Chapter Text
After that fateful day, Mike's and Abby's lives had turned normal, well, as normal as it could be after beating possessed animaltronics in an abandoned pizzeria and a psycho murderer. Vanessa was still in the hospital in a coma, but her condition was improving.
With their aunt's mysterious death, Mike had inhired whatever shit she had, giving some economical stability. So, Mike could stay home to care for Abby and the house. Abby hadn't made any friends yet, but she was improving too. She was communicating more with her brother. One night, she had asked about her other brother, Garett. It was still a touchy subject for Mike to talk about. Ultimately, he told her half the truth, as revealing all of it was too hard. Mike didn't know how he felt. He had left the first stage of grief, denial, and now he was on the second stage, bargaining. Late at night, when his insomnia filled his body, his mind would wander to the what-ifs and only ifs. What if he had been close to Garett? Maybe Garett wouldn't have been lost if only he hadn't been a stupid teenager with his grumpy demeanour. What if he had moved here earlier? Perhaps he would have found Garett. Only if he-. And that's how the night would go until 6 am.
One day, when Mike picked his sister up, she asked if they could visit their local library.
"Really? To a library?" Said Mike, grimacing. He would rather go back to doing the night shift than open a book. Abby rolled her eyes. -The teacher said to give our support to our local communities, Mike! Also, it might be fun. Mike sighed and, reluctantly, turned left, toward the library.
....
Abby jumped out of the car immediately after he parked. 'Jesus,' Mike thought,' where does this kid find the energy?'
The library was cosy, its walls painted with a warm and welcoming colour. It was quite small, though, but that's probably for the best, as Abby tended to run around and get lost. Exactly like how it happened in the pizzeria...
Mike had dozed off when someone touched his shoulder.
"Excuse me, sir, are you alright? You have been standing in the same place for a while now." A soft and shy voice asked him. Beneath, though, there was some odd roughness. Mike tensed up. He wasn't used to sudden, especially soft touches. He turned around, only to see a man around his age with a messy, shaggy hairstyle, which was coloured light brown. His facial features were soft, different from Mike's sharp ones. His eyes were a rich brown colour. In contrast to the stranger's energy and looks, there was a scar across his right cheek. Mike blushed, realising he was staring.
"I..., yes, I'm fine. Just spaced off for a moment," He answered while averting the man's eyes. The hand on his shoulder was still there, light, barely feeling it, but still there. They locked eyes. Mike felt a sudden peace in the stranger's eyes that he wasn't used to. His heart was beating like crazy. Mike thought that you could even see how it pumped.
The moment was interrupted when Abby ran over to Mike.
"Come, Mike! I want to read!" His sister begged, pulling him by his hand towards the bookshelf. Mike's cheeks turned redder from his embarrassment. He glared at his sister furiously. The stranger just chuckled, but Mike's heart did flip back up at hearing it. The hand on his shoulder moved down his back, making him even more flustered.
"Eager to read, I see. That's something you don't see these days." He commented, his voice melancholic all of a sudden. Mike figured out who the man was by his words and style.
"You are the librarian here?" He guessed. Who didn't he realise it at the beginning? The man's style is so librarian-ish. He wore a loose sage green T-shirt on top of a long-sleeved grey one. His flowy pants were a dark brownish green. The man nodded with a smile.
"Correct, he confirmed, but I haven't seen your sweet faces before." As he commented, he had tilted his head to the side, observing the two visitors. He had such a calm and gentle presence, unlike Mike's anxious and socially awkward. He was blushing again. Nobody had called his face sweet before. Abby smiled, proud to have managed to drag her brother.
"Yeah! It's our first time in here," She said excitedly, her eyes sparkling with her childlike innocence. Mike, on the other hand, wanted the earth to open and swallow him whole. The librarian chucked quietly as he noticed how contrasting their personalities were.
"Well, congratulations to you two. The number of visitors has declined since the evolution of technology." He said with a smile that didn't quite catch his big brown eyes. Out of nowhere, Mike wanted to comfort this sweet man, his hand twitching to do something. Abby frowned, noticing something off with the librarian's energy.
"Nobody wants to visit anymore?” Abby asked. The librarian shook his head, and his hand fell from Mike's back, making him lose the warm sensations he had been feeling.
"Unfortunately, not. Everyone is either in their homes or the arcade." The librarian explained to Abby, his expression melancholic again. Mike couldn't help himself. He put a comforting hand on his shoulder, offering his reassurance. He just didn't want to see this angelic soul so sad and disappointed.
"Hey, we are here," Mike told him. Abby noticed that his voice was unusually soft. She only heard Mike being this soft with her or Vanessa, not a complete stranger. She glanced curiously at them. The librarian looked up, staring at Abby, then back at Mike. He smiled, faintly, very small, but he did, and for Mike it was enough. He felt proud that he had made this man smile, even if it was this tiny smile. Why? He literally met the man. Yet Mike smiled back, forgetting that Abby was with them. Abby grimaced at her love-struck brother. Didn't they come here to read books? And Mike didn't even want to go in the first place! She cleared her throat to gain the men's attention.
"Can I go look around?" She asked, sounding impatient. Mike would scold her later about her manners, so she turned to the man for permission. The librarian laughed at the child's bluntness.
Of course, you don't need to ask me, dear." He told them, gesturing for Abby to go adventure. Mike shouted to her to be careful, but Abby was already gone. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. The librarian chuckled once more.
"She looks ready to learn, " the man remarked while approaching Mike. Mike turned around to face him. Their eyes found each other, returning a warm sensation around them like a blanket.
"Yes, she is. But I'm afraid she's going to get in trouble." Mike told, voicing his worries to this kind stranger. Why was he being so honest and vulnerable with someone he didn't know? It had taken some days till he opened with Vanessa, but that was under other circumstances. Here, they weren't in danger or chased by possessed animaltronics. It was just a small, normal library, yet he was spilling his heart's worries. The librarian, whose name was yet to be discovered, glanced at him. His brown eyes were soft and understanding. Mike had never felt this pull towards someone.
"What is your name, if I may ask?" The librarian asked as he guided Mike around the library. They sat at one of the desks where people sit down to read or research. He offered some warm drinks to Mike.
"Michael, you can call me Mike, though. And, uh, coffee is fine. Black, if you can." Mike told the man after taking a seat. The wooden, circular desks were decorated with flowers of all kinds. It brought a cosy environment to the library, which Mike was grateful for. Flowers tended to make him calmer and more at ease. The librarian hummed as he made their warm drinks. "You? What's your name?" Mike asked him while he observed the man's movements. He looked so peaceful and joyful, so natural at this. Mike was always more nervous with conversations, as he would rather choose to keep to himself. But now, with meeting Vanessa, Abby growing, and the pizzeria event, he felt he needed someone to talk to. And this librarian in some way made it so easy. 'Is this how it's supposed to work?', Mike wondered in his head.
"Elliot," the librarian answered as he sat across from Mike, giving him his black coffee. Elliot. It fitted him so well. He looked like an Elliot, a bright, sunny, and warm name. Everything about that man reminded Mike of the sun, the big, bright star that brought them warmth and light, which helped them survive and navigate their lives. Without the sun, they would be lost.
"It fits you, you look like an Elliot," Mike decided to say instead, keeping simple. Elliot laughed, and Mike felt that he was out in space, feeling the heat waves of the sun. He was falling for this man, which was impossible because he had just met him! 'Get your shit together, Micheal Schmidt, you just met the man for heaven's sake!' Mike said to himself as Elliot calmed down from laughing.
"You are the first person who has ever told me that." Elliot claimed. His soft smile returned while he took a sip of his tea. 'He is so pretty- Wait what?!' Mike was losing, he was having a crisis. A love crisis? Bi crisis? He had read that in an online article about 'FIGURING YOUR IDENTITY'. Right now, Mike felt like he was losing everything he knew about love. Elliot, unaware of Mike's internal battle, continued to gaze at him with that sweet smile.
"So, Mike, you and your sister, I presume, are new here, right? Can I ask where you are originally from?" Elliot asked after a while of silent staring, " I moved here when I was a student at the university. I am actually from Wyoming." Elliot added, wanting Mike to feel more comfortable sharing in return. And Mike felt falling even harder for this man. Not only was he sweet and nice, but also caring and considerate. Mike wanted to scream, grab his pretty face and kiss hi-
"Utah. We, uh, are from Hurricane, Utah." Mike replied, trying to ignore his thoughts. "We came here from a fresh start. And yes, Abby is my little sister."
Elliot hummed affirmatively and sipped some tea again. "I see, and how do you find Great Falls in comparison to Hurricane? It is different from what you are used to, I'm presuming."
Oh boy, did Mike find Great Falls different from back home for sure. "It is certainly more, um, adventurous." He said before he took a large sip from his coffee. 'Damn, that's a good coffee' he commented inside his head. Elliot chuckled as he noticed the slight sarcastic tone in Mike's voice. He tilted his head to the side, curious where that had come from. "For what, the sarcasm, Michael?"
Mike laid back and crossed his arms. On one side, he was contemplating whether he should talk about the pizzeria to Elliot or not. He didn't want to burden the man. On the other hand, he felt oddly open to Elliot, like he was comfortable sharing the whole event. Maybe Elliot knew something, anyway. "I, uh, worked as a security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria...Have you ever been there?" Mike started carefully. He gazed at Elliot, anxious for his reaction. Elliot looked like he was processing the information. His eyes squinted a bit while his eyebrows furrowed. His eyes flickered from one mug to the other and back at Mike's eyes. "The pizzeria where the kids went missing?" Elliot asked hesitantly. Mike nodded silently. Those 5 innocent kids trapped in the suits. Yeah, they did want to capture Abby, but they were literal little children when they got murdered. Just like Garett....
"I have read something about it, both old and current news," Elliot muttered thoughtfully. "Ar- Are you okay? I did read that an officer was hurt badly and the security guard too." Elliot asked with concern. Mike smiled tiredly. He was asking himself that this past week all the time. "I am managing, Elliot. Vanessa, the uh officer, is in a coma, unfortunately, but she is at least alive." Mike sighed, averting Elliot's eyes. He stared at his hands, which were holding the warm mug. It was the simple truth. He was managing, surviving for Abby's sake. All he ever did was for his siblings, heh, and look where that got him. One is dead, and the other almost got trapped in an animatronic. Was he really qualified to be responsible for his sister?
Elliot reached for his hands, taking them in his, as if he knew what was happening in Mike's mind. "Michael, I know you are doubting your qualities to be an older brother, but if you survived a psychotic killer and haunted robots in the shape of animals, I am sure you can do anything." Mike's head snapped up, his eyes widened not only at Elliot's words but also at his actions. His cheeks immediately heated up. He was ready to ask how the hell Elliot knew about it, but he remembered that the man had read the news. Elliot smiled at him assuringly and squeezed his hands.
"How did you know about the haunted part?" Mike asked, his voice coming slightly shaky. How did the news know about that? They could say they malfunctioned or something, but haunted? No, it's too much. Did he say anything? Mike doesn't remember mentioning anything written or reported about haunted souls.
"I read it on a conspiracy site." Elliot replied, "It made more sense to me than malfunctioning robots that suddenly went crazy after decades of being closed." His voice sounded promising to Mike. Even if it sounded weird for a librarian to be on conspiracy sites, Mike trusted him. And who was Mike to judge? As if he were any normal. "So, you aren't, like, somehow involved or related to the crimes, heh?" Mike chuckled weakly, trying -with not much success- to lighten up the mood. Elliot stared at him for a moment before he answered. "No, don't worry. And how can I be anyway? I don't have any ties here." True. Elliot wasn't originally from here, and he didn't have any relatives here. But what was that pause all about? Before Mike could question him, Abby made her return by running and holding a gigantic stack of books.
"Mike! Mr. Librarian! I have found books!" She yelled, catching the two men off guard. She stopped in front of them, panting from running, and let the books fall on the table. Mike winced at the sound of the impact. "Abby Schimdt! We do not throw books like that!" Mike scolded her, but Elliot just laughed. He stood up and ruffled Abby's hair, who was ducking her head, embarrassed. "It's alright, Abby, although you did need to be more careful with books. They can get hurt, you know." He told her, kneeling to her level. Abby nodded, still having her head down. Mike rolled his eyes at Abby's dramaticness. He knew this was just a small act, but the moment was sweet, so he stayed silent. Elliot sighed with a smile. "Come, let's read some of them, hm?"
The rest of their day was spent with the three of them reading each book; Abby sitting between the two men, Mike slinging his arm behind their backs, almost wrapping them in a big hug, and Elliot reading each paragraph fluently and dreamily. Before they knew it, the sun had set and the moon had risen. Abby had fallen asleep on Mike, who, if it wasn't for the black coffee, would have been asleep too. Elliot smiled warmly at them, receiving Mike's warm and tired smile in return.
"We better get back home, before I fall asleep too, heh." Mike said, scratching the back of his neck like the dork he was.
"Of course. I must close the library too, anyway." Elliot nodded lightly, "Let me walk you to the entrance, though." How could Mike deny that, when Elliot was gazing at him with the most beautiful and sweet smile? Mike lifted his sister. She hasn't grown that much yet, so he can pick up thankfully without breaking his back. Elliot walked with them to the library's entrance, as he said. "You sure you can drive back? If you are too tired, I can offer you a drive." He told Mike. His voice was actually worried and not some 'If-you-die-I'll-be-responsible' type. Mike decided that he didn't like hearing him worried, nor sad, nor any bad emotions. "We'll be fine, Elliot. You don't need to worry, I have done it thousands of times...But if you really want to be sure, I would love to send you a message."
Smooth, Michael Schmidt.
The librarian chuckled, but he agreed. After they exchanged their phone numbers, Mike and sleepy Abby were ready to leave. Elliot opened the door for him. He looked hesitant for a reason, but before Mike could ask him, he kissed the man on the cheek. "I- thank you for being here. It meant a lot to me, and it was lovely to meet you two. I hope we'll cross paths again." Elliot said, his voice had been nervous for the first time Mike had met him. If he wasn't carrying Abby, he would have smashed their lips together. However, he must stay reasonable. A smirk appeared on his face. He had magically gained his confidence from his teenage years when girls would ask him out. Although his cheeks were red again. "Oh, we will definitely meet again, book man. I'll text you." Mike assured him, the smirk still there, as he slipped through the door. Elliot beamed like the sun and waved from the stairs. "Don't keep me waiting long, Michael!" He exclaimed before he went back in. Mike shook his head, even if he was grinning like a lovesick teenager. He managed to open the car without Abby falling from his arms and put her in. He checked to make sure she was alright, then he went over to the front wheel.
Maybe he isn't over what happened to his brother. Maybe he hasn't forgiven himself yet. Maybe he will lose every job he will have But right now, Michael Schmidt was in love and nothing was stopping him.