Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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The last thing you remembered was comfortably sitting in the backseat of your Uber ride, scrolling through your phone while what you think was Maroon 5 played over the radio. You’re not really sure but the song gave off that ‘good but strangely generic’ vibe that most Maroon 5 songs have.

Well as you were idly scrolling to fill the silence of the trip you glanced out of the car window to your right just in time to be blinded by headlights before pain shot through your skull, then in the same breath things went black. It felt like you were submerged in a thick viscous liquid, so thick your limbs couldn’t move without heavy strain. You didn’t need to breathe so you just floated there thoughtlessly before you saw a light some distance away. 

You squinted and without thinking just started wading towards the light, but a voice stopped you. It wasn’t coming from the light, but instead it came from the inky dark behind you. It sounded like a man’s voice, an old man, like really old. It reminded you of your grandpa kind of, and he was calling for help. You glanced back at the light before turning back to the darkness and walked in what felt like slow motion towards it. At some point you noticed the darkness ever so slowly shifting into a scene. Like the black was fading to reveal a melting nighttime landscape.

The more you trudged forward the easier it got to move, thankfully. Soon the blurry splotches of green, brown, and tan started to solidify more until they actually began forming the details of a dirt path beneath your feet and a forest on either side of you. You continued until you were walking normally, just looking around the dark forest, realizing it should probably be pitch black since it seemed to be nighttime but there was a light right on the spot you were standing. You looked up and around you but saw no light source, though when you moved the light followed you. Then it hit you, the source of the light was you, which made no sense at all. You didn’t look like you were glowing but you couldn’t think of any other explanation for you being able to see in the 8 foot diameter around you.

“Can you hear me?”

The voice that’d been calling for help suddenly sounded much closer, causing you to flinch from surprise. They definitely sounded closer, so you raised your hands to cup around your mouth to yell back… but your stomach sank before your hands could reach your mouth. You stared at the hands before you, heart speeding up as you realized.. they were not your hands. You damn well knew what your hands looked like, you’d been looking at them for decades. But the ones attached to you now were pale, the fingers long, almost spindly with the nails clipped short. 

Your breathing hitched as you watched the hands move as you willed them to, same as if they were your own. Your eyes traveled up your arms, thin unlike how they should be, but not weak either. You looked down and froze when you realized… your fucking boobs were gone. You could actually see your feet, neither of your lumps of fat blocking your view like they usually did. Your heartbeat was definitely faster now, panic settling in your veins like poison. What the fuck was going on? This wasn’t right. Why was your body not right? Were you dreaming? You had to be; the weird darkness and sudden forest and your body being wrong. It had to be some messed up dream.

“CC-aann yy-oouu hh-eeaaar mm-ee?”

This time the original voice, the male one, sounded spliced with another one, this one female. The more you listened the more the voice lost its male tone and solidified as a strictly female one. It was higher pitched and sounded really worried. You couldn’t tell who she was calling for, but it didn’t sound like your name. Though that thought slipped away when you noticed the scene around you washing away like ink from a canvas. Soon you were in darkness again and suddenly you needed to breathe, but it was so hard. You were struggling and closed your eyes to focus on making sure you were taking air in before letting it out, rinse and repeat. 

You felt suffocated, like you needed to reach the surface for air. 

Light spilled into your vision, causing you to close your eyes again. You could hear too many things at once, but they sounded muffled, like you were hearing them from inside a body of water. The clearer those sounds got the more you were pulled to consciousness. Each slow blink of your heavy eyelids showed you a different distorted view. 

You blinked.

First you were looking up into the faces of a man and a woman, both  of whom doubled in your vision, making you feel almost nauseous. Them shuffling quickly around you wasn’t helping with this. The woman gave orders you couldn’t understand to the man who barked something to someone out of your field of view.

You blinked.

More people surrounding you, different ones this time, in scrubs and face masks. But their forms doubled and blurred, making your stomach roil unpleasantly. Blinding lights passing by above you one by one as you were pushed along on something, a gurney? Yeah probably. You were in a hospital then. The voices talking all around you mixed with the ringing in your ears, causing the churning in your stomach to become worse.

You blinked.

You felt weightless for a second before you were on something cold. You sucked in a breath, but it hurt when you did. You let the breath out with a weak moan. Suddenly bright light was in your face, making you wince and clench your eyes shut. Thankfully darkness overtook your vision again and the light disappeared.

You blinked.

The bright light was gone, thank fucking god. But you felt groggy, but in a different way than you had before. Before you could do much more than glance around the room you were in, a woman came into your view with a calm smile on her face. Why was she wearing what looked like blue sleep clothes? She warned you to stay calm and not panic, which honestly just made you worriedly wonder if there was a reason for you to panic, but she went on to explain that you currently have a tube down your throat to help you breathe. She said you needed to remain relaxed so you didn’t freak out and trigger your gag reflex and throw up. You swallowed around the tube anxiously but otherwise didn’t react, which the nurse took as a good thing.

“Do you remember how you got here, Mr. Afton?”

It took a full 3 seconds before you registered what she’d called you. Your eyebrows furrowed as you gave her a confused look, not sure what was going on? Then your ‘dream’ from before flashed in your memory. You glanced down at your prone body laying in the bed and noticed two things very clearly missing. You could feel your heart speeding up in your ribs, as a matter of fact you could hear it too, both beating in your ears and from the electric tone of the EKG machine you were hooked up to. You could feel your hands shaking as panic washed over you. This wasn’t a dream anymore, what happened to you? You got hit in a car, but why was your body different? This wasn’t making sense.

The nurse gave the now rapidly beeping machine a concerned look, asking you if you were in any pain. You closed your eyes and focused on breathing to calm yourself, missing how the nurse hurried over to the machines you were hooked up to in order to check on your vitals. You opened your eyes just in time to see her hook up a vial to the saline drip, half hearing her tell you that you’d be getting some morphine in a moment to ease any of your pain and help you calm down. She was right, hardly any time later you felt your eyelids droop as lethargy took over your aching body and soon you were drifting off to sleep again.

-0-

The second time you woke up you were alone in your hospital room. You took your time blinking the sleep from your eyes before checking out the room around you. It looked pretty normal.. at first glance. It was more rectangle shaped than square with your bed against the middle of one of the longer walls. Huge windows that took up most of the wall to your right with a matching sofa and recliner under them, giving the room a more relaxed, less sterile feel. And to your left were two doors on both the short wall and the longer wall across from you, one was open and showing the hallway while the other was closed and went to what you assumed was a bathroom. The walls were almost a pale salmon color, while the floor was… carpeted? That was weird. Actually the more you examined the room the odder it actually seemed. There were floral curtains on the window and a big ass box tv in the corner on a dresser showing some juice commercial. 

And was that a fucking ashtray on the table next to you???

Okay, something was clearly fucking WRONG. You tried to recall the last thing you remembered, before the lady in the blue pjs. Bright lights.. people.. doctors most likely.. oh. You’d been in your Uber when you’d been t-boned by some asshole on your right. So that’s where shit went wrong. But that didn’t explain.. You looked down at the body you were attached to. The body that wasn’t yours. Your heart rate sped up and you knew it would pull someone in here so you closed your eyes and took deep calming breaths. It was okay, just breathe. Just breathe. In… Out... In... Out… Okay.

The machine’s beeping slowly evened out. You kept up your measured breathing even as you heard someone enter the room and call out ‘Mr. Afton?’ to you. You heard another voice pipe up and say ‘he’ was probably just having a dream. You’d never been super strict on the whole pronouns thing, but usually people just automatically used female ones with you. So hearing them use male ones was pretty surprising, though not impossible you guess. You listened as one checked your vitals and chatted amicably with the other. You heard them discussing you and you perked up to listen, curious what they’d have to say.

“Afton. Why does that name sound familiar?” One asked with a hum.

“He’s one of the men who opened that family diner out by 7th Street. The one with the singing robot bear for the kids. My niece loves that place, won’t shut up about it.” The other replied with a chuckle.

The first woman made an ‘ohhh’ sound of understanding before asking how in the world you’d gotten in the hospital. You listened numbly, the information not really sinking in that they were actually talking about you. Apparently “”you”” were side swiped pretty bad by some drunk driver and landed here as a result. You know that’s not how you got here but.. you think you might be in a coma. Why the fuck else would you be ‘Mr. Afton’ the guy who ‘made robot bears’. You’ll admit you just finished playing FNAF 4 again and watched one of the Game Theory videos on the series so maybe this is why your brain decided to do this for you while you were in a coma. Better than sitting in a black void you suppose…

“Oh! Turn the volume up, I wanna see this,” said the younger sounding woman. 

You heard feet shuffling over to your bedside before the tv volume got louder. You could hear a man with a genial voice talking seriously, and when he spoke you couldn’t help but furrow your eyebrows in confusion. 

“This is the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite.”

You knew who that was… sorta. He was a famous news guy, at least that’s what you’d gathered from that movie Bruce Almighty, where Jim Carrey gets all of God’s powers. He seemed to have a lot of respect for Walter Cronkite, enough to look up to him as inspiration and keep a framed photo of him at work. But you’re pretty sure Walter Cronkite was dead now, or maybe he was just retired? He was one or both of those, so why was he on tv? Maybe this was just your brain messing with you, like you’d figured before. If you’re in a coma then yeah your brain might have picked him to be on the news because it remembered him being a ‘news guy’. That and because.. you didn’t really know any other people in the news field.

You were so lost in thought that you didn’t notice falling back asleep.

Chapter Text

-0-0-

You were back in the forest again.

Things looked clearer this time. Where before the trees were sorta smudged like a melting painting, now they looked more crisp, like a photo. Still not fully.. real? But close enough to pass off if you weren’t paying full attention. 

You looked behind you, an empty trail, looking identical to the one in front of you. With nothing else to do you started walking. You perked up when you heard that same voice again, not the female one but the male one. The old man. You followed it, even calling back asking where they were. Finally you saw something up ahead.

It was red…

You slowed down a bit, feeling a pit of unease settle in your stomach as you walked forward at a slower pace. When the trail you’d been following for what felt like hours finally ended you saw it led you to a small clearing. It looked barely big enough to fit three cars parked side to side, but in the middle of this clearing was a.. glowing red pond?

Why does this seem familiar? And why was there red light shining up from the small body of water?.. It lit up the entire clearing, leaving you feeling on edge. The whole place was eerie, and part of you wanted to just turn around and go back to the trail. But something kept you here, a feeling of curiosity. And when you stepped forward you froze in your tracks when you realized.. you weren’t actually alone in the clearing..

There at the far right end of the pond was a… man? You couldn’t see him the best with the only thing lighting up the area being the freaky red water, so you slowly called out a ‘hello?’. You clenched your fists when he looked at you and you finally noticed his head looked… weird. As you stepped closer it hit you where you were.. You’d seen playthroughs of the fnaf games enough to know about this part of the game. 

“...Old Man Consequences?” You asked nervously.

He gave a grunt of affirmation and then went back to looking out at the pond, looking focused on if anything was biting. As you stared at him you wondered if his head(?) was actually his head or just a helmet or mask or something. Because while he looked like a totally normal old man from the neck down, with the button down shirt with the two breast pockets and trousers; his head was another story. It looked like an animatronic gator head? Only it had no eyes, only a slack jawed maw showing off sharp triangular teeth. This whole dream, or coma, was so weird. 

“You think this is all a dream?” The old man asked, his voice sounding like it was playing from an old cassette player.

“Well… yeah. I got hit by a car, so this has to be shit I’m seeing in a coma.” You replied in a resigned way.

You looked down at him curiously when he let out a tired sigh. He sat his odd fishing pole down next to him on the ground before resting his forearms on his knees, seeming contemplative; then he looked up at you and you were forced to stare into the inky black depths of his gaping maw. You’d expected to see something in there. A human face if it were a mask, robotic parts if he were an actual animatronic, or an inner mouth if it really was his head. But no, there was nothing but darkness past his teeth, like a void. 

“I’m sorry to break it to you but.. this ain’t no dream. You’re not in a coma either. You were supposed to pass on, but I called you back to help me..” he said in a remorseful tone. 

That pit of unease from earlier returned full force at his admission, and you couldn’t help the way you nervously asked what he was talking about. He sighed again before picking up his fishing rod and resuming his fishing. But he explained that he needed someone to take over William Afton’s body to prevent everything he’d done in the timeline from actually happening. He’d never intended to pull you back specifically, he’d just wanted someone with some integrity to take over so none of the tragedy that passed would happen. He’d been calling out for help for a long time, since before they’d first thrown the demon down into hell. But nobody had ever answered, at least not until you.

“Something happened when you took over Afton’s body. None of us are sure why but things got thrown back, all the way past the start. To a time before things went so wrong.” The old man said wearily.

You furrowed your eyebrows, not sure what he meant and said none of what he was saying was making any sense. But then you froze and remembered.. 1978.. Old Man Consequence turned to you, a huff in his tone as he explained that YOU were now in control of William Afton’s body. And it was up to you to keep things from going to shit up there with the living. But he added on that since you’re technically supposed to be dead then you can count this as a second chance, or a reincarnation.

Hearing this distracted you from the year and caused you to gape at him before trying to articulate how insane all this was, though at first you just babbled incoherently, not really able to get out what you meant because of all the things you wanted to say at once. But finally after a deep breath you said,

“This.. this is BULLSHIT. What if I don’t WANT to be that asshole?! How is this even possible? Fuck.. I’m a-.. I WAS a woman! How am I supposed to just roll with suddenly having a penis?!”

You took in a shuddering breath before nearly collapsing on the bank of the pond, letting your legs hang into the water, not even caring that your pant legs were getting soaked. You could feel your shoulders shaking as everything he said continued to really sink in. Was he right? Were you stuck in some kid killer’s body now?? Potentially forever?!

“I don’t want to go to jail. Especially not for shit Afton did! God, what am I going to do?” You asked, mostly to yourself.

But the sharp toothed old man asked you if you’d been listening at all. He repeated that the timeline had been rewound, like a tape, and it had gone back years before Afton’s youngest died. None of the spirits had known WHY it’d happened, but it had occurred when YOU took over William Afton’s body. Now he was alone here, waiting to see what happened next. He knew it was a lofty request but he hoped you wouldn’t kill yourself to leave. He explained that yes, it wasn’t your responsibility to help these souls, and he’d take your place if he could, but he can’t. He’s tried before and it won’t let him, whatever ‘it’ was, the universe or what have you.

You wanted to argue with him, ask questions, demand answers, all of that; but the water of the pond started to move. Old man consequences clucked his tongue and said that you were waking up, so your time together has been cut short. For now anyways. He swore he’d talk to you again soon if you needed it but said to just try your best. Which left you feeling pretty flabbergasted. Try your best?? At what? Being William ‘Shithead’ Afton?? This was fucking ridiculous, you didn’t want this! Don’t you get any say in this whole thing?! 

But you never got to voice your complaints because suddenly the water went from calmly swirling to riptide, yanking you off the bank of the pond where you sat and into the cold water. One second you were fine and the next you were being pulled under, red overtaking your vision before fading to black. It all happened so fast that you didn’t have time to do anything but experience it.

-0-

You woke up in the hospital… Again.

At this point it was just annoying. But this time something was different. You could hear soft humming to your right, and when you managed to turn your head to see what it was you were greeted with the sight of a woman sitting on the same sofa you’d seen the day before, doing some kind of embroidery you think. You could almost say she looked relaxed if it weren’t for the stiff way her shoulders were raised a little and the crease between her eyebrows.

Aside from the subtle stressed out look she was sporting she was an incredibly beautiful woman. You sorta thought all women were pretty but still, she was certainly something. She had messy loose strawberry blonde curls, warm skin, and eye-catching blue eyeshadow. And she had a pastel geometric button up tucked into a pair of gray jeans. A very retro look from your perspective but you figured for her it was a very stylish outfit, at least if Old Man Consequence was truthful and you really WERE stuck in the 80’s or whatever…

You got caught staring at her and flinched when she gasped and shot out of her seat. Flinching caused you to jostle your cast covered arm and leg, eliciting a groan of pain from you. The woman rushed over to your side, her hands hovering above you like she wanted to help you but wasn’t sure how. She settled for resting a hand on the shoulder connected to your cast free arm and saying with worry in her tone,

“Don’t worry, I’ll call the nurse to come check on you.”

Her accented voice sounded familiar to you for some reason, and as she focused on pressing the call button it hit you; her voice is the one you heard in your dream. The one that got kinda weirdly mixed with Old Man Consequences. So whoever she was she apparently knew William, which made you oddly nervous. Would she realize you weren’t him!? You felt yourself panic before calming yourself down. Even if she did there’s no way to PROVE you weren’t William Afton. You were in his body for fucks sake. You had his blood, his DNA, finger prints, all that shit. You were fine. Hell, maybe you could fake having amnesia! Yeah! That would make sense, right? You’d been in a car crash after all. Who’s to say you didn’t bang your head??

When the lady came back with the nurse and doctor in tow you had made up your mind to fake amnesia. Which you sorta thought would be harder than it was. But it turns out not being born in the late 70’s or 80’s made it shockingly easy. But stressful regardless. When the doctor was explaining everything that happened to you in the accident the woman took your non injured hand and held it in hers. You stared down at your connected hands and without thinking you asked her what her name was, unintentionally cutting off the doctor who was still speaking. You froze as soon as you noticed… you spoke in a British accent. What the fuck..

The woman gave you a stunned look while the doctor and nurse shared a concerned glance. But the woman opened her mouth before closing it, like she wasn’t sure what to say, but then she blurted out that she was Claire, your wife! Your eyes widened and your face felt hot. Running on pure surprise and disbelief you couldn’t help the astonished tone to your voice as you almost yelled,

“You’re my wife????... Wow~”

Your awed tone did cause Claire to flush a little bit but the doctor chimed in and asked you if you could answer a couple of his questions. You said okay and blinked when he asked if you knew what year it was. You recalled the news broadcast and hesitantly answered 1978. The doctor seemed relieved and asked you who was the president of the United States. Here is where you started to panic. You could not for the life of you remember who was the president in 1978.. Was it Nixon? Or was it Reagan? You didn’t remember! The last time you thought about any presidents before Clinton was back when you were learning about the American presidents in school!! So it was with much anxiety that you nervously answered, “Uh.. Nixon?”

The blank stare the doctor and nurse gave you let you know that was probably wrong as FUCK! Shit, how wrong though?! You were starting to visibly worry when the doctor asked to speak to Claire out in the hallway. You worried until they came back and the doctor started asking you more questions. Simple things first. Your name, your family’s names, and more. You could ‘remember’ the names of your immediate family but not what they looked like. Then the nurse came back with flash cards and asked you what each picture on them was. House, car, tree, bike, cat, plane, school, bird, campfire. They seemed relieved that you still had your basic understanding intact. 

After the evaluation the doctor said it sounded like you were suffering from a form of amnesia. Thankfully not one that would affect your ability to function as an adult, but because of the car accident you seemed to have forgotten some of the key elements of your personal life. Claire looked horrified but the doctor was quick to reassure her that it was likely temporary and your memory would probably return after some time. It would be best for you to get reintroduced to your family in an effort to jog your memory into returning quicker. But for now you’d need to stay in the hospital so they could run a few more tests to ensure it wasn’t anything serious.

-0-

Well the good news is.. it worked. They think you’re suffering from amnesia. Which will make things a hell of a lot easier on you when you inevitably can’t remember something Afton would have known. But the bad news.. Claire seems so sad.. And despite not knowing the woman, it made you sad to see her so despondent. Once the doctor left the nurse made sure you were comfortable, asked if you needed anything then said lunch would be around soon before leaving you and Claire alone. She just stood by the end of your bed, staring off at the wall, not saying anything. You felt awkward and cleared your throat before speaking to her.

“I-.. I’m sorry.”

Hearing a British man’s voice come out when you’re speaking is still wild. You’re not sure how or why you have the accent still but trying to apply logic to this all seems like it would just drive you crazy so you let it go. Instead you focus on Claire as she turns to look at you. While there was still a sadness in her eyes, now it was paired with some puzzlement. She asked what you were sorry for, making you let out a breath, not sure how Afton would react but knowing how you would so you went with that.

“For upsetting you. I know I’m supposed to know you, but I can’t seem to. Which I find strange. I can’t imagine forgetting someone as lovely as you..” You finished with a hum, not trying to be smooth, just being honest.

Claire blinked, cheeks getting warmer before a small smile broke out across her face. She let out a short chuckle, replying that despite everything you were still a charmer. But then she let out a tired sounding breath and came over to sit in the chair next to your hospital bed, reaching out to grab your hand before stopping herself. You noticed and turned your hand over, palm up and reached out as far as you could in your state for her hand. She gave you a shy, grateful smile before taking your hand. After that it was silent, just the sound of the EKG machine and the low volume of the tv resonating in the room. It felt a bit awkward so to get rid of it you tried talking again,

“So… you’re really my wife?”

She smiled again, a hint of sadness to it, before saying yes, you’d been married for a number of years. You sorta felt jealous of Afton in that moment, how’d a weirdo like him get such a pretty wife? It almost didn’t seem fair, in that same cosmic injustice sorta way that caused the good to die young. And without thinking you said with a grin that you must be a very lucky man then. This got a shocked laugh out of the strawberry blonde and she replied almost incredulously that you were literally in the hospital with multiple broken bones and a head injury! 

You just smirked cheekily and retorted that that may be true but you also had a beautiful wife that was sitting next to you so that trumps some silly broken bones any day of the week.

Hearing Claire laugh was infinitely nicer than seeing her sad you decided~

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