Chapter Text
This time, when a sudden thump to the chest jolted Michael awake, he was almost relieved. The night had given him nothing but weird dreams about narrow hallways, flashing lights and teeth. Lots and lots of teeth.
Still, a crushing weight on ones chest was crushing all the same, no matter how unpleasant the nightmares had been, so Michael groaned as he pushed Elizabeth off of his lungs. “For fuck’s sake, Lizzy, I’m not a bloody bouncy castle.”
“You need to bring us to school,” Elizabeth said, as if she hadn’t heard his complaint.
“Huh?”
“You need to bring us to school. Me and Evan. Mom’s already gone and dad doesn’t have time.”
“I’m not a bloody schoolbus either.“
“So what? You want us to walk on our own?” Elizabeth lowered her head and pushed her lower lip forward. Her eyes suddenly seemed very big. “You are so mean, Mikey.”
Again, he groaned and pulled the blanket aside. “Be ready in ten. This is the last time I am covering for dad.”
“Sure it is,” Elizabeth squealed and jumped off the bed. She was already wearing her puffy red dress Clara had gotten her for her first day in school. It had been hard to get her to wear anything else ever since.
She had almost reached the door when Michael called after her. “Hey uh … Is Evan still mad at me?”
His voice had sounded more shaky than intended. An anxious feeling was sitting in his chest, like a bird ready to fly off at the slightest hint of rejection. He couldn’t remember feeling like that before his … nightmare.
Elizabeth angled her head and let out a long: “Hmmmmmm.” After she had inspected the bedroom ceiling for longer than Michael had the patience for she smiled wickedly. “Less mad and more terrified, I would say. Maybe your Foxy impression would calm him down again.”
She put out her tongue, then rushed out of the room.
Michael sat for a few minutes with the feelings in his chest, analysing them carefully. There was dissapointment, though he wasn’t sure what that was about, a slight sting he couldn’t quiet identify, shame and a lot of anger.
The longer he sat the more the anger grew, pushing aside all other feelings. He got up before the feeling could consume him completely but it followed him into the bathroom as he brushed his teeth and stuck to him even after changing his clothes. At some point he was more angry about being angry than anything else. Why was William busy again anyway? It was his turn to bring the kids to school. That was the deal his parents had. Yet somehow it was always Michael who had to jump in when one of them couldn’t uphold their end of the bargain.
Why did he have to apologize anyway? He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Why was no one ever apologizing to him?
Why did Evan always have to be so sensitive?
He slammed his rooms door shut behind him and stepped out into the hallway. Evan and Elizabeth were already waiting by the front door, Elizabeth with a malevolent smile, Evan with wide eyes and tense hands gripping the straps of his backpack.
Both of their faces irritated Michael more. He readjusted his own backpack and continued walking. “Lets go,” he muttered to his siblings.
Luckily school wasn’t too far away. Had they taken the bus they would have needed to walk into the other direction for a bit just to get to the last station before school, so walking was – despite a bit more time and energy consuming – often the easier choice. Michael had routinly gone that way by foot when he was a little older than Evan was now, but with Elizabeth still being only six years old, their parents insisted she should be accompanied by an adult.
Or Michael.
“You’re still carrying that thing around?” Michael asked to get rid of his thoughts and pointed to the golden Fredbear plushie in Evan’s backpack. Only the head stuck out, making it seem like a weird passenger with its dead black eyes.
“If I don’t carry him, he will just follow me anyway,” Evan replied. “At least that way I know where he is.”
“It can’t follow you around,” Elizabeth chimed in. “It’s not an animatronic.”
“He can walk! He even talks to me.”
“I have never heard it talk before and daddy also says it can’t do that. So it can’t.”
“He does though!” Evan insisted.
Elizabeth cackled. “Evan still believes in dreams,” she sang and stomped her little feet to the rhythm.
Evan pulled a grimace, the same he pulled when in front of the actual animatronics. He tried to be very brave apparently. “I didn’t dream that!”
“Shut it. Both of you,” Michael growled and massaged the bridge of his nose. “It’s too early to listen to your fighting.”
Evan let his shoulders sink, while Elizabeth held her nose high and smiled liked she just won something. Both of them at least kept quiet for the rest of the way.
School was loud and shrill as always, but somehow it annoyed Michael more than usual. People crossed his way, bumped into him, stood in his path … He breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the crossway where Evan and Elizabeth had to part while he would continue to his classes.
“Run along,” he told his siblings and waved his hand as if shooing them away. “See you at dinner.”
“What about picking us up?” Elizabeth asked.
“My classes go longer than yours. It’s dad’s turn to pick you guys up.”
“Yeah, but do you think he will?”
“That’s not my problem. Go home alone.”
“Mikey!”
Someone howled behind them. When Michael turned around he saw some guys from his class gesturing towards him and laughing amongst themselves. “Afton needs to babysit the kids again. Yo, Mike, what’s your rate? Can I drop my niece with you too?”
A dark pit burned in Michael’s stomach. He was tempted to flip them off, but then just turned around to Elizabeth. “Don’t be late, got it?”
She saluted and clicked her heels. “Heard it, boss.”
Quickly she ran off. Evan followed her at a more reasonable pace, the head of the golden Freddy plush bobbing rhythmically along to his steps.
Michael’s gaze lay longer on the bear’s dead eyes, before he finally turned to his own classes. The boys still laughed as he passed them.
In the end he had to hurry to his classroom.
Somehow he had managed to get lost twice on the way there. The corridors seemed harder to navigate, everything looked so similar. He blamed his bad sleep for his chaotic state of mind. Break hadn’t been long enough for him to completely forget the school’s outlay.
He managed to make it with just a few minutes to spare. Exhausted, he fell down to his usual seat.
"Time!" someone shouted behind him. When he turned around he found Jeremy grinning from ear to ear. "Almost missed it. We thought you're flaking on us again."
Michael stared at him for a moment. Like with everyone in his life now, seeing them young and youthful gave him whiplash. It wasn't that he remembered Jeremy dying directly in his dream but somehow he had still expected to never met him again, thinking of him and his other friends only in old memories he would take out of a mental folder to look at them like polaroids.
Michael tried to return his easy smile with the same casualness, though it felt forced onto his lips. "When did I ever do that?"
"All the time," Jeremy laughed.
"Aw, cut him some slack," Mark interjected and put one of his massive hands on Jeremy's shoulder. Despite him being half a head shorter he still managed to be broader than any of them at that age. Michael had always associated his square face with that of a circus bear, easily dangerous if it just used its claws yet craving the applause of the crowd so instead it performed silly tricks for kids. "I bet Mike had to play big bro for his siblings again. Didn't you, Mike?"
Michael grimaced.
Before he could answer a cackling turned his attention once more. At the other corner a blond boy and his friends laughed amongst themselves, based on their gleeful sideglances towards Michael it was safe to assume he was the punchline to some of their joke.
"Hey, shut it, Fitzgerald!", Jeremy shouted over to them.
Fitzgerald flipped him the bird and turned back to his friends.
Jeremy's cheeks burned.
Distantly Michael remembered their little quarrels since elementary school, the bruised knees and knuckles they had gifted each other for the simple crime of sharing the same name at first, later for fancying the same girl, then for increasingly sillier reasons. Michael thought once he had picked a side in this war of kids and had believed Fitzgerald to be the biggest prick in the world, too. Now that seemed like childish loyalty and Fitzgerald nothing more than a minor annoyance he would be rid of in just a few years.
He tried to channel the same hurt, vindictive anger he would have felt at such an insult and only found apathy instead. His disinterest frightened him.
It had just been a nightmare.
"He's just jealous," Mark offered and slapped Michael's scrawny shoulder. "Because he isn't invited to Sunday's party."
Right. The party.
Michael had almost forgotten. Or repressed. He wasn't sure anymore what it was.
It had just been a nightmare.
As the schoolbell rang he sunk deeper into his seat. He hoped their father would actually show to pick Evan and Elizabeth up from school at least. The less time he had to spend with them while his skin still crawled with a foreboding feeling that wasn't real the better.
Of course William had not shown and so Michael found Evan and Elizabeth waiting for him on the steps of his school when he made his way out of the building. Somehow resentment rose up in his throat and he had to swallow against the venemous feeling, which only burned his insides up.
"Must be hard to be a teen dad," Fitzgerald snickered as he walked past him.
"Suck a dick," Michael snarled back. Slowly he remembered why he had hated that guy. He didn't need others to meddle in his family's situation.
Evan turned his gaze fearful, meanwhile Elizabeth looked impatient.
"We waited for hours!" she complained when Michael finally reached them.
"Could have done your homework in the meantime," he replied without stopping.
His siblings followed dutifully after him.
"That's not the way home," Elizabeth said and somehow it sounded like a complain once more.
"It isn't," Michael agreed. "I'm taking you to Dad."
Evan's face turned pale. "Dad? But he's working, isn't he?"
"So is mom, but I am not walking you all the way there when Freddy's is that much closer."
He could hear the tremble in Evan's voice even before he formed a full word. "I don't want to go to Freddy's."
"Why not?" Elizabeth asked. "You love Freddy! You watch his show all the time."
Evan didn't reply. He held his golden Fredbear plush closer to his body as if it could protect him. "I don't want to go to Freddy's," he repeated. "I want to go home."
"I'm not going home though," Michael replied. "I'll meet with Jeremy and the others and you won't drag along again."
"Then I'll go home alone!"
"Jesus Christ, Evan, don't be such a crybaby!" Michael snapped. "It's a fucking restaurant. Sit at a table and colour the kid's menu, it's not that difficult!"
Evan stared at him, a wordless battle being fought on his face. His hands held onto the plush tighter, digging into the stuffed body so deep Michael thought the fabric would rip. Slowly and very quietly Evan repeated: "I don't want to go to Freddy's."
Michael felt something inside of him snap, it tore and bend like the cords of an animatronic, ripping out the part that felt sorry for his brother's fears and tears and instead let seering hot rage seep into his veins.
"Fine", he said, surprised how calm his voice sounded if one didn't listen for the hidden growl underneath it. "Then we'll go home!"
His words might have been able to hide his anger, but his body couldn't. When he turned around his steps were long and fast, with no concern for his siblings much smaller reach of legs. He could hear their hurried footsteps behind him, drowned by his own pulsating blood. Some small part of him had hoped the walk would calm the storm brewing inside his chest, but if anything, it just amplified it. He was angry, angry at his father for not picking them up, angry at his brother for not doing what he told him, angry at his sister for never saying thank you, angry at his mother for allowing this to continue.
Angry at himself for not just leaving them be, but instead picking up his father's slack again and again.
He remembered how he had walked to school and back day by day with no supervision either, how no one had seemed to have a problem with that because "he was such a big boy", yet Evan never seemed to grow. Evan was always the baby. Evan couldn't be left alone, yet he was always placed in Michael's care, just to then complain when he made Evan cry.
Like it was his fault.
Like Evan wasn't brought to tears by the wind howling a little too loudly.
Michael threw open the door to their family home and stormed in without even taking his shoes off.
His siblings were close behind.
"Mike ... I'm so-", Evan started, but didn't finish as Michael grabbed his arm. All his muscles tensed under the grip and he looked up in fear.
Michael hated when he did that. Like he was scared he could get hurt even though all Michael did was bark. He wasn't even allowed some harmless outrage without Evan looking at him like a monster.
So he might as well be one.
He pulled Evan by the arm to his room, opened the door and shoved him in. "There! You're home!" Before Evan could scramble back to his feet he threw the door shut and turned the lock.
Evan's tiny fists knocked against the door, pulled at the knob. "Mike! Please let me out! Mike!" His pleading was diluted with sobs, his voice close to breaking.
Michael recognised that desperation, it haunted his nightmares too, made him envision his brother with tears streaming down his face all the time. In the distance he heard something break like the shatter of a skull, the ugly tearing of muscles and flesh as teeth came down to destroy the soft life they held between. He closed his eyes and forced the vile in his guts down again.
It had been just a dream.
Calmly he turned to Elizabeth, who looked at him with wide eyes, shock and confusion clearly mixed within them.
"Do I need to lock yours too?" Michael asked.
She shook her head. "I won't take a step outside."
He had no answer left. The anger had torn at him so much he had bled out. Quietly he walked past her and out the door.
That night Michael only returned late. When the street lights were already on, the last streams of sunset had faded and his family surely had gone to bed, he snuck in once more through the window.
Unsurprisingly, as soon as he set one foot into his room, the lights turned on and William stared him down.
"I hope you're happy with yourself."
He wasn't. Even being surrounded by his friends hadn't helped calm his anger or the guilt that was already gnawing at his bones. Had he been happy with himself he wouldn't have had to wait until sunset to sneak back home, so he wouldn't even have to face his own shadow for what he did.
Of course, admitting to that would never get him anywhere, so he just hauled the rest of his body inside.
His father looked at him angrily. "You locked Evan in his room and then left him."
"Like you never done the same," Michael muttered.
"I never left you kids alone!"
"No, you just didn't pick them up from school, so they had to wait at mine for hours!"
"I was working," William spat back, gesturing around the room. "Someone has to pay the bills around here, y'know. Keep a roof over your head, food for you in the fridge ..."
"So does mom," Michael cut off. "She still picks them up instead of making me an unpaid babysitter."
"Babysitter? They are your siblings."
"And your kids."
William stared him down.
Michael stared back. Just this once he didn't want to back down from his father.
Eventually William let out a disappointed sigh. "You are grounded."
"And how do you want to enforce that if you are never here?" Michael shouted after him as his father already turned to leave.
His only reponse was another firm "Grounded!" before William turned the corner into the living room.
Michael threw the door shut as hard as he could, then fell face down onto the bed.
Behind him he heard the creaking of the door slowly opening.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm grounded. I got it the first time!" he groaned, but when he turned around to face his father, he found Elizabeth instead.
She held one of her notebooks close to her chest like it was a shield, her feet hadn't crossed the border to his room quiet yet. "I ...", she started, then tried again: "Can I come in?"
For a second he saw her like he would see a small child. Not because she was but because he wasn't. Because he felt older in his skin than his sixteen years should warrant, grown and tired and for that short second he felt like the world was too small in this tiny room of his.
He pitied her. She was young and vulnurable and he had made her afraid when she should have trusted him.
His disappointment came crushing on him, foreign and ruthless when he too felt so deeply wronged by the world.
"Yeah," he finally said and sat up straighter on his bed. "What's up?"
She closed the door behind her and set down next to him.
The mattress sunk under her weight, he could feel the shift and wondered why it wasn't deeper. Why she wasn't heavier ... taller ... His heart ached with how fragile their lifes were.
"I ... wanted to ask for your help," she eventually muttered. Very carefully she removed the book from her chest. "I made something."
She opened the pages and revealed some pencil drawings. At first Michael thought they were of the animatronics he knew, of Freddy or Chica, but they weren't. Whoever that animatronic was, he didn't know it, but Elizabeth had drawn it in detail, from every side, made little notes relating to the parts. Some described different functions and despite the crudeness of the drawings, Michael could tell a great amount of thought had gone into them.
"I call her Mindy," Elizabeth said. "She is a strawberry dog and her specialty is creating ice cream cups for guests. She likes singing and dancing and of course, strawberries. I ... I thought maybe dad would like her. I know the cast is already pretty full, but ... Who knows, maybe they would like another member eventually."
Michael swallowed carefully. There was a lump in his throat he didn't dare name. "That is very impressive, Lizzy. Did you make her all by yourself?"
Elizabeth nodded. "I would like to show dad. Do you think he would like her?"
"Surely he will." He adored everything Elizabeth did after all. "What do you need me for though?"
"I wanted to ask if you could draw her better! My art isn't as good as yours ... so ... if I showed dad, I would like her to look as good as possible."
Michael's chest tightened. He had thought the only people who paid attention to his drawings were his teachers when they told him to put the pen away and start paying attention. Sure his mom had gushed at his drwings when he was little, but now she only hung up Evan's pictures on the fridge. He had stopped showing them to her a long while ago and Elizabeth had never mentioned it before.
"You really think my art is good?" he asked, trying to hide the choke in his voice.
"I do! It's so pretty and cool. I wish I could draw like that."
She pouted and he had to stiffle a laugh.
"Alright, how about this then," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'll draw you Mindy and you practice your art with me, okay? Then you will improve in no time."
Her face lit up. Before he knew it she had her arms wrapped around him and squeezed his waist. "Thanks, Mickey."
For some reason tears burned at the corner of his eyes.
She jumped off and ran excitedly out the room. Not without stopping in the door and telling him goodnight though.
Her drawing of Mindy stayed on his bed. For a moment he stared at it mystified. Did this happen in his dream too? He couldn't remember. Surely it didn't. It was just a dream after all and he couldn't predict the future through it.
He got up because sitting down any longer felt like being chained to the floor where his thoughts could overtake him. On the shelf over his desk lay the Foxy mask he had loved so dearly. Halfway he expected to feel dust linger on it when he touched it, but it was clean and smooth, the plastic fit into his palm like an old friend. He hadn't taken it off for a week straight after he had gotten it. This felt like ages ago.
Gently he ran a thumb over the sharp canines of the mask.
"It was just a dream," he told himself again. The sound of a cracking skull haunted him. "Nothing will happen."
He put the mask back and went to bed.
Only a few days until the party ...