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Michael’s decayed hand clenched around is Chica Chug, the can crinkling under his tense grip. The air vents buzzed as he flicked through the cameras. His chair rolled over an empty and old bag of Meat Bites, making him jump at the noise. His entire body was sore, and moving only amplified it.
“God.” He kicked it away, exhausted and agitated. This was his third time working at a different Freddy Fazbear’s establishment, but this time, his father was missing. Micheal hoped bitterly that he was dead already. That would make his job far easier.
Just as the night guard relaxed his body, the arm holding his almost empty drink spasmed and the can dropped to the ground, which blended into the other various trash scattered around. Mike suppressed a groan, knowing he had to stay alert.
Surprisingly, nothing happened all night. Michael was almost tempted to wander the decrepit building, but he knew he had come too far to risk it.
For the last leg of the night, a pounding headache started and didn’t show any signs of fading, which was a wonderful reminder of his time at Circus Baby’s. The headache soon turned into full body throbbing, which ended up being Michael limping out of the attraction building, the man taking over for him giving him a sort of horrified look.
The only reason he had been successfully hired was because he had been a night guard at Freddy’s, and surviving, sane ones were hard to come by. Not that Michael was necessarily any of those things, but he could get by..
The night ended without a hitch, much to Mike’s surprise. He was under the impression that this was where the remaining souls were. As overjoyed as he was to leave that building at six AM alive, he was starting to doubt he would be able to complete his job in this location.
“Mike! Buddy, how was the night?” The young man from the pre-recorded phone calls was grinning widely, stopping Michael from leaving. His eyes lingered on Mike’s face mask and hat pulled over his eyes.
The purple-tinted Afton shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, giving the kid a tight smile. “It was fine.”
“Good to hear, man!” Phone Dude nodded before slipping inside. Mike just stared at the carefree individual, before making his way back home. Jeremey was already at work, and wouldn’t be home until he had to leave again.
...
William Afton was a normal father up until Mike turned fived. Well, as normal as the Aftons could be.
William would read stories to his young children and have them all eat dinner together. It was when Michael’s mom left that things started to turn sour. His father would forget to feed the kids at first. When Mike would tug at his father’s sleeve and complain of being hungry, the older man’s bloodshot eyes would look down at his kid, tell him to make his own food and go back to working.
It didn’t end at that, of course. He started becoming more irritable and negligent. Michael had to start taking care of the babies, which was not realistic or easy for a five year old. With the severe lack of positive adult influence in his life (other than Mr Henry who was never around enough), all of the children grew up but off.
Mike adopted his father’s irritability and inability to cope with anything and the rest… Well, they were too young to really know what was going on, so they cried but Mike would never know how they’d turn out to be. Not that he had the right to feel bad about it when it was his fault.
“Hey man! Ok, I have some awesome news for you!”
The purple tinted man sat at attention, knowing that as ridiculous as the men recording these were, they always had valuable information that literally saved his life. How he wasn’t dead? He tried not to dwell on that as much. It hurt his heart.
“We found one. A REAL one.”
Mike’s eyes widened, scrambling to flick through the cameras. A real one? A real animatronic? Who? And why just one? It had taken him so long just to find a place that dared to put Freddy Fazbear’s logo on it, so where had the other animatronics gone?
The brunet fought the urge to snarl as the familiar voice of the man from the training tapes played. Just because the skin suit he still inhabited stopped aging didn’t mean he hadn’t become more grumpy with age. It didn’t help that the voice over the phone elicited the worst of his memories as a former Fazbear’s employee.
Once he reached camera 10, he noticed it. In the bottom right hand of the monitor was…
“Spring Bonnie?”
Mike leaned in closer, eyebrows furrowed. That was the last thing he’d expected to see. He assumed all of the old suits had been thrown out due to various bloodied stains. It seemed that one was one of the few suits that hadn’t been tossed, but it was still absolutely trashed and gorey.
“Why on earth would they allow that?” He blurted out before remembering he had to be quiet. He adjusted his face mask and hat nervously, reverting back to his teenage self. Michael’s hands shook as he pressed the audio button. The animatronic seemed to cock it’s head up at the security camera.
With the trembling only increasing in severity, Mike switched the cameras, flicking through the rooms and vents, desperately wishing for a door. The hollow Freddy shell watched over him, somehow feeling like a bad omen.
His eyes drifted and caught the empty face plates in a cardboard box. Hanging over the edge was Foxy’s deflated arm, the hook corroded.
Why did he do this to himself. He didn’t need to fix his father’s mistake. He never owed it to anyone, but somehow, the obligation didn’t leave. Something always had drawn him to these horrible places, and he could blame his father or he could blame himself and it wouldn’t change anything.
The banging of metal made his head shoot up and turn to the cameras, where the face of a clown toy took up the whole monitor. He stared at it for a moment before it jumped at him. Despite his effort to be quiet, he screamed. The vents chose that moment to go out, leaving Mike gasping for air as he tried to recover his sanity.
Once the ventilation situation was taken care of, he flipped back to the camera and watched in horror and the Spring Bonnie clambered through the vent and into camera 12.
Mike shuddered at the animatronic’s blocky movements and what seemed to be flesh hanging out of the face. The security guard was familiar with that. Re-learning how to walk was a bitch, but covering as much rotted skin as he could was difficult and tiring.
After his brief moment of empathy for the rabbit, he played an audio cue to keep the robot far away from him and wiped his sweaty palms on his slacks.
The brunet zombie kept the cycle of playing audio cues to keep the Spring Bonnie at bay until his phone started to buzz. It was two AM and Jeremy was calling. Mike fumbled for his flip phone and answered it.
“Jer?” His voice was quiet, but loud enough for his boyfriend to not be concerned. After being reunited with the redhead, he kept any mention of the Fazbear establishments to a minimum. Any mention of it sent Jeremy into a panic.
“Mikey, how’s work?”
Michael blinked, confused. Was something wrong? Jeremy’s calls were always a gamble. Sometimes Jeremy needed to be taken to the hospital for touching an open flame and other times he would forget entirely why he called.
“It’s going fine. Why are you calling? Is something wrong?”
There was some shuffling on the other side of the call. “Well, I just… I missed you. Sorry, I shouldn’t have called while you were working, but we never have time to talk an-”
The Afton son played an audio cue as his boyfriend talked, which must have been loud enough for Jeremy to hear because he rapidly became dead silent.
Mike furrowed his brows. “Jay?”
“Was that Balloon Boy?” He asked, the endearing, sheepish tone switching to one of piercing concern.
“What, I don’t know.” He said, exasperated.
Jeremey breathed in sharply. “Oh my God, where are you? Mike, are you at… no, Mike? You aren't, are you? Michael!”
Michael winced. “Can we talk about it when I get home?”
Without another word, the redhead clicked off the call and Mike filled with guilt. It was a difficult subject, but he didn’t know how to go about it. He didn’t know how to explain himself. Michael finally pocketed his phone and looked back up, only to find himself shouting and scrambling backwards.
Spring Bonnie was leaning against the wall, grinning as widely and an animatronic of it’s age could. A terribly wheezy sounding breathing rang out from it’s metal confines.
“Oh, Oh Jesus!” He cried, pressing his body against the wall. Quickly, he grabbed the crowbar on the ground and gripped it close to him, defensively.
The breathing got louder and the animatronic shambled forward. Michael’s legs almost gave out. The audio control panel was just out of his reach.
“M-M-Michael.” It rasped out.
The literal purple man’s eyes widened and body trembled.
“Who- who are you?” He asked, all courage having left him.
The Spring Bonnie animatronic came to a halt in front of the young man. “Your fa-fa-fa-fa-father.” A mechanical tone finished off the sentence, the sound crackling in the dim office.
Mike’s fingers twitched around the crowbar. The English lilt in his voice was distinct, but Michael didn’t want to believe him. It couldn’t be him.
The blood-stained suit of the animatronic shuddered and the bunny stopped motion, the body tensing and the head drooping.
“M-m-my son.” It croaked. “Michael.”
“Father?” Mike panted, his instincts screaming at him to bash the fucker in with his makeshift weapon.
“How a-are you?”
The robot still held no life, with William Afton’s voice being the only thing suggesting it was ever working.
“I…”
Terrible! His life was positively awful from his father’s doing. Did he know that Michael has nearly died? Mike was practically a zombie!
Of course, Mike had done this job often enough to show that sentient animatronics didn’t like to be talked rudely to.
“I’m still living.” He breathed out.
He felt like he was being interrogated as a child again, which was frequent from all of the fights he’d participated in. Well, until his father stopped caring about him at all. Not that he blamed the man.
“M-my son.” Spring Bonnie repeated.
Mike licked his lips. “What happened? To you. You…”
The robot’s eye lights flickered, making Michael jump.
“I- I did… bad things. I hurt people.”
The Afton son breathed in slowly. He’d known what his father had done. The children’s lost lives, the fraud, violence. It was his father who had done it all willingly. There was no remorse in his father’s tone. Just a clinical observance.
“You m-m-must be ash-ashamed in your old m-man.” William Afton spoke, the slightest regret in his voice. It was a small note at the end, as if he weren’t referring to the others he’d hurt, but his old son. But… it sounded as if he were regretting memory and not how he treated his own child in front of it.
Mike didn’t know how to respond, so he slowly crept forward and played an audio cue in the hallway, and shuddered as the previously frozen robot shambled away and out of the office.
…
“Mike!” Jeremy cried as soon as the Afton unlocked the apartment door and swung open the door. “Are you okay? My God, what are you doing there? Are you insane? What the hell!”
The former Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza employee looked both livid and concerned as he flung himself towards the brunet.
“Woah, Jeremy, wait-”
“Come on man! I thought we communicated! What happened to-”
Michael tripped over the carpet as Jeremy tugged on his boyfriend and the pair crashed to the ground.
“Fuck.” The brunet hissed as his sensitive, rotted skin slid harshly against the coarse carpet. Jeremy looked as if he were debating between coddling his boyfriend or strangling him.
Finally, the pair got it together and Mike collapsed on the beaten couch as Jeremy stood, jaw clenched until his partner was done catching his breath.
“Mike, what the hell? That’s so dangerous and wreckless, and you better fucking believe me when I tell you I am very aware of what wreckless means!” He finally exploded once the purple man sat up straighter, adjusting his hat. Michael grimaced.
“I-I… I don’t really know. I worked at Freddy’s Pizzeria before this and Circus Baby’s even before that. I…”
Jeremy’s face softened with understanding almost instantly. He knew what happened at the sister location. How could he not, when Michael looked... like that? Jeremy knew who Mike’s father was, and he definitely knew what happened to his siblings. The redhead couldn’t hold Michael’s want to fix everything against him.
“I’m sorry.” Jer spoke quietly, trying to regain himself. “I’m sorry.”
Mike’s body went slack as Jeremy sat down next to him on the couch, weaseling his arms around the good Afton. Michael couldn’t help but to fall asleep in his arms, only moving to the bed once Jeremy had to leave for work.
The brunet could feel his spastic boyfriend press a kiss on his head before leaving, and that memory made the trip to Fazbear Fright’s much more bearable.
…
The next three nights had nothing new happen. The Spring Bonnie, or, Father, as Michael couldn’t help but call him in his head, tried to kill him repeatedly, and the systems failed countless times, but Mike was always alive by the time he had to return to his apartment.
Mike was always alive to see his boyfriend, fresh out of the shower and ready for work. He was always alive to kiss his cheek and scramble up some eggs before he left. He clung to those moments like a lifeline, repeating them in his head long after Jer left and on the way to work those nights.
His sixth night was a clusterfuck of everything he’d been dealing with previous nights, but he wasn’t a goner. He’d definitely dealt with worse. That was, until the building quieted and no signs of life made notice.
Frantically, Micahel searched the security cameras for Spring Bonnie, only looking up when the horrible, screeching noise of an animatronic sounded off in the office.
“M-Michael.” It spoke. Mike quickly nabbed the crowbar and slid his chair backwards. He could never be too cautious. Especially if the soul-possessed animatronic was anything like his father.
“I-I-I miss you-ou.” Father stuttered out, shambling forwards.
Mike felt his chest tighten. “You do?”
The Spring Bonnie suit stopped in front of William's son, hands reaching out. Michael yearned to grab them. His father hadn’t expressed any sort of want for his son to be in his life ever since the youngest died.
“Every d-day.”
The security guard licked his lips. “I miss you, too.”
“Y-you’re still kicking.”
“Your animatronics from Circus Baby’s ruined my body.” He pointed out.
A mechanical hum whirred. “You sh-sh-sh-should be dead, b-but you aren’t.” Father parroted.
“I… I’ve done things with my life, you know, Father. I have an apartment with my boyfriend. You said I wouldn’t amount to anything, but there are people in my life who would disagree.”
“You’ve-ve grown u-up.” He agreed. Mike felt bitter and dissatisfied, so he went for the hard hitting questions instead.
Michael breathed in deeply. “Do you… regret it? Anything?”
The question was a gamble, but he couldn’t burn this place down without knowing.
“Re-regret what-t-t.” It laughed, a wheezy sound emitting from the voice box. “Be more speci-specific, son-son.”
Mike’s purple hands shook. This wasn’t going well. “What you did to Elizabeth. Or me. Or those children. Mr Henry. I know everything that you’ve done. Is there anything you feel remorse for?”
Straight for the jugular.
The Golden Bonnie animatronic twitched and Mike feared the worse.
After a moment, Father spoke up.
“I regret h-how I treated you kids. Or, I used to, I think-k. I-I-I remember feeling th-that way. I reme-remember feeling things, b-but now…”
Michael knew where this was headed. He slipped his phone in his pocket and poised to strike a match.
“I f-feel nothi-nothing but bloodlust.”
Just as Spring Bonnie reached for Mike, he tossed a lit match against some exposed wiring and bashed his Father with the crowbar as hard as he could and skirted around him, leaving through the back doors. Fire erupted immediately, but Michael waited a moment before calling the police. He needed to be sure that everything inside would burn.
After as the authorities were called, the good Afton slumped down on the sidewalk and closed his eyes, listening to the wailing sirens and crackling flames. It was done.
Bonus
Michael wished Jeremy were home. Laying on their bed alone was only making him feel worse. And cry harder.
Mike was so lost in his head that he didn’t hear the door open or Jeremy call for him. He only held the pillow tighter and tried not to wipe his nose on the comforter.
“Mikey? I saw what happened in the carpool hom-...”
The redhead dropped his bag by the bedroom door and slipped off his shoes before climbing into the bed. Mike sniffled and wormed away slightly.
“Stop, my skin’s gross.” He croaked, knowing how unpleasant the rotted scar tissue felt. Jeremy only pressed himself against Mike more firmly.
“Your skin isn’t gross.” Jeremy sighed, pressing a kiss atop his boyfriend’s head.
They both laid there in silence for a moment.
“I’m so mad at him.” The Afton son said, voice muffled against Jeremy’s shoulder.
“I’m mad at him with you. You didn’t deserve him. No one does.”
Michael clung to Jeremy, eventually falling asleep together. It had been a long week.