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Somehow, he just knew.
Sammy knew that his son was up to something as soon as he noticed that he hadn't come home from his movie. It had been hours since the movie was set to end. Granted, Gregory was a very free-spirited kid who often returned home late, but tonight was different. He could just feel it.
Being a single dad... it was tough. Gregory had been even more distant and set in his ways since his other father, Michael, had died. Sammy had some idea of what had happened to him, and, though he didn't want his son to resent Mike for leaving them to work in such an awful, unsafe place, he couldn't tell him the truth. He couldn't tell him of the dark past that their family was tied to. He was just too afraid that his son would follow the same path if made aware of its existence. He couldn't have that. He wouldn't allow any more of his family to get hurt by the mistakes of previous generations.
He constantly told Gregory to stay away from the Fazbear franchise, especially their large Pizzaplex location. Mike had been working at their previous restaurant before it had burned down with him inside, and Sammy knew that this was no accident. The Pizzaplex was its successor, built on top of the burned building's ashes. Right on top of his beloved husband's grave. On top of his boy's father's grave.
Gregory was no idiot. He was able to put two and two together, and he wanted answers as to what really happened to his father. Sammy often tried to move their conversations in a different direction, but they always came back to the Pizzaplex. After a while, Gregory had grown quiet. Contemplative. He stopped trying with Sammy, as he knew that he'd never get any answers through his pleas.
When Gregory had simply disappeared into the night, Sam knew what was happening. He knew that his son couldn't stifle his pain-fueled curiosity any longer. He had finally broken his chains and went to investigate his father's death himself. In a panic, Sam checked the tracker app that he secretly hid on Gregory's phone, pleading that his father's intuition was going haywire in his older years. To his dismay, his fears were confirmed. The phone, along with Gregory, was inside the Pizzaplex.
Sam wouldn't stand by and let his only son meet the same fate as his loved ones. His husband, his sister, all gone because of one disgusting, power-hungry franchise. Even if he couldn't save them, he was absolutely hellbent on saving the one light left in his desolate, broken existence.
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Sammy gathered supplies, preparing himself for whatever could be thrown at him. This new "pizzaplex," as they called it, looked innocent enough, as if the company was trying for a fresher start, but he could never fully trust a Fazbear's. It's impossible to shake decades of blood from a name and call it spotless. That's just not the nature of the world.
Given his position as a private detective, Sam had access to a variety of weapons and defenses, but none of them could make him feel safe. There was something about those Fazbear's locations that shook him to his core and reminded him of all that he'd lost over the years, and all that he still had to lose. It was a terrifying feeling, but he was more than willing to shoulder it if it meant being able to save his son.
That evening, he set off for the pizzaplex with his equipment and phone tracker in hand. He wanted to make this as quick as possible, so he planned on using the phone tracker to generalize where his son might be in the vast building.
The first order of business, however, was getting into the building in the first place. Fazbear's had always been ahead of the times when it came to technology, so Sammy had no doubt in his mind that they must have some sort of high-tech security measures in place for such a large establishment. Of course, they had tried using animatronics as protectors in the past, and Sammy knew all too well how that worked out. His poor, poor sister. Left out in the cold and wet to meet her harsh end because that damn security puppet wasn't strong enough to do its job.
Pushing his memories aside, Sam walked alongside the building looking for a discrete entrance. He expected to see an abundance of security cameras or at least some human guards surrounding the building, but none were to be found.
"That's odd," he thought. Security cameras had always been the lifeblood of Fazbear's security guards, from what Mike had told him.
As he moved on, he noticed a large vent on the side of the building, conveniently positioned above some sturdy looking crates.
"It can't possibly be that easy," Sammy mumbled, pulling himself up on top of the boxes and examining the vent placed in front of him.
But apparently, it was. Hesitantly, he removed the vent covering with the multi-tool that he kept in his pocket- a keepsake from his father. Shuffling into the vent with an aching groan, Sammy made his best attempt at putting the vent cover back on from the inside.
"That'll have to do," he sighed. "I'm getting too old for this shit."
He turned and began to crawl through the vents, his movement causing a muffled metallic clang with each shuffle forward. He winced at the noise, fearing that he might attract the attention of a guard, or worse, an animatronic, but continued on anyway. He had no choice.
He wandered on for what seemed like an hour before he started to see vent openings leading to the main portions of the building. He began to look through each one, hoping to find one that led to a room without any activity and hopefully some form of makeshift step system so he wouldn't fall 6 feet down onto his ass.
He noticed that many of the rooms were occupied by scrawny white robots that moved around on a segway-like set of wheels. Many of them wore hats that read "security," and, given his previous experiences with the company's creations, he chose not to underestimate them and wanted to avoid them as much as possible.
After looking through the fourth or fifth vent, with all of the rooms being occupied by at least one of these "security bots," he began to hear a clanking noise, much like the noise he made when crawling through the metallic space. The problem was... he wasn't moving. Realization hitting, Sam quickly turned around to find a small, spider-like animatronic crawling around the bend and stopping to face him.
That definitely wasn't good.
Cursing, Sammy started to move much faster than he had before, not caring that this amplified the noise that he was making. He just wanted to get away from that... that... THING.
He resolved to go through the very next exit he could find. He didn't care what was waiting for him on the other side, he just had to get out of there before the mechanical creature caught up to him. He didn't know what it was planning, but he learned to assume the worst.
As he turned a corner, he saw a vent leading into a brightly lit room, and he headed straight for it, and slammed into the vent until it broke open. No time for delicacies, he needed to get out of there. IMMEDIATELY. The robot was only a few feet's reach away from him when he finally managed to push the vent open, falling through with a yelp.
With his luck, he fell onto a large, plush couch laden with plushies. The fall was still hard, as the vent was closer to the ceiling than he realized, but he supposed it was better than falling onto the thinly carpeted floor surrounding him. Remembering the situation he was in, his focus shot up to the vent he just fell through. The small robot emerged and met his stare for a moment with a blank look on its face, then turned and disappeared into the vents.
Sammy sat for a moment, unsure of whether the thing was gone until he finally heard the last of its metallic footsteps fade away into nothing.
"Well shit," he uttered. "Looks like good ol' Fazbear's Entertainment's still got it."
He was still never sure how Mike was able to deal with these monstrosities every night; Sam was having enough trouble with the newer models so far, which weren't supposed to have the same "bugs" as the first ones.
As he stood, he glanced around the room that he was in. Luckily, it was empty. He found himself in a bright red room with checkerboard trim. 80s style neon signs were strewn across the walls, some of them symbols, and some of them words.
"Freddy Fazbear," he read out loud. "This must be where they keep the bastard when he's not in use."
To his left he saw that one of the walls was made of glass, a window into the main public portion of the building. It kind of reminded him of a zoo exhibit; people could come and watch the bear "in his natural habitat." Sammy chuckled a bit at this, thinking of how ridiculous this whole thing really was. But for now, he needed to find a way out of that room.
Walking to the wall across from him, he noticed a door with a touch screen entry pad. Intuitively, he tapped the screen, causing the door to shoot open. As he walked out, the door shut quickly behind him, causing him to jump a bit. Sighing, he made his way through the queue positioned outside of the room and into the main atrium. It was massive, he had to admit. Way larger than any of the other Fazbear's locations he had ever seen or been to.
"This might be a bit harder than I thought," he grumbled, pulling out his phone.
Close range, the tracker app was more difficult to use, as it was meant more to give a general location than an exact position. But it was better than nothing. It seemed to be pointing him towards the front of the building, so he decided to check there first. He needed to get his son out of there, and fast. He could only hope that Gregory was fairing better than he was.
He walked for a good 5 minutes, exploring every hallway and nook that he could on his way to the main entrance. He realized that the security bots weren't built to do any real damage, so he was beginning to calm his nerves and move a bit less cautiously in favor of speed and efficiency.
His confidence was fairly high until he heard a sound that made him freeze in place: thick, metallic clanking. Footsteps. Footsteps of what, he had no idea, but he could already tell that it was something much more dangerous than what he had dealt with so far. The rhythmic, calculated steps grew closer and closer, and he shrunk behind a set of trashcans in an attempt to hide from whatever it might be.
Suddenly, he heard it speak.
"You really think we won't find you?" The voice asked in a deep, robotic drawl. "You can't hide forever!"
Sammy's blood ran cold. They knew he was here. Of course they knew he was here. His night had been far from the stealth mission than he wanted it to be, and there was no way that they could have missed his clambering, cursing, and screaming. He had to find a way away from there, or at least find a better hiding spot.
Before he could do anything else, he caught a glimpse of the thing. It was huge, probably about 8 feet tall. It was green with a long snout and a swishing tail- an alligator? He supposed this was a new animatronic, but didn't care much in the moment. All he could think about were those sharp, protruding teeth that lined the inside of its mouth. If there was one thing that Fazbear's would always keep around in their animatronics, it was the sharp teeth. He always hated that. He knew that Mike hated it too, for more reasons than one.
"Hey kid, come on out! We're only trying to help."
Wait... kid? It was looking for a kid? Sammy relaxed for a brief moment, relieved that they still hadn't been alerted of his presence, but he immediately tensed up again with realization. It was looking for a kid. It was looking for Gregory. His Gregory.
There's no way that he would allow that monster to go anywhere near his child, let alone find him. He had to do something. With a combination of adrenaline, parental instinct, and plain stupidity, he rose up from his hiding place and confronted the hulking animatronic.
"Hey, you slimy green bastard! Don't go anywhere near my fucking son."
Before it had any time to react, Sammy pulled his pistol from its holster and fired into the thing. He worried that the bullets wouldn't be enough to pierce through the gator's casing, but they went straight through its torso, sending sparks flying as they did so. Not being much of a mechanic, he wasn't sure if he was hitting anything important with the bullets, but he got lucky and struck the thing where it mattered.
Garbled, almost panicked sounds escaped its voice box as the bullets did their work, causing the animatronic to fall to the ground and spaz before coming to a dead halt. Sammy got closer, admiring his marksmanship and sheer luck, and decided to move on. It looked like he had that thing down for the count, but he didn't want to stick around and find out if he was wrong.
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He started moving faster, checking his tracking app as he went. He should have been right on top of Gregory, from what he could see. Not wanting to attract any more unwanted attention, he refused to call out to his son. He had to find him on his own.
Soon, he exited the labyrinth of hallways and entered a large, open space. It seemed to be the main entrance to the building, with large, glass doors and a small ticket booth and turnstile area off to the side. This place was starting to seem more like some dark, twisted amusement park than a pizzeria.
As he walked into the center of the room and scanned the area, he could hear footsteps coming from a far hallway. They didn't sound as menacing as the ones that he had heard earlier in the night; they were lighter, faster, more... organic. Could it be?
Suddenly, a figure appeared and ran into the main area, stopping when it saw Sammy. It was a small-framed, scraggly boy in his early to mid-teens, and he looked absolutely exhausted, even in the dim light.
"PAPA?!?" He exclaimed.
Tears welled up in Sammy's eyes, and a smile broke on his face as he ran to the boy.
"Gregory, oh my God, thank goodness you're okay. I was so worried! When you didn't come home, I just knew that something had to be up, so I came looking for you."
The look of confusion and relief in Gregory's face shifted to one of suspicion.
"How did you even find me, anyway?" He asked.
"Well... I uh, may have installed a tracking app on your phone," Sam said sheepishly.
"What?" Gregory argued. "I'm almost 15 years old, I can take care of myself!"
Sammy's resolve hardened, remembering exactly why they were in that situation in the first place.
"Apparently you can't," he said. "I told you hundreds of times to stay away from this place! Do you know how much danger you could have put yourself in just by setting foot in this place?"
"No," Gregory responded, "Because you never cared enough to tell me why-"
Gregory was cut off by a third voice, a voice of someone, or something, that Sammy hadn't heard approaching until just now. He heard the cold, hard, metallic steps coming into the room and he froze, holding his son close to him.
"Gregory, there you are! Who are you talking to-"
The thing stops dead when it sees the two. It was an animatronic bear, presumably the "Freddy" of this location. It stood about as tall as the alligator that Sammy had encountered earlier, but this one had an orange, red, and blue color scheme, a shorter snout, and Freddy's small, signature top hat. Not another one of those monsters.
"Gregory, get behind me!" Sammy snapped at his son, pointing his pistol at the thing before them.
"Stay back, or I'll shoot!"
"Papa, no!" Gregory exclaimed, trying to pull away from his father. "Freddy's been helping me this whole time! He's good, I promise!"
"What? What do you mean-"
Sammy stopped to look at the bear, who didn't seem to be doing much of anything, really. Just staring at the two of them. Suddenly, a thick, black ichor leaked from the bear's eye sockets, slowly running down its face. It's almost as if it was... crying.
"...S-Sammy?"
The animatronic's voice glitched when it spoke, briefly sounding almost like a person speaking through a radio. But not just any person.
The two stared at each other in silence. The man looked up at the towering animatronic, completely confused as to how it knew his name. How it... knew that voice.
"Why do you know my name?" Sammy asked, rage bubbling in his chest. "And where... where did you get that fucking voice?"
As he spoke, he pointed the gun at the bear. Gregory stopped pulling, but he was pleading with his father despite his confusion. Sammy didn't hear a word of it. He was completely focused on that thing that sat in front of him. He wanted to shoot it straight out, but he figured it would be better to get some answers first, so he bridled his rage for a moment.
"Sammy... it's me. Please..."
The voice's glitch was stronger now, leaking out more of that voice that Sammy had known so well. As it spoke, the eyes, which were once a sky blue, began to glow a soft purple. More of the black substance fell down its face in a slow, steady stream.
Sammy's anger remained for a moment, thinking that this all had to be a trick. A sick, horrible joke that somebody had to be playing on him. But he looked into those eyes, and he knew. He knew who this was, and it terrified him.
"Mikey?"
The bear- no, Michael- gave a single, slow nod, looking away for a moment. He sighed, a feat thought impossible for a being with no lungs to speak of, and slowly stepped closer to Sammy and Gregory. His eyes pointed forward again, focused on Sammy, who was moving closer to him as well, leaving a confused Gregory in place.
When the two met, the animatronic towered over Sammy's frame. Seemingly melting in front of the man, he knelt down and hung his head. The movements were strangely human for something built of metal and code. Cautiously, Sammy reached out and touched the bear's chest.
"No... it can't... not after all this time... how could you... why did you leave us?" Sammy rambled. "And you've been here all this time? I just... I can't."
At that moment, Sammy fell to the ground and sobbed.
Matching his tears, the animatronic looked up and gently picked up Sammy's face from the chin, wiping away his tears with a massive finger from his other hand.
"Sammy... I'm so... so sorry," he sobbed. "It's just... my dad. I couldn't just let... but now... I'm so sorry..."
Sam began to wipe his own tears, holding on to Mike's borrowed hands in the process. It was so odd, so uncanny to see someone whom he knew so well... whom he loved, after all these years, in a body that wasn't theirs. In a body that looked exactly like the monsters that they had to fight all their life.
"I never wanted this for you. For any of us," Sammy continued, with a bit more firmness in his voice. "First Charlie... then you... just... how is this... I just can't believe it's you. It's you!"
Through it all, it was still him. It was his husband. His sobs turned to choked laughter when he came to the full realization that he had the love of his life back.
"Yeah, it's me," Mike said, smirking as much as he could in this form and laughing a bit through his dark tears. "Hey, you look even more like your old man than when I lost you. How about that, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Sammy giggled, wiping his tears away. "I'm the spitting image of that bastard. But... at least you look nothing like yours anymore."
Both laughing, Michael leaned down further and pressed his forehead against his husband's. They stayed like this for a moment, trying to pretend that things were as they were, pretend that none of this evil existed in the world and that they were just briefly separated by normal life things. Like nothing had changed. But it had.
"Papa... what's going on?"
Gregory stepped forward, confusion plastered on his face. He was cautious, as he didn't expect this sudden change of emotion in the room and didn't want the aggression to return.
"I... I don't understand. You called Freddy Mike... Wasn't that Dad's name? How..."
The two still knelt together, not wanting to be apart, but their happy reunion was bound to end eventually. Their laughs faded, and their looks of joy and yearning became melancholy. The reality of the world was setting back in, and there was nothing they could do to stop it at this point. They couldn't hide it from their son any longer. Not after this.
Looking at each other and then to the boy before them, they knew they had to say something. They just weren't exactly sure where to start.
"Gregory, there's a lot of things about your dad and I's past that we decided not to tell you. It was... for your own protection," Sammy started, hesitation showing through his voice. "We wanted you to have a better life than we did, a life where you didn't have to worry about the deepest evils of the world. About the monsters that go bump in the night, and how close any of us could be to the worst of these abominations without even knowing. Those thoughts shouldn't be the responsibility of any child, and I'm so, so sorry that you were born into a world where they'd have to be."
"Papa... what are you saying?"
"Your grandfather on your dad's side... he was among the worst of men. He was a killer. He did a lot of horrible things to innocent people, children even... things that were horrible enough to warp their souls and ruin their existence. That bastard... he trapped them in his machines. They were his unwilling lab rats in his search for eternal life. Your dad... he saw this happening and vowed to stop it. But in his efforts, he got caught in the crossfire and became an experiment himself. He was just trying to protect..."
"To protect you... Both of you," Mike interjected. "I had to leave to keep both of you safe from what I'd already fallen to."
Gregory stood silent, trying to piece together what he had just heard. Sammy knew that Gregory wasn't a particularly superstitious kid, and he could see in his face that he was beginning to doubt everything placed in front of him. That he wouldn't accept that this was real, that this was the truth. But, as he saw his son look into the eyes of the animatronic before him, his fears faded away. He could see it, too. He couldn't deny that those were his Father's eyes, the eyes of the man that kept him warm and safe and read him bedtime stories every night when he was young.
"Y-you're... Dad?" Gregory asked, a hint of disbelief in his voice as he looked between the two kneeling in front of him, trying to figure out if this was all a joke. "You're my DAD? But... why didn't you tell me?!? Why didn't you recognize me? How-"
As he spoke, his voice began to falter and succumb to his tears. The boy's emotion was contagious, and his fathers began to tear up along with him.
"I'm so sorry, Superstar. You're just so grown up... I can't believe it," Michael says, fighting to keep his voice level through his sobs. "I could barely recognize you. I had very little memory of who I was, I only knew what my purpose was: to protect. I'd get a flash of a memory here and there, but none of it was enough to help me truly remember. But seeing you and your papa together... I remember. I remember everything. I remember... how much I missed you. How much I hated leaving you."
As Mike spoke, Gregory stepped closer to the two before him, slowly starting to believe more and more with each passing word. By the end of the explanation, Gregory had wrapped his arms around the bear before him, giving his father a hug for the first time in 8 years.
"Dad... I missed you so much. I just can't believe it's you," Gregory sniffed, holding onto Mike as if he would disappear if he didn't. It was childish, he knew, but he didn't care. "This... it's impossible! I just... I can't believe that somebody could... that somebody would do this to you, let alone your own father."
"I'm so sorry... this must be a lot for the both of you," Mike said. "It's a lot for me, too. I just... can't believe that I managed to forget the two guys that I couldn't live without."
The three sat together, Mike holding each of his loved ones in his oversized arms, hoping to never have to let go again. They sat in silence until Gregory decided to break it.
"It must be so weird to be stuck in there," he said, looking Mike up and down with genuine curiosity. "Can... can you feel anything?"
Mike scrunched up his face in thought for a moment; it was clear that he hadn't had much time to think about this with his regained memory of the human experience, or at least his human experience, despite its abnormalities.
"No. I just feel... hollow," he responded. "I can feel what I'm made of, and I know when something touches me, but I don't quite remember what touch was like as a human... it's been so long since I was normal that I barely know what I'm missing anymore."
As he finished, Sam pulled closer to Mike with a smirk, looking him up and down.
"Oh, I can remind you of what you've been missing," Sammy said, biting his lip seductively.
"S-SAMUEL!"
Mike blushed harder than they ever would have thought possible for a robot, and Gregory broke away from the family embrace sticking his tongue out in disgust.
"Get a room, weirdos! I didn't miss how gross you guys used to be."
The two chuckled, Sammy laughing the hardest, as they watched their son complain and gag just like he did when they kissed and showed affection to each other in the past. Back when their lives were a bit more normal.
As the laughter died down, Sammy chose to address the elephant in the room, or should he say, the 8-foot animatronic bear in the room.
"In all seriousness, how are we going to get you out of here, Mike? You're not as easy to hide as you were when you were a walking corpse, and honestly, I'm surprised that we got as far as we did with that. I can't lose you again. I just can't."
At the thought of bringing his dad back home, Gregory's face lit up with excitement.
"Yeah, come with us, Dad! We can be a family again! I'm sure there's a way to sneak you out of here."
Mike's face darkened as he spent a moment contemplating the proposal.
"I... I can't," he said, looking at his family with sadness in his eyes. "I was brought back here for a reason. My father still isn't dead, and he's looking for new victims. I can't just live my life and let him ruin somebody else's when I could have done something about it. I'm so, so sorry. I just have to keep you... keep everyone safe."
"Mike... you don't have to do this alone," Sam argued. "Hell, we won't let you do this alone. Look at what happened last time; you don't wear the lone wolf look very well. You died- twice! You're not going down for a third time on our watch."
"But... I can't let you get hurt," Mike protested, with a distinct hint of fear in his words. "You're too important to me-"
"Dad, we can handle it! Papa's got police experience, and I've been fighting and destroying killer animatronics twice my size all night! Where do you think I got all your spare parts from?"
"You've been doing what?!?"
Gregory looks at his fathers sheepishly, wondering if he managed to just get himself in trouble once again.
"Oh yeah... I forgot to mention that. I kinda had to trap and disassemble some of the other Glamrocks to get the parts needed for your upgrades, Fred- I mean Dad."
Both Sam and Mike stared at their son in disbelief. Sam knew he was a tough one, but maybe he was more worried about his son than he needed to be.
"Well, it looks like he got both the strength and the robotic expertise from your side of the family, Sam," Mike said, looking at his husband with an impressed smile.
Sammy smirked and rubbed the back of his head, not knowing what to say.
"I... damn, I don't know where he got that from, but it wasn't from me."
"Of course it was," Mike stated matter-of-factly. "I knew you'd raise him to be strong like you. I'm so proud of you, both of you."
Sammy looked at his husband with a warm smile. He was so scared that he was doing a bad job raising their son on his own, but Mike was right. Their son was turning out to be a strong young gentleman. A bit of a stubborn one, but that just made him who he was.
"So that means that we can help you, right? Papa's right, we can't leave you alone in all of this. This is our fight now, too."
Both Sam and Gregory stared at Mike expectantly. It was obvious that Mike wasn't very comfortable with the situation still, especially with being put on the spot, as he squirmed a bit before making his decision.
"...Fine," he said. "You can help. But if either of you get hurt, I'll never forgive you for it. I... I missed you guys so much. I can't lose you again."
Gregory looked at Mike triumphantly, but then his face shifted.
"So... does that mean that you're coming home with us?"
Mike looked at him sadly. He had clearly made up his mind, even though he didn't like the choice that he had to make.
"...As much as I'd love to, I can't. When everything's said and done with, there's nothing I'll want more than to burn this place down to the ground and come back to you both. But... it's more complicated than that right now. My father doesn't know that I'm back in this form; If I show my true side and go home with you, he will know that I am not what meets the eye and he might choose to target not just me, but all of us. I can't have that."
Gregory looked disappointed, but he didn't argue further. He knew that his father was right.
"Then what do you want to do?" Sammy asked. "Stay here in this Hell hole?"
Sam especially didn't like leaving his husband there. He had seen what the place was like; they treated him like some commodity, like an animal that could be paraded around for the enjoyment of others. They treated him like an object. For all they knew, he was an object. He deserved better than that.
"For now, yes. It's the safest option, and I can feel his presence on these grounds. I'll be able to keep an eye out for him without being noticed if I keep up the himbo bear front and don't give him any hints to who I am."
"So how are we going to help?" Gregory asked. "We'd be noticed if we stayed here with you, and we're not just going to leave you to do this by yourself again."
Mike thought for a moment, then he straightened and lit up. It was so odd how expressive he could be despite his... limitations.
"You can help by keeping an eye out for any strange occurrences in the news," he said. "And Sammy, keep watch on the reports coming into your unit. Any unexpected accounts of murder or assault in this general vicinity are likely to be linked to my father. I need to know if he leaves the building."
Sam and Gregory nodded in agreement.
"Sounds like a plan," Sammy said. "But how are we going to keep in contact with you? Do you have, like, a built-in phone or something?"
"Not funny, Sam." Mike glared at his husband as he spoke, making him stifle a giggle.
"But... I actually kind of do. Gregory, I'll manually extend the range of your Fazwatch so that we can keep in contact. I can't make it go too far past the Pizzaplex, though, so it may be best to remain close."
"Will a few blocks away be close enough?" Sammy asked. "I can borrow my buddy's condo while he's out of town. It's pretty close to here."
"Yes...This... this might just work." Mike's bear ears picked up with his growing excitement as he spoke. Sam thought it was kind of cute.
"I don't know how I've been managing without you. Just... thank you. Thank you so much for finding me."
"Thank your son for not listening to me," Sam said. "I was stupid enough to think that an Afton wouldn't come back for a second time and told him to stay away from here."
"As much as I hate being this way, I suppose it really does run in the family," Mike said. The distaste was clear in his voice, but he seemed used to the insanity that was his family's curse at this point.
Kneeling, he looked his son right in the eyes.
"But thank you, Gregory. You're growing up and becoming your own person, and I'm so proud of who you are and the choices you've made."
Gregory beams, wiping away a tear as he moves to hug his father.
"...It really is you, isn't it," he said. "Thanks Dad. I've really missed you."
Sammy went to join them, hugging them both from behind with renewed vigor.
"Let's finish this. Once and for all," he said. "Let's be the last family that was torn apart by your father's selfishness. He won't be coming back this time."
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