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superstar-nan · 10 months ago

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Fight Tooth and Nail

Day 2

Summary: Michael takes you home and you have a long chat about what the heck is going on around here

Words: 5,077

Fun stuff: Descriptions of unusual self harm from a child, mention of child murder, graphic descriptions of undead bodies, canon typical violence, and mild swearing. Michael heavy chapter; he's still sassy and you're annoyed by it.

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───── (\ /) ─────

You barely even registered when you were done vomiting your guts out. Your head was lead, your fingers and toes were tingling strangely. The room was spinning again, and you felt out of yourself. Michael was saying something you didn’t catch, his voice startled and raspy, and looking at his face made you retch again.

The ringing in your ears waned and you could understand Michael, “Oh, gross! ” You wished you could go back to not understanding Michael.

You looked down. The trashcan was made of crossed wire, so your vomit leaked out and onto the floor. Despite how it really was gross, you still couldn’t smell it over the spoiled rot in the room. You clumsily kicked the trashcan away from you (coincidentally, toward Michael, who scooted away from it), and stumbled back against the wall.

It was strange, knowing that you were out of it but not knowing what to do about it. Everything was just a bit out of reach, even the decayed hand snapping in front of your face.

“Hey, you okay?” He didn’t sound worried, only slightly impatient with his typical drone.

You swatted his hand away, “I’m—”

“ Shh! ” That time, you really were talking loud, but you didn’t realize that he was quiet until he shushed you.

“I’m fine.” You looked at the panel. Did they all need to be rebooted? Or none of them?

“Really?” Why was his voice like low, buzzing wasps? Just another thing to add to the list of unsettling things about him. “Because you’re tapping the ‘ reboot all ’ option over and over again.”

Oh. You were doing that. “I’m making it easy for myself.”

Your chin was pulled up. When did Michael get in front of you? He tilted your head from side to side, and you didn’t fight his whims. At this closeness, you couldn’t avoid looking at him, and it gave you a visceral chill traveling from the base of your spine up your back. Though peculiarly, you didn’t want to avoid looking at him. His features held a grip of morbid curiosity over you, like watching something you were forbidden to see—or rather, that was forbidden to exist. The more you looked at him, the less unpleasant he looked. Not that he wasn’t still a little horrifying to look at, but his features held an... odd, haunted allure to it. You had the sudden impulse to hold his face in your hands, to brush your thumbs lightly along the death under his abyssal eyes, and to know the grim reaper that wouldn’t take him. Would he feel it? Can he still feel?

The corpse cursed under his breath, “Your pupils are different sizes. You probably have a concussion.”

Ah. Maybe that was why you were getting poetic and strange impulses. “I’m probably fine.” You retorted, grabbing his wrist. He let you go, but he didn’t look convinced.

“Can you tell me what year it is?” He asked.

“Uh,” Come on, you knew this. “2023? 2022? No wait, 2015.”

“Yeah, give me that,” He swiped the control panel from you long before you even knew it left your hands. Suddenly, a cold, wet gas-station soda cup replaced it. “Don’t fall asleep.”

You took a long sip and almost choked on it, “It tastes like how you smell.”

Michael stiffened. When did he get back to his desk?

You kept drinking anyway. Despite the taste, the cool liquid felt good on your bruised throat. Your head lolled to the side, facing the door. You should have been dead. Multiple times now. That thing —the monster would have killed you twice over if it wasn’t for someone else being there, someone who knew what was going on.

What the hell was going on? Was your best friend wrapped up in this crazy place too? Also, why was there a figure in the doorway?

For a moment that was both an eternity and nothing at all, you thought it was the animatronic and you could have screamed. It wasn’t, though. It was too skinny, but just as tall. You couldn’t focus right at first, but when you did, you noticed it wasn’t skinny or tall at all. It was a child. Small and shrouded in darkness; they couldn’t have been older than eight. Their wild brown locks obscured most of their face, and little fingers touched the edge of the door frame.

You smiled and waved at them.

They waved back, though you couldn’t if they smiled through the shadows. You wanted to ask them their name or if they were lost, but in a vague moment of clarity, you realized that a child shouldn’t be here. Your head started to pound, or was that your heart? The child lifted up a toy phone—the same one the animatronic fooled you with. You opened your mouth to speak, but you couldn’t make a noise. Just like when you were being choked.

The child stabbed themselves in the chest with the phone.

Red—Flashing—Blaring—Red—Flashing—Blaring—

Was it blood? No, the child was gone. Michael was swearing, scrambling across the different cameras. You grabbed the panel and quickly restarted the ventilation. The corpse tried to swipe it back from you, but you pulled away just in time.

“I got it,” You said.

Michael opened his mouth to argue, but his eyes couldn’t tear from the cameras for long. Whatever argument he had for you was lost the moment he returned his focus, frantically swapping through screens. You restarted the audio, and couldn’t stop yourself from looking at the cameras. Not that you could make out the monster animatronic if you tried. You didn’t have the strength to consider why it was so good at hiding from the cameras. Or why it was so good at hunting you.

Your eyes burned when you blinked. You dragged your focus to the clock. 5:47. You couldn’t tell if the night was gone too quickly or not gone quickly enough. You bit your lower lip. Without any idea of what happened to your best friend, you decided the night was gone too quickly. It was unfair.

“What time is your shift over?” Even though your voice was a whisper, it still sounded torn to shreds. You rubbed your throat. It didn’t hurt now, but you knew it would soon. Damned rotted bunny.

Sallow eyes flicked to you and back to the cams just as quickly as you leaned on the back of his chair, “You’re cognizant now?”

You tilted your head from side-to-side, testing the pain in your head. Yep, it was still painful; throbbing, dull and heavy. Though it was difficult to tell how cognizant you were, since the whole night had been a nightmare straight out of a terrible horror movie. You decided to flick the back of Michael’s ear in response. It was spongy to the touch.

Michael half-heartedly swatted at your fingers, but couldn’t keep his hands away from the cameras for long, “Six.”

You swallowed, which was functionally more difficult than usual. You restarted the cameras. “What time does the other security guard get here?”

“Six.”

How inconvenient. You restarted ventilation. “The last security guard left fifteen minutes before you came.”

“If I did that, I would die.”

He was right, but he didn’t have to be so sardonic about it. Not when you were almost killed twice, not when your best friend was still missing, and not when your only clue was in the hands of a... Wait, the kid had the toy phone just a second ago, but you shattered it early. Were you dreaming? Hallucinating? Obviously, you were...

“There was a kid here...” You mentioned, anyway.

“You were dreaming,” Even though you came to the same conclusion, you didn’t like how dismissive the corpse was.

“I didn’t fall asleep,” You said while rebooting the audio.

“Then you were hallucinating,” He said, also preoccupied with swiping and selecting and switching and searching.

You wanted to hit him again. You bit your lip.

Michael’s eyes flicked to you for a fraction of a moment before returning to the cameras. You could only imagine how chaotic you must’ve looked: body shaking with fatigue, eyes red from crying and exhaustion, lips chapped from vomiting, and you didn’t even want to know if the bruise around your neck formed yet. However you looked, apparently it was pitiful enough to make the corpse sigh and say, “The ventilation in this place—something in the air, makes people see things.”

Very briefly, you wondered if the whole night was just some gas-induced nightmare. God, you wished it was.

You rebooted the ventilation. It didn’t need it, but you did it anyway.

As you watched the cams flick through one and the next and the next, you tried to muster the motivation to attempt one last search, to do one last sweep of the place for your best friend’s phone even if it was only with your eyes on the cams. But even if there wasn’t a seven-foot tall monster of a robot hunting you for sport, you didn’t have the life to keep searching. You put your hand in your pocket and felt something smooth and cool. Your best friend’s wrist watch. You wanted to cry, but you didn’t have the life for that either.

Pushing through the exhaustion and misery, you willed yourself to look for the rotted animatronic. You didn’t care how tired you were or how broken you felt, you had to find it. You had to. If only to pour every last emotion caving in your chest into hatred, to point it outward so it at least wasn’t in you. You didn’t follow Michael’s eyes, you wanted to find it on your own.

You found it, but not through perception or wit and that burned you. The rotted, foul thing was standing right where it had been when the night started. As if it was a being with the cognizance to deceive the day shift, and by now you would be a fool to believe it wasn’t.

You were startled by an alarm going off. You quickly checked the panel, but it wasn’t yours. Instead, the alarm was the sound of a grandfather clock, and Michael’s phone was lighting up. 6:00 AM. You could’ve thrown confetti.

A bright light blinded you briefly from outside the office. It was the day shift security guard.

“Hey, Mike. Just finishing... Hi?” He said, once his eyes laid on you.

“Hi,” You replied. Michael stood up, shuffling his things. You didn’t know when, but Michael had slipped on a black face mask, hiding his more grotesque features.

“Uh, who are you?” Oh yeah, you were doing something illegal.

You looped an arm around Michael’s, leaning your body into his cold lifeless one, and he stiffened, “Michael’s my boyfriend. I’m just here to pick him up.” As you leaned into him, you were hit with a waft of spoiled cake that you promptly ignored.

“You’re, uh—to him ?” The guard seemed to be trying not to offend either of you, but it was very obvious he was shocked Michael pulled you. Good to know that even in your disheveled state you were still a few leagues above a zombie.

“Yep. Ready to go—” Your voice caught in your throat when you looked at Michael. His hollowed eyes bore into you with an unknowable emotion. You were reminded of his haunting allure you noted earlier, but fleetingly it was just haunting enough to frighten you, a small flip upturning your stomach. He didn’t take his eyes off of you even as you swallowed and managed to croak out, “ Sweetie? ”

It was deadly silent. Why didn’t the animatronic murder you when it had the chance?

“Yeah, I’m ready.” Thank god. He played along.

You gave the dayshift guard a small wave and a smile, holding Michael’s hand as you left the god-forsaken horror attraction. His flesh was cold to the touch and depressed under the pressure of your fingertips. You ignored the more visceral flip in your stomach at the realization you were touching bone.

The moment the door closed behind you, Michael swiped his hand back, but you were filled with too much relief to be offended. The air was clean, healthy —something you didn’t know you desperately needed until your lungs were filled with vitality. You felt drunk on the morning rays of light and colors that weren’t dull greens and browns. You hadn’t realized you were in hell until earth felt like heaven.

You lowered your eyes after you were able to breathe. Michael was already walking, so you followed him and said, “Thanks.” You meant it for more than pretending to be your boyfriend

“No problem,” He said, and it was strange hearing his (brittish) voice in something other than a whisper. It was raspy and scarred low but still held weight. Like a smooth narrator who had his voice shredded in a cheese grater. “You’re actually going to give me a ride home, though. The bus takes forever.”

You wondered if it was the wait or the staring from other passengers that he wanted to avoid, “Okay, sure. But I also actually need a place to stay.”

He stopped and stared at you. For the first time, you could finally discern his expression clearly. Annoyed disbelief.

You gave him your best innocent smile, which might have ended up a grimace with how exhausted you were, “I thought I’d only stay one night so I didn’t book a hotel.”

He rolled his eyes (something that was fascinating to watch since his eyes were hollowed out voids), turned around and resumed walking. That wasn’t a no. You jogged to match pace with him and when you reached him, he held out his hand. You stared at it, before Michael snapped you out of your stupor, “The keys.”

“You want to drive?”

“You’re sleep deprived, had a concussion, and look like you might fall over.” His hollow eyes scrolled you up and down briefly as he walked.

In a more stable and coherent state, you might have been offended and argued with him. Though, if you had the strength to argue, you had the strength to drive. You put the keys in his hand.

The drive to Michael’s place passed in a blur. Scenery melted across your window as you dully pressed your arm against it, your face resting in the crook of your elbow. Your muscles felt atrophied into the passenger’s seat, your mind was numbed to a dull buzz, you stared out the window and saw nothing, and after all of the impossible things and complicated mysteries that needed explaining, you could only think collapsing into bed. Your eyes were lidded and your breathing was slow. The car’s drone was just ambient enough to calm your fused mind. The relief was enough to make you sigh.

It was only when the car came to a stop that you realized you were half asleep. Michael wordlessly got out of the car, closing the door with enough sound to wake you up completely, and you followed him mindlessly.

You hardly had the energy to take in your surroundings, but even exhaustion wasn’t enough to keep you from wondering how a corpse lived. The answer? Incredibly boring. His flat was small, just enough room for one person, and minimally decorated. No pictures, no aesthetics or ornaments, no personal touch—you might as well have been in a stock photo if it wasn’t slightly messy.

Michael dropped his backpack on the bills scattered across his small dining room table. He took off his mask and hat, his dark brown hair ruffled slightly, and tossed them on the table as well. As he opened the fridge he pointed nonchalantly to the bedroom door.

“Shower’s on the right.”

You guessed that meant you needed a shower.

Michael’s bedroom had slightly more personality to it, emphasis on slightly. A few pieces of clothing were strewn about the floor, the bed was rushedly made, and empty soda cans piled in the trash bin. Though the bed called for you, you forced yourself to the bathroom anyway.

Your reflection was haunted, just as you imagined, but you didn’t look as bad as you thought you would. Eyes bloodshot and dark circles for days, but the worse feature was the ugly yellowing bruise beginning to form around your throat. It would turn blue and purple before too long, and you swore you could make our large, thick fingers in its shape. You swallowed and turned to the shower. You didn’t want to think about that.

Steam filled the bathroom after a minute of letting the hot water run. Michael didn’t have any shampoo or conditioner. After snooping through his bathroom quickly (in case he kept them somewhere weird—and because it’s fun to snoop) you found a few dark brown wigs instead. That made sense; his hair was his most living feature. He did, however, have an endless assortment of different soaps. None of which able to mask his smell, unfortunately.

You wondered if you would end up smelling like him? You picked the soap in your favorite scent and lathered your body in it.

Stepping out of the shower, the motion of peeling back on the clothes you sweated, cried, and vomited over was too much to even think about. Instead, you picked up a hoodie off the floor, one that seemed slightly too big for Michael, and slipped it on. Whatever damage you mended using the soap was undone the moment you put on the hoodie, but you were too tired to care.

You could hear the TV playing from beyond Michael’s room. You couldn’t wait for him to finish whatever he was watching and you didn’t have the energy to discuss where you’d be sleeping, so you collapsed on his bed.

You were out the moment your head hit the pillow.

───── (\ /) ─────

You woke up disoriented, aching, and somehow still drained. Weren’t naps supposed to make you less tired? Your disorientation only grew when you didn’t recognize where you were, your vision teetering back into focus.

The fog of sleep cleared when your hand touched something spongy and cold. It was Michael’s hand. Your memory of last night (morning?) came back to you. You rolled your head over to the nightstand and instantly hissed in pain. Your neck hurt like hell and just turning made it enough to throb with pain. When the pain subsided, you slowly opened your eyes. 6:42 PM. You slept twelve hours. Your head felt like you slept three.

You rolled your head, this time slowly and carefully, back over to Michael. He was sleeping in the bed with you, lying on his back with an arm nestled behind his pillow. For some reason, he was wearing his wig to bed. That couldn’t be comfortable.

You didn’t know when he came to bed with you or if he got a full night’s (day’s?) rest, but you couldn’t wait around for him to wake up. You poked his shoulder. “Michael.”

He grumbled, sleepily. He turned his head away from you, revealing parts of his jawbone visible through abraded skin.

You poked his shoulder again, “Michael.” You insisted.

He swatted at you.

You smacked his shoulder, “Michael, wake up !”

He cursed, grabbing his shoulder, “ What? What—?!” Michael’s voice caught in his throat when he turned to you, his void eyes going wide. You had to be only inches apart as you stared at him, unphased by your closeness. He awkwardly shuffled away from you, scooching inch by inch to put some distance between you too. You blanked. He was the one who decided to sleep in the same bed as you, what did he have to be bashful for? “What is it.”

“What is it?” You sat up, fistfulls of blanket in your hand as you ignored your pounding head. You tried to keep your tone controlled, but you nearly bit your own tongue in your frustration. “ What is it? A seven-foot massive bunny robot tried to kill me twice and—!”

“Rabbit,” Michael interrupted you. “Bonnie is a rabbit, not a bunny.”

“I’m gonna kill you.”

“Can’t this wait until after breakfast?”

You swiped the pillow out from under his head and tried to smother him with it. After just a second of struggling with it, he easily pried it out of your hands.

“Alright, alright,” He sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his neck. “But coffee first. No discussion.”

Your jaw tensed, but you forced yourself to relax with a worried sigh. You stood up, “Okay. How do you take your coffee?”

The corpse collapsed back into bed, swinging the pillow behind his head with closed eyes, “Four sugars, two cream.”

You managed to navigate through Michael’s kitchen—which only had the bare necessities: minimal cutlery, meager pantry, an air fryer but no toaster—well enough to make two cups of coffee, one prepared exactly how you like yours. You organized your thoughts, figuring which questions you should ask first and how. You were having trouble sorting out the mad hell that happened last night, let alone figuring out what happened to your best friend. First you needed to know what was going on, then you could take steps on finding them.

You sat on the bed and handed Michael his mug. He mumbled a thanks and took a few gulps, despite how scalding it was. You once again couldn’t tear your eyes off of the window in his cheeks revealing liquid rushing down his throat.

“Alright,” He said with an exhale, setting his three-quarters empty mug on the bedside table. “Who are you and why did you break into the pizzeria?”

You almost started yelling at him again, but you stopped yourself. He saved your life twice, the least you could do was go first. You lowered your eyes as Michael watched you intently, his expression betraying nothing. You pulled out your phone and played the last message your best friend sent. Michael listened without saying a word.

“Someone I care about worked the night shift before you,” You locked your phone and kept it face down in your lap. You didn’t look Michael in the eyes out of fear you might start crying. “I need to know what happened to them.”

“They’re probably dead.”

Your eyes were storms as you stared daggers at him, tears forming thick droplets, “ You don’t know that. ” The venom in your voice was tempered by its tremble.

Michael was silent as you swabbed at your tears with his hoodie you were wearing. When he spoke next, he was slower, as if treading carefully, “ If you find any answers, you won’t like them. And that’s if you don’t share their fate. Go home. ”

“ I won’t, ” You said through teeth tight enough to grind. “I won’t. Not until I find them, or-or I find what happened to them and-and—”

“And then what?” Michael challenged, “What are you going to do once you find out?”

You waved your hands in the air, frustratedly, “I’ll figure out what I want to do when we get there!”

Michael sighed, long and tired. He grabbed his mug, swirled it around for a bit, and then downed the rest of his drink. He exhaled when he was done, “I’m not going to help you get yourself killed.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” You said, stubbornly.

“Yes, you did,” He put his mug down on the bedside. “You asked me to keep him on camera eight.”

There was that ‘ him ’ again. “Okay, but I don’t need your help.”

He raised a brow, unimpressed, “Yes, you do.”

Now was the time to change the subject, “Why do you keep calling it ‘ him ’?” As if startled by your own question, you realized you hadn’t asked the ones you planned. “In fact, why is it alive? Why are you alive? And why is it trying to kill me? What happened last night?”

Michael set his jaw while you gained your breath, just realizing how worked up those questions made you. “What do you think happened last night?” He asked.

You opened your mouth while your eyes scanned the floor, as if the dingy carpet held the answer. Your brow knotted in confusion, “You call it ‘ him ’ because it’s Bonnie. Its programming makes it seem alive. You’re just really sick. It has faulty wiring. Last night was a horrible horrible accident. That’s what I was telling myself.” But even saying it now, you didn’t believe a word of it.

“Good,” He said. “You’re right.”

You trained your eyes on him, “No, I’m not.”

“For your sake, you are.”

“No.” You insisted, more determined. “I’m not.”

He exhaled sharply, “You’re too stubborn.”

“I was honest with you,” You pleaded, softening your expression in an effort to appeal to his conscience.

He set his jaw again (you could even see the grind of his teeth through his worn skin), and though his expressions were nearly impossible to read, you were starting to recognize his tells. “Don’t come back to the attraction.”

“I can’t—”

“ They’re gone. ” He said, and he didn’t know how cruel he was being. You couldn’t even tell if he felt guilty when new tears fell down your cheeks. “Be satisfied that you didn’t share their fate.”

You wiped your tears, shaking with anger and grief. You hated Michael for saying that, for pointing out something you feared more than anything. “There was no body,” You said, weakly. Even you knew it wasn’t a great defense.

“It was probably stuffed in a costume,” He said, heartlessly. “Or in an animatronic torso. He’s anything if not consistent...” The last part he said more to himself, but you didn’t miss it.

You found your voice, “What does that mean?”

When his eyes met yours, he sighed, “Don’t come back to Fazbear’s Fright, okay?”

You bit your lip and stared holes into the floor. You took a deep breath, closing your eyes and clearing your mind. Then, you nodded, tentatively.

“What do you know about the kids that went missing at the pizzeria? The one Fazbear’s Fright is based on?”

You looked back up at him before furrowing your brow in concentration, “I know a little. A bunch of kids went missing in the 80s. A lot of people thought they were murdered, but their bodies were never found. I know someone was charged, but they never found any evidence.”

“That’s because they couldn’t find the bodies.”

You swallowed.

“They were stuffed into the animatronics.”

You couldn’t help but stare, horrified. Michael was patient with you as you fumbled through your next question, “How do you know that?”

“Because my dad did it.”

You almost reeled back in shock, “Oh my god.” You said, incredulously. Maybe a serial killer dad shouldn’t have shocked you. Afterall, you were sitting and chatting with a zombie. You still couldn’t help the surprise coming from a national cold case solved. “Wow. Uh. God.”

“Yeah,” Michael was as nonchalant as ever.

“Okay,” You said, slowly nodding. “So this old Bonnie animatronic is... is one of these kids? Or their ghost or...?”

“No,” He said. “It’s my dad.”

This time, you did reel back. “ What? ”

“Yeah.”

“... What? ”

“Yeah.”

“No, I need you to explain,” You said.

“I’m not sure,” He scratched the back of his head. “That suit, the Spring Bonnie suit, he used to lure kids. It’s a springlock suit—” He shifted when he saw your confusion, “Part animatronic, part costume, held together by sensitive spring locks that snap shut. It looks like they went off while he was still inside. Can’t say he didn’t have it coming. Too bad he didn’t stay dead.”

“Oh my god,” You wrung your face with your hands. “That’s-That’s unbelievable. I can’t-... I’m in a horror movie.” You turned to him, “ He’s still in it? ”

“Yep.”

You shook your head slowly, “How is he still alive?”

Michael shrugged.

“How are you alive?”

Michael soured, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

You didn’t push him, less for his sake and more for your own. You don’t know if you could take any more ghost stories. “A child killer is- is reanimated in the seven-foot-tall rabbit suit he killed and died in, and now wants to—What? Haunt the haunted pizzeria attraction?”

Michael shrugged, “I guess.”

You threw your hands up in the air exasperatedly, before dropping them loudly on the bed.

“He’s not... himself.”

You sighed, “What does that mean?”

Michael shrugged again, but this time more unsure, “You saw it yourself. What serial killer would stop mid-kill just because they heard a child’s laughter?”

You almost shivered at the memory of it—monstrous creature over you, crowbar in hand, eyes distorting and twitching— but he was right, “There was something strange in its— his eyes. They looked too human, which was eerie enough, but when you... when you played the audio clip, it was like the robot was battling for control.”

Michael hummed at that, “I don’t think it’s just my dad anymore.”

“Your serial killer dad.” You said, more to mention the absurdity of the situation.

Michael wasn’t pleased by it, “Yes. My serial killer dad. Apparently he’s been stuck behind a plastered wall for thirty years, so maybe he just lost his mind. Or maybe the suit has some leftover code that he can’t control. Probably, it’s a bit of both. But...”

You waited in anticipation for him to finish.

He shook his head, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is he won’t stop until he gets what he wants, and he’s not lucid enough to listen to reason.”

“What does he want?”

“To kill.” In Michael’s low, shredded voice, his grim warning sent a shiver up your spine. “So it’s good that you're not coming back, right?”

“But what are you doing here?” You asked, “Are you trying to stop him?”

“You’re not coming back, right? ” He bore holes into you with those unnerving, hallowed eyes of his.

You swallowed, “Right.”

───── (\ /) ─────

Wrong.

You parked your car off to the side where Michael wouldn’t be able to see; in the shadow of Fazbear’s Fright.

At least, now that you knew what you were dealing with (a serial killer in the metal body of a giant rabbit—that still felt absurd) you could be prepared for it. And just like the rabbit, you wouldn’t stop until you got what you wanted. Answers. And if the answers hurt too much...

Revenge.

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