel cool water soothe battered knuckles, see hot breath fog up the glass as it loomed closer and closer. It all belonged to Mike, she told herself, shutting off the tap. She'd only borrowed his body to make sure he got through this night.

This body is not mine. This face is not mine.

And yet, as iciness soaked into Mike’s bones, Faith felt all its pain. Knuckles stinging with dozens of old fractures knitting together. A side aching with the strain of a pulled muscle. A heart pounded thickly in her chest, as a trembling, calloused hand reached up to the face reflected in the mirror, the face that wasn’t hers, touching cheeks roughened with stubble, a forehead pockmarked with old scars, a straight, wide nose nearly broken far too many times, full lips gone dry with the stress of the night.

This body is not mine. This face is not mine.

Faith found two rows of teeth, ran a finger across the edges of the incisors to the points of the canines to the grooves in the premolars, all the way to the back of the mouth where the molars nestled against invading wisdom teeth. Dragging the finger back along the smooth flesh of the gums, the ridged roof of the mouth, the soft and spongy tongue—Faith felt it all, all of it, every single piece.

This body is not mine. It has never been mine.

Faith gently brushed the dark circles under her eye, signs of the toll these double-shifts had taken on her, then pulled down her lower eyelid. The slip of underbelly was a stark pink against pale white; she peeled back her upper lid, and red spiderweb veins revealed themselves.

This face is not mine.

Should it be mine?

Baring its teeth, the face smiled at her. No, it felt hollow—it was hollow, as though if Faith were to reach into the mirror and tug at its skin, it would slough away, like the false fur of the animatronics she had just escaped, and reveal the cold skeleton underneath, pulsing with rotting meat. The ghost inside the machine.

The man on the phone had said—to Mike, really, but Faith heard it all the same—that when you were stuffed inside The Suit, crushed against the endoskeleton within, all that escaped was your oozing blood and your eyes and teeth popping out of the faceplate. Juice and seeds and rind of a human lemonade. What was it like, in those last moments? The man on the phone still called sometimes, phantom whispers on a disconnected line, but Faith had never before asked him how it felt to die. Maybe he didn't remember how it felt. Maybe he didn't remember what happened to him.

Faith didn't remember much about her own death, either. She remembered the Before: the yellow rabbit had served them a birthday cake, chocolate, slathered in vanilla buttercream. It slouched listlessly to the side; a pincushion of candles dripping wax onto the frosting. The others had scarfed down their slices and gone for seconds, but Faith sat picking and nibbling and picking at her cut. The taste dug itself into her mouth, gag-inducing sweetness trying to strangle the bitter flavor lying underneath.

She remembered the After: she was floating in front of Pirate's Cove, staring down at Mikey's limp body, life flowing and flowing out of him like a pirate ship ripped through by a cannonball, sinking beneath the waves. Somehow she knew she was already dead, and she'd have to watch her best friend die. It wasn't right, she wanted to scream. It wasn't fair!

She had to stop this.

She had to help him.

She had to save him.

In the end, the solution was so simple.

Two souls. One body. One face that stared at Faith from the mirror, with lifeless blue eyes.

Her body. Her face. Her eyes.

Her nose, leaking blood.

Wait, that wasn't supposed to happen.

Faith touched her lip where the blood dripped down. Her finger came away red.

Her blood.

Mikey's blood.

Oh, no.

Oh no, oh no, oh no—

Reeling in shock, Faith slammed against the flimsy bathroom stall door behind her which crashed deafeningly into the dividing wall. Blood splattered onto Mike's uniform, onto the floor in a dark trail. Wheezing, she clapped a hand to Mike's gushing nose; the other grabbed clumsily for toilet paper.

Were you supposed to look up or down? Faith tilted Mike's head back, shoving wads of paper up both nostrils, but it did very little to stop the blood dribbling down his chin, turning his shirt crimson. Knees buckling, Faith slumped onto the toilet seat, panting quick, uneven breaths. She could taste iron crawling down the back of Mike's throat.

She fought not to gag—

Footsteps pounded in the hallway outside. There was a worried shout—"Mike! You're still here?"—and then a tall man in a dark blue uniform burst into the bathroom. Lucas's head snapped left and right, scanning the area—

When he met Faith's frantic eyes, his own went wide.

"Faith! Are you okay?" Lucas sprung into action, hoisting to her feet and frog-marching her over to the sink. "Take those out," he ordered, picking the blood-soaked paper out of her nose and flinging them in the corner trash can. "Head down, over the sink—that's it."

Gripping the cold porcelain like a petulant toddler, Faith kept her gaze down, away from the mirror and firmly locked on the drain. Lucas whipped out a handkerchief, dampened it under the tap, and gently sponged Mike's face clean. He folded the cloth over and pressed it to Mike's nose: "Blow—hey! Gently! Gently. Good. Now, breathe slowly. Through your mouth. Do you feel light-headed?” Lucas fussed, patting Faith on the back; she shook her head. "Alright.”

They stood there, side by side, waiting for it to end. Lucas left the tap open to a trickle; clear water mixed with the stream from Mike’s nose, blooming in the basin like watercolor. Faith remembered—or was it Mike?—getting a set for her birthday, pans of cheap paint and a fraying brush and sheets of paper that pilled up with any small drop of water. Faith never had the chance to get good at it, but she’d never stopped trying.

The first thing she’d attempted was a self-portrait. All artists painted themselves, or so she was told—who had told her that? Faith had spent the afternoon squinting back and forth between the hall mirror and her canvas.

Whose face had she seen?

Plip, plop. Scarlet lines spiraled out from scarlet droplets. Faith watched them fade to dull pink.

And then it was over.

“There we go, all done,” Lucas announced, gently shaking her. “Everything’s alright now.”

But it wasn't alright! She didn't want this to happen in the first place! She didn't want to hurt Mikey! Faith just wanted—she was just—the face in the mirror—

As if sensing her anxiousness, Lucas's hand shifted to massaging in soothing circles. "Let’s just get you cleaned up. You two break anything?" he asked gently.

Faith didn't mean to possess Mike this long. She didn't even know it was possible. But her old friends had been so aggressive that night—and then it was 4AM, and the flashlight had run out of battery, and the next moment Foxy was sprinting down the hallway, teeth bared and gleaming—and Mikey needed her help—

He'd always needed her help.

Lucas would understand, right? She was just doing what she had to. Trembling, Faith raised both hands to show Mike's bruised knuckles.

Except now his hands were also sticky with blood, and his shirt was stained, and Mike was going to be so upset with himself, and Faith had messed it all up by staying here instead of sending him home like she was supposed to and—

Faith couldn't help it. She burst into tears.

"Woah, woah—" Alarmed, Lucas's hands flew away from her. "Faith… What's…?"

She wanted to hide her face—Mike's face in Mike's hands, Mike's voice choked up in gasps, Mike's shoulders wracked by sharp sobs—but she couldn't, not with his blood on her hands. Faith heaved breath after breath, lungs knotted, heart roaring in her ears.

"What—what color—are my eyes?" she pleaded. He had to know. He had to tell her.

Lucas pursed his lips. "What color do you think they are?"

"I don't—I don't know—" Faith gulped down air, suffocating. "Blue? I can see them right now; they're blue. But that's not right, is it? That's not even my face." She laughed suddenly, though for the life of her, she didn't know what was so funny. "What color were my eyes, Luke? My eyes, my real eyes—I don't remember. I don't—I don't remember what they looked like—I don't remember what my face looked like, and—and—"

Lucas hesitated, just for a heartbeat, and then his arms were wrapped around her, pulling her against his chest, cradling her head against his shoulder. He held her, saying nothing as she broke down and drenched his shirt in tears. He held her as she cried and cried until she didn't even remember what she was even crying for, only that she felt like she was going to fall apart, and Lucas was there and warm and safe.

And finally, when her sobs had dissolved into sniffles, Lucas asked, "You know how I can always tell it's you and not Mike?"

Faith shook her head, bone-tired.

"Let's see…" Lucas drummed his fingers. "You sit up straight, no matter what. You stand with your feet together like a V. And you don't clench your jaw like Mike does. When you smile, you always… crinkle your nose first, like you're not supposed to find something funny. You actually move your eyebrows a lot, did you know that? Especially when you're thinking."

He pulled away, gripping her by the arms and staring her dead in the eye. "That's you, Faith. That's what will always shine through, no matter what you look like," he affirmed. "And nothing will take that away from you. Got that?"

Faith looked down. Feet together, in a V.

She turned to look at herself, at Mike, at the both of them in the mirror. Took in the exhaustion on their face, their wary frown, their ruined uniform. But their back was drawn up straight and proud, undefeated despite everything.

Huh.

Faith clenched and unclenched their jaw. Moved their eyebrows up and down. Smiled—a little cautious, a little awkward, but a smile all the same.

Slowly, Faith nodded.

"And, by the way…," Lucas leaned in to whisper with a smile of his own. "Your eyes are brown."