Chapter Text
There was something off about Dave.
It was universally agreed on, if.. universally was sectioned off into just anyone who happened to know him.
Phil had known the man for over half a year now, and the most he knew about him was that he was Texan, was a ‘natural’ blond, and was an only child. He also knew that Dave had a habit of plaguing his thoughts whenever he tried to work.
Phil didn’t count the information included in Dave’s stories about his life as something he “knew” about him, because while they were expanse and sounded intricately detailed, they never seemed to scratch below the surface of the thinly woven tales, or scratch past his life post-farm.
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the man and focus onto the paperwork below him. The whirs of the rusty air conditioning unit, installed in the one measly window he had, sputtered and croaked as it wheezed out a few measly puffs of seventy-two degree air. Phil wanted to give it a whack, to see if that would get it working again, but the heat coating the room was too unbearable for him to get up. He decided to settle for the brief relief the aircon would give him every time it spat out the tepid air.
Phil rubbed at the bits of gunk in his eye left from his poor sleep schedule, rolled out the crick in his neck left from his poor sleeping habits, and put his head in his hands. He stared at the sheet below him, some paperwork about an upcoming work event that he’d probably have a fun time at if he could get over the image of Fazbear Entertainment having the money to drop on such an event while two thirds of his employees stayed homeless. At least, he thought Dave was homeless. He didn’t have much to go off of besides Dave’s vague stories and occasional information drops about his lack of food or places to shower, it was concerning, to say the least. More concerning was how flippantly he’d bring it up, like his only meal being half of Phil’s packed food everyday was a quirk rather than a worry.
Speak of the devil, Phil’s moping was interrupted by a sharp kick to the door - the signal it was time to start his lunch break, and with a sigh and a small smile he didn’t plan on acknowledging, he brought the two thermoses packed in his bag out and onto the desk.
“Howdy, Phillerp!” Dave rubbed his hands, licking his lips, “What’re we havin’ for lunch t’day?”
“Don’t you mean, what am I having for lunch?”
Dave grabbed the chair in front of Phil’s desk, his crooked pinky sticking up as he scraped it against the floor before planting himself on it.
“Ok, what am I havin’ for lunch?”
“Mr Miller-“
“Phil, who’re you tryin’ to fool?” Dave titled his head, “You’ve been makin’ two servin’s of yer lunch for months now, and I know that second thermos ain’t for you”.
Phil sighed in defeat, then pushed the thermos in question to the other man, “Gazpacho, have you ever tried it?”
Dave screwed off the thermos lid, and chugged the soup. He smacked his lips, and announced, “Have now!”
Phil stared at him, a spare spoon in hand that he slowly put back into his bag. He looked at Dave’s face, or more specifically, the soup coating the lower half of it. “Were you raised in a barn?”
Dave’s face screwed up, “Phil, that is a very offensive stereotype-“
“Your face is covered in soup.”
“Oh,” Dave pulled out some napkins from his pockets, saturating the thin paper with the cold soup as he dabbed it against his cheeks, “Did I get it all?” He flashed Phil a smile, showing off his less than pearly whites and his missing tooth.
“Erm, well, no.” Phil gestured around the spots still covered in soup, which Dave followed with his napkin, but managed to miss every spot of soup with. “Look, just-“
Phil leaned over, grabbing the non-soaked napkins out of Dave’s hand to start wiping off the bits of blended vegetable and oil off his face. His fingers held Dave’s chin in place, letting him clear most of the soup off his cheek before his gaze turned to Dave’s mouth. Phil stared at the scars left from Dave’s habit of chewing on his lip, the newest looking one already reopening, a bright, raw red contrasting against the dull pink of his lips. He grimaced, licking his lip subconsciously over the spot he imagined Dave’s wound would be if it he had it himself, then wiped off the bits of soup left.
Happy with his work, Phil leaned back onto his chair, about to throw the napkin into the trash before his eyes caught the red of the Fazbear logo.
“Seriously, Mr Miller? What have I said about stealing the napk-“ His eye’s were drawn up as he went to make eye contact, but instead locked eyes with Dave’s hair; long, stringy, and strewn over his red face, which he seemed to be desperately trying to hide. Phil coughed as he realised just how close he had been to Dave’s face only seconds ago, and felt his face go a similar red shade.
An awkward silence settled between them, and unsettled by the fact that apparently Dave could stop talking, Phil decided to break it. “Uh, that heatwave, am I right?”
He hoped that would excuse his red face, alongside give Dave a chance to start talking again.
“Oh, is there a heatwave? Ha- see, this is jus’ an average day for us Texan folk! Hell, I missed this kinda heat, we Texan’s are just built for it-“ Dave’s forehead was shiny with sweat, “Can barely even feel it! S’cold even!”
At the mention of Dave’s apparent heat resistance, Phil started to take notice of said man’s outfit - that of which was what he wore everyday; a dark, almost black, purple turtleneck layered under his version of the work uniform. There were some differences, the turtleneck seemed thinner - Phil noted however that the fabric looked the same as normal, just.. thinner, like Dave normally wore even more layers than Phil had originally thought, but had given himself the grace of taking one off - and that he had a plastic water bottle covered in thick drops of condensation connected to his belt via a yellow carabiner.
Phil had decided to forgo his usual suit jacket after almost fainting from heat exhaustion the Sunday the heatwave started, as the week progressed he had exchanged his pants for shorts and lost the need for a top-button or tie. He strived for professionalism, but his dwindling self-respect was just big enough to prioritise his general health. He wondered why Dave, who seemed to strive to be as unprofessional as possible and presumably had a bigger amount of self-respect than Phil, bothered with the layers.
It was then when he remembered he had tried, a while ago, to trick Dave into revealing a bit of skin to satiate his own curiosity; a couple cleaning jobs, turning the temperature a touch higher during lunch, oil changes on the electric robots, - it only ended up revealing at the most a flash of a wrapped bandage around his arm and by then it felt too invasive to continue.
He cleared his throat, and then decided he should tune back into Dave’s incessant talking in case he was expected to react.
“And that’s’a story awn how I became a U.S citizen, anywho-“
“What? What happened to little Davey, born and raised in Pennsylvania, Texas?” Phil’s focus zeroed back, his eyebrows furrowed, “and you know, I was looking at a map the other day and Pennsylvania isn’t a city in Texas-“
Dave looked at him with a blank stare, mouth slightly agape before he snapped back, smiling at him, “Well, ya’see, the Texan city of Pennsylvania ain’t on most maps no more after it got taken over by th’ Lutervanians, thang is, Lutervania’s technically a U.K. colony.. the little known fourteenth one, th’ only one’s that didn’t become one with the You - Ess - of Aye.”
Dave looked down, sullen, “See, when I was born that cold mornin’ of September, my ma’ was crossing through th’ Lutervanian border when her water broke, had to be escorted by th’ local military, ya’see, into a local Lutervanian hospital. Tha’ devil tried to bring her down but even wit’ all o’ heaven n’ hell against her, my ma’ fought for her life in that run down place! Before I could even get outta th’ womb, I was registered a Lutervanian.”
“So, Lil’ Davey had to work th’ Texan fields, knowing one day the Lutervanian government might snatch ‘im up to fight for th’-“ Dave blinked, “Wait, lil’ Davey? I ain’t never called m’young self Lil’ Davey b’fore, tha’s cute, Philly.”
“I wasn’t trying to give your kid self a nickname!” Phil flustered, “and it’s Mr Guy, not ‘Philly’”.
“Al’ight, Mr Phil.” Phil watched as Dave looked around the room, before settling on the paperwork in front of him, “Anywho, enough ‘bout me, watcha a workin’ on?”
“Paperwork-“
“Well, a-doy, I can see that-“
“Ok, so if you let me finish talking, it’s paperwork for the upcoming employee convention that I…” Phil’s eyes scanned back over the papers, “..probably shouldn’t be telling you about yet”.
“Didn’ realise you were such a rule follower!”
“What? What gave you the impression I wasn’t?” Phil blanched, eyes flickering up from the papers to Dave. “I’m the manager, of course I follow the rules!”
Dave gave him a look, as if he was silently asking him if he was serious, before starting to list off his fingers. “Ya’ got wasted wit’ me at th’ last employee con-ven-shon, ya’ kept an animal in tha’ buildin’, ya’ stole that dawg robot thang wit’ me, ya’ let me take paid lunch breaks that last over thirty minutes, ya’-“
“Alright, alright!” Phil groaned, giving a dirty look to Dave’s own ‘see what I mean’ expression, “Most- Basically all of that rule breaking is stuff I did with you!”
“Takes two ta’ tango, Philzacho.”
Phil sputtered, “What?”
“Like Gazpacho? Caus’ tha’s what we ‘ad for lunch?”
“That’s another thing, if we’re talking about rule breaking, you can’t call me Phil, or ‘Philly’, or ‘Philzacho!” Phil frowned, “It’s Mr Guy, or ‘Sir’ at the least, hell, I’d even take just ‘Guy’!”
“Woah, woah! I ain’t ever said I was anti-‘you-breaking-the-rules’, calm down!”
Phil sighed and turned back to his paperwork, looking over the waivers and other event details as he signed whatever he needed to sign. There was another silence this time, though noticeably more tense.
“Mr Miller, do you need anything? I believe it’s been-“ Phil checked the clock on the wall, one of the only things in his office that worked, “twenty minutes since your break was supposed to end.”
Dave looked downtrodden, but eventually shook his head.
“Uh, no- no, must’ve lost track o’ time!” He stood up, smoothing out his pants as he began to leave, “ah- actually, I just remembered-“
He shook his head, gathering his words, “Look, I didn’t jus’ come in to ya’ office to eat ya’ food, or run m’ mouth-“
“Really?”
“Shaddup- sorry, I didn’ mean that, uh- those animatronics in th’ back room..” Dave chewed on his lip, “As sure as I’m standin’ here, they have some sorta grudge against me that I can’t figure out- I know they ain’t sentient, but look- cross my heart- one of ‘em started reaching out t’wrds me!”
“Mr Miller-“
“I know, I know! It’s hard to believe but it’s like.. like they’re haun’ed!”
Phil’s breath hitched, the air catching in his lungs as a flash of blood splattered over his mind.
He blinked it away.
“No- No, it’s.. I’ll look into it.”, Phil loosened his grip on his pen, only noticing how tightly he had been holding it when a jolt of pain shot through his wrist.
Dave visibly brightened, “ah- thank ya’, Phil, honestly I just expected ya’ to call me a loon and send me awf on m’ way.”
Phil rolled his eyes, though the tenseness from earlier had cooled, “I am sending you off on your way, Mr Miller, get back to work!”
Dave saluted, then walked out the door.
Phil turned his eyes back to his paperwork, and forced his hand still.