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“Fuck.”
Silence reigned in the back room of Freddy Fazbear’s, broken only by the cards in Gabriel’s hands falling to the ground.
Gabriel turned his head slowly towards Susie, who was laid on her stomach colouring, legs kicking in the air like nothing happened. “Susie?” He asked shakily.
Susie looked up at him, her face the picture of innocence. “What?”
Gabriel swallowed thickly and forced a shaky smile onto his face. “What did you just say?” He asked, his voice sounding strained, causing Jeremy to snort.
Susie tilted her head in confusion. “I said what.”
“No, um, before that.”
Susie perked up and smiled. “Oh, I said fuck!”
Gabriel looked like he’d been shot while Jeremy slapped his hand over his mouth in an attempt to stifle his laughter. Cassidy made no such effort and was on her back cackling while Evan and Fritz looked at her in mild concern.
“Right.” Gabriel pushed himself up and walked over to Susie, squatting down in front of her. “Susie, sweetie, that’s a bad word, and we don’t say it, ok?”
Susie tilted her head again, eyebrows scrunching in confusion. “But why? How can a word be bad?”
Gabriel wrung his hands nervously. “Um, it just is ok, I’ll get back to you with a proper explanation later, but right now can you just promise to never say that word again?”
Susie thought for a moment before looking back up with a blinding smile. “Ok!”
Gabriel smiled and patted her head. “Good girl. Now, can you go and play with Charlie for a bit? I need to talk to the others.”
Susie nodded and pushed herself up, skipping away happily.
Once Susie was out of sight, Gabriel turned slowly to face the others with a dangerous smile that quickly had everyone, bar Cassidy, shutting up and fearing for their lives as much as ghosts could. “Would anyone care to tell me who taught Susie the fuck word?” He asked, tone sugary sweet.
“The fuck word!” Cassidy wheezed.
Gabriel pointed at her accusingly. “Did you do it? Did you taint her?”
Cassidy shook her head, still clutching her sides. “No, but I wish I did!”
Gabriel took a breath to steady himself. “Alright. Well, this is a very serious offence that requires a full investigation. I will interview each of you separately and once I find out who did it,” He cracked his knuckles, smile not wavering. “By god are you in for it.”
Fritz stared Gabriel down in defiance. “What the hell can you even do? We’re all already dead.”
“Oh trust me, I’ll figure it out.”
~*~*~*~
Gabriel laced his fingers together and set his hands on the security guard’s desk, staring down Fritz who was sitting on the other side of the desk, arms folded and slouched down in his seat. The rest of the children were scattered throughout the restaurant far away from each other so they couldn’t help each other come up with a story to fool him. They were all also in view of a camera so Gabriel could keep an eye on them all, hence them sitting in the guard’s office.
Gabriel finally broke eye contact with Fritz, who was beginning to squirm nervously, and looked to the notes he had written on the unicorn notepad Charlie had leant to him to aid in his investigation. “According to my research and what I know about Susie’s attention span, this… word must have been taught to her today.” He looked back to Fritz. “Where were you today?”
Fritz looked away, his arms crossed as a way to appear more confident than he really was. “I was in the play structure scaring everyone.” He met Gabriel’s eyes. “You know, like I always am?”
Gabriel didn’t look convinced. “Oh really now?”
Fritz threw his hands up and slumped back in his chair. “Yes! Look, I didn’t teach Susie the f-word, so just leave me alone! We both know it was probably Cassidy anyway.” He looked away and crossed his arms again. “I mean it’s definitely something she’d do.” He muttered.
Gabriel ran his hand down his face before pausing. “Fritz?”
“What?”
Gabriel straightened up and looked at Fritz with a smirk. “Say fuck.”
Fritz looked at him wide-eyed. “What the hell?”
“You heard me. Say fuck.”
Fritz stuck his chin out. “Alright.”
Silence.
Gabriel leaned his head on his hand. “I’m waiting.”
Fritz shuffled in place. “I can do it.”
“Then do it.”
“Fu…”
“Come on.”
“Get off my ass!”
“When you say it.”
“Fuuu…”
“...”
“Fuuuuurick.”
Gabriel snorted.
“Shut up!” Fritz yelled, his face so red you could hardly tell where his hair began.
Gabriel waved his hand. “You can go.” He said, looking away and trying to stifle his laughter.
Fritz got up with a huff, running out of the room as fast as possible.
~*~*~*~
Gabriel stared at Evan.
Evan stared at Gabriel.
Gabriel raised his eyebrow.
Evan started crying.
Gabriel rounded the desk to hug Evan.
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Evan cried.
“I know this, and I love you,” Gabriel said, petting his head.
~*~*~*~
Cassidy tried to keep a straight face as she stared Gabriel dead in the eyes, but she couldn’t stop the edges of her mouth from twitching upwards. Eventually, she broke and started laughing. “I’m sorry, this whole thing is just so funny.”
“Did you do it?”
Cassidy sighed wistfully. “Unfortunately, no. I haven’t been near her since yesterday. Apparently that guy who came in to interview for the guard job was one of Evan’s brother’s friends and you know what happened with them, so I was with him all day trying to calm him down.”
Gabriel frowned. “Really, is he okay?”
“Yep. Said his name was Jeremy, funnily enough, though he also said he was the nicest of them all which is why he didn’t blow up so bad that I would have needed your help.”
“The nicest?”
Cassidy nodded. “Apparently he was just really annoying sometimes, you know, coming into his room and stuff, but he did say he would play with him sometimes so I guess he’s not a complete scumbag” She glared at the desk. “Still an asshole, though.”
Gabriel rose from his seat. “Alright, I’m gonna go talk to Evan about this and see if your story checks out.” He turned around in the hallway. “Don’t move.”
Cassidy threw a thumbs up over her shoulder.
A few minutes later, Gabriel returned and sat back at the desk. “Go away.” He muttered, placing his head down.
~*~*~*~
“Alright Jeremy, where were you today?”
Jeremy’s face contorted in confusion. “What do you mean? I was with you all day.”
Gabriel stared at him for a moment before slamming his head down with a groan.
Jeremy reached over to pat his head. “There there.”
~*~*~*~
Gabriel stood at the head of the table in one of the party rooms, raking his eyes across the ghosts that sat around it. “After extensive investigation, I have come to the conclusion that…” He paused before sighing and hanging his head. “She must have just picked it up from one of the adults or something.” He flopped down into a seat.
Jeremy reached over and patted his knee. “It’s alright buddy, these things just happen sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel mumbled in defeat.
After a few moments of silence, Cassidy slammed her hands down on the table and stood up, making Evan jump from where he was sitting beside her. “Alright, now that that’s over, can we play Monopoly?”
“Last time we played that, Gabriel and Jeremy got divorced and yelled for custody over Evan for like an hour straight.” Fritz pointed out.
“Exactly.”
There was a pause before Fritz grinned and got up to go get the game.
Evan buried his face in his hands. “You’re all worse than my actual family.”
~*~*~*~
Evan poked his head into the party room where Susie was playing with her dolls, having escaped the latest Monopoly argument. Gabriel and Jeremy were going through their third divorce of the night and they’d argued over his ‘custody’ just as much. “Hi, Susie.” He said, sitting down next to her.
“Hi, Evan!” Susie beamed up at him, offering up one of her dolls. “Wanna play?”
Evan smiled and nodded, taking the offered doll.
After a while of playing, Evan looked over his shoulder to make sure that no one was there, from the sounds of it, Gabriel and Jeremy had made up again and were getting married for the fourth time that night while Cassidy officiated and Fritz screeched more than sang his own rendition of wedding music. He turned back to Susie with a mischievous grin. “Hey Susie, wanna learn a new cool word?”
Personally, Evan thought that things were getting a bit too boring lately, so he’d taken it upon himself to use the same technique his brother used to annoy their father, albeit tweaked a bit.
Susie looked up at him and nodded her head enthusiastically.
Thank you Michael for teaching him to swear all those years ago, it was very funny to see Gabriel so worked up.