Chapter Text
Freddy seemed reluctant to let him go, something desperate in the way he held Gregory to his banged-up metal chest. Gregory didn’t protest, still shaking a little from how close it’d been. His cheek stung where Vanny’s—Vanessa’s—knife had sliced a neat line. But eventually, Freddy’s need to check on his friends couldn’t be put off any longer, and with great hesitation, he settled Gregory back on the floor.
“Would you like to come with me?” he asked.
Gregory thought for a moment, but shook his head. “Nah. I’ll wait here.” He’d done enough running around the pizzaplex already. He kinda just wanted to sit down and breathe for a few minutes.
But Freddy, the big worrywart, hesitated, glancing over at Vanessa’s prone form. Gregory’s hands were still sticky with blood, and he hadn’t quite managed to unclench his fingers from around the slippery mess of wires and tiny little circuit chips.
“I’ll be fine,” Gregory insisted, taking a step back from his protector. “And you’ll be just down there.” He jerked his head toward the ground level of the lobby, where three animatronics were sprawled, eyes dark. Up on the top level, they hadn’t had the best view of Chica, Roxy, and Monty as they sparked and spasmed like they were having seizures, but it still managed to be one of the worst things he’d seen that night.
With Vanny gone, so, it seemed, was the virus that made them all bloodthirsty. Freddy’s distressed cry as the trio had fallen, looking as dead as robots could be, still rang in Gregory’s ears.
“If you are sure…”
“I am!” He shoved at Freddy’s legs as if he could get him to move somewhere he didn’t want to go. “You’ve spent all night helping me. Go help them now.”
Freddy sighed, but it was fond, and his ears wiggled. “Very well. But do not hesitate to shout if you need me. For anything. If she starts to wake up—”
Only rolling his eyes a little, Gregory drawled, “Yes, Daaad. I know, I know. Now go already!”
Chuckling, Freddy had the audacity to ruffle his hair before descending the staircase. Smoothing it out with a teeny tiny smile, Gregory’s attention once again fell on the device in his hand, if it could be called that.
It was what he’d have nightmares about, he figured. Not Monty lunging at him, or Roxy baring her fangs, or Chica’s lifeless slump and dragging feet, too close to a walking corpse for comfort. No, not any of that.
The image imprinted on the insides of his eyelids was the way the wires had slid out of Vanessa’s skin, drawing a piercing scream from her. The way they’d dripped blood and something thick and black and rotten. The way it just kept coming, like he was pulling endless veins or ligaments or nerves straight out the back of her neck. The way her eyes had rolled back in her head until only the whites showed, her jaw hinged open as she choked on her howl of pain.
The way she’d collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been severed, except the strings had been woven into her very flesh and blood.
Vanessa hadn’t moved, hadn’t made even a peep since. Was as still as if he’d killed her by yanking on that odd little plastic tab pressed flush against her nape.
Freddy was a very good protector. But he wasn’t human. He didn’t know what it meant to be so full of fear and grief and horror and pain that you shut down.
Gregory did. And Gregory knew, unlike Freddy, that Vanessa wasn’t unconscious anymore. Maybe she hadn’t been at all.
He drifted closer, fingers aching, but he still didn’t let the wires go. Some part of him feared they’d come to life the moment he dropped them and wiggle back to where they came from, or worse, try to burrow into his own spine. Another part of him felt a lot like Vanessa probably felt right then, like that awful moment hadn’t ended. Like holding on was the only thing keeping him alive.
Sitting down on the blood-splattered carpet near her shoulder—his shorts were ruined anyway—he bit his lip. Her head lay at an angle, half away from him, as it was when she crumpled, but close up now, he could see the shiny tear tracks leaking from her closed eyes.
Without speaking, he turned the bundle over in his hand, knuckles cracking quietly as they finally straightened. It wasn’t even a foot long from the tab to the weird silicone nodes at the end.
The muscles in Vanessa’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Gregory watched as her head twitched minutely in his direction.
“You should have gone with Freddy,” she eventually whispered quietly enough that he had to lean a little closer to hear.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s not safe,” Vanessa nearly mouthed. A little crinkle formed on her chin. He’d never seen an adult cry before; she looked just like he did when he tried really, really hard not to. “I’m—it’s not safe,” she repeated.
I’m not safe to be around, he was pretty sure they both heard.
Your knife is way over by that palm tree, he didn’t say. Where Freddy had smacked it so hard out of her hand, they’d all heard something in her wrist pop.
“Do you still want to kill me?” he asked instead. The wires oozed the rotten black stuff.
“No,” Vanessa breathed, shaking her head. She looked almost delirious with the way she kept shaking it, side to side, over and over, like the denial would be enough to erase the bloody cut on his cheek.
“Okay.” Gregory took a deep breath, slouching on the exhale. “That’s good.”
Her eyes cracked open and drifted over to him. She winced.
The only reason Gregory didn’t reach up to wipe at the blood drying on his face was because he was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to get someone else’s blood in your cuts. That sounded like a really bad thing.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her voice cracked somewhere in the middle, a fresh wave of tears curving down into her hairline. “I didn’t—” Vanessa cut herself off with a choked, broken laugh. She went back to shaking her head.
“I’m sorry, too.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she insisted. It was a new, unfamiliar tone. He’d only heard her speak a few times before this. That version of her had been snappy and impatient and all her words had sharp edges to them. Now, it was soft but firm. Earnest.
Like she needed him to believe what she said.
He shrugged. “It sounded like it hurt. I thought… I thought maybe I killed you by accident.”
Vanessa exhaled through her mouth. “I’m still here.” She finally turned her head the rest of the way to face him fully. Though she still looked ready to ugly cry, she was able to meet his eyes. “I’m still here,” and it sounded a little less like a bad thing that time.
Wordlessly, he offered the wires to her.
She stared at the bundle for a minute, trembling. Gregory wondered if her nightmares would be the opposite of his—not of him pulling the cables out of her but of him leaving them in.
With a little nod to himself, he dug into one of the many pockets of his shorts. He’d collected quite the selection of useful items tonight. Pulling out a pair of kid scissors, he slowly reached out and picked up Vanessa’s limp hand, the uninjured one. After tucking them against her palm, he held each end of the wires out, keeping them taut.
Eyes wide, she looked between him and the small pair of scissors. With a little effort, Vanessa leaned up on her elbow.
The dull blades didn’t easily cut through the bloody tangle of metal and plastic. It was for the best, probably. Gregory watched a bit of life return to Vanessa’s eyes as she hacked into the cables, careful not to point the rounded scissor ends at him.
• • •
When Freddy returned to the uppermost level of the lobby, he gave a slightly panicked start at what he found.
Vanessa, who not half an hour ago had attempted to kill Gregory, was sitting upright, her legs out in front of her, knees half bent. She was rocking forward and back, muffled sobs coming from her bowed head. And Gregory, his arms thrown over her shoulders, let her hold him as tightly as Freddy himself had.
Discarded off to the side was a pair of children’s scissors and a measure of bound, bloody wires cut in two.