Work Text:
Michael Afton put a lot of hard work into his work with the animatronic Helpy, taking pride in every step he overcame. He wasn't just fulfilling his duties - he was striving to make Helpy better than ever. But the problems with the source code were becoming increasingly annoying.
Despite his best efforts, sometimes Helpy did not take commands quite right. When Michael asked for a screwdriver, the animatronic brought his toothbrush instead. These misunderstandings slowed his progress in his work considerably.
Sometimes it seemed easier for Michael to get up and do the work himself.
But then, what would Helpy himself be doing?
After hours of work, Michael finally completed the next step in customizing the Helpy. With a click, he slid the front panel back in. He never managed to fix the malfunctions that occurred inside the animatronic.
With a weary sigh, Michael leaned back in his chair, hoping to take a short break.
However, the unsuccessfully pushed chair didn't stay in place and toppled backwards with Michael. The clatter of the falling chair was accompanied by the hollow thud of his head hitting the floor.
"Shit," groaned Michael.
He felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and lost his orientation in space for a while. Up was replaced by down, and down by up.
When Michael struggled to open his eyes, the bright light suddenly hit him in the eye, making him cringe. He was used to working in semi-darkness, where the only source of light was the laptop monitor. Grabbing the leg of the desk, Michael began to rise slowly to his feet.
That damn chair.
Raising his head, he froze in place. His gaze was directed at the table where the animatronic he'd spent more than half the day working on before had been. But Helpy wasn't there.
He looked around the room confused, which looked different than he was used to seeing it. Strange.
Where could Helpy be?
Deciding that the animatronic had left while he was lying on the floor, Michael tapped the laptop keys to get rid of the black screen. The technology started working again, the monitor turned on and the screen accessed the cameras located throughout the pizzeria. Michael ran his eyes over all of the cameras from the main exit to his office. Nothing was visible.
Checking again just in case, Michael settled on the camera that was in the main hall.
He noticed a faint movement near the animatronics stage. Squinting, he was surprised to realize that it was something that looked like a man hiding behind one of the tables. He zoomed in closer, trying to see more detail.
But despite his best efforts, Michael couldn't see faces, couldn't recognize who it was. He was too big for a Helpy, but too small for the animatronic's normal build.
Michael felt a bad feeling spreading inside him, causing a lump to form in his throat. He'd experienced similar feelings before, before he'd found himself in the middle of nowhere, with old acquaintances who'd long since left this world. He didn't want to be in a foreign place again that wasn't his own.
Deciding to take a quick detour around the pizzeria to make sure of his assumption, he headed for the room's exit. Next to the doorway was a box of junk that had been lying around the pizzeria. Inside was a book with a worn cover, a few empty pizza boxes, old cassette tapes, and tools for fixing appliances.
Without thinking long, Michael slipped his hand into the box and grabbed a heavy wrench to tighten the valves.
He clutched it tightly in his right hand, in case anyone else was in the pizzeria besides him. He walked hesitantly out of the guard's office, heading into the main hall where animatronics were performing, kids were eating pizza, and celebrating someone's birthday.
As Michael cautiously walked around the pizzeria, his gaze fixed intently on every altered detail. Slobs of dirt adorned the walls, the dust making him want to sneeze. Broken animatronic parts, both new and old, were scattered everywhere, creating a picture of disorder and chaos.
Leaving his ordinary world, Michael found himself in a completely different pizzeria, which seemed to collect all the nightmares that Michael had experienced and that he wanted to leave behind.
When he reached the main hall, Michael noticed that the room had changed. In addition to the usual animatronics, there were others in the room whose presence he had not expected. One such animatronic was Baby. She was lying on the floor, lifeless and powered down. Her normally lively green eyes were now extinguished. Her face was open, giving a glimpse of her endoskeleton.
Freddie, Chica, and Bonnie stood on the stage, maintaining their usual poses, while Foxy disassembled lay nearby with no arms, and Golden Fredber's head was next to Baby's, also devoid of any sign of life.
Stopping in front of the golden bear's head, Michael felt an inner tension. He hesitated, hesitating to look directly into its half-open mechanical eyes, fearful of facing the one who might still be inside - the one who might remain in this nightmare.
"Evan, are you there?"
Breathing heavily, Michael looked away, he wasn't ready for this.
The decision was made to postpone for a while to see if his former brother was still in the golden bear in this universe, Michael headed in the direction where he saw movement on the camera.
As Michael moved closer to the source of the movement, he leaned down, examining the hunched human figure sitting on the floor, hiding behind a table.
With surprise, he recognized the man who stood before him. It was a man with whom he shared more than just a past - it was someone who had made the decision with him to end the hell his father had started. Henry. Their gazes met. But while Michael looked at the man with joyful surprise, the man looked with horror and indescribable fear at the night guard.
"Oh, Henry."
This Henry, sitting in the corner, was a haggard old man. His gray hair, tangled and uneven, fell over his thin face. The dark spots under his eyes emphasized his fatigue and exhaustion. The wrinkles, deep and continuous, as if each of them were the imprint of a long life, held the hidden sadness and heaviness of his years.
Indeed, this man was old, very old. And very different from the Henry that Michael knew. Ignoring the visible signs of age, the Henry he knew surprised Michael with his incredible appearance. For despite his eighth decade, he seemed much younger and more energetic, going to work and leading an active lifestyle. Which was something Michael couldn't say about Henry, who was now sitting in front of him.
So, Henry sat in the corner, trembling, as if expecting something terrible.
As soon as Michael took a step toward him, the man immediately recoiled, his mouth opening and closing, gulping air like a fish that had been thrown ashore.
"No, no! Stay away from me! Go away, please!" he shouted, finally finding his voice.
Michael felt mixed feelings of fright, confusion, and disbelief. Only something truly terrible could make this man so afraid. Henry must be having some kind of panic attack, which meant he had to proceed with caution.
Slowly, Michael raised his free hand upward, clearly showing that he had peaceful intentions and meant no harm. Michael hid the wrench he had brought with him behind his back, realizing that in this situation it could be perceived as a threat.
Looking at Henry, he tried to understand what had put him in such a state. Michael felt lost in this strange environment, for the man who had replaced his father was now sitting in front of him, trembling with fear.
"I... Henry, what happened? Are you okay?"
Henry sobbed even harder. He raised his hands, covering his face as if trying to hide from Michael.
"Don't pretend to care about me, Afton. You weren't supposed to be here! You were supposed to be there but not here, so why, why are you here! Why can't you just die!"
Michael felt sick to his stomach at his words.
Did Henry mistake Michael for his father?
"Listen to me, Henry..." Michael began, but was suddenly interrupted when he heard the click of a gun trigger. He recoiled in horror, and a bullet whizzed past him, shattering the vase on the table.
Turning his head in the direction of the shot, Michael saw a green animatronic rabbit. More specifically, Springtrap, which was going to burn with the next pizzeria Michael set on fire.
Springtrap itself looked horrible, as if it had been created in the most sinister of nightmares. Its metal parts were warped and stripped, wires dangled down, intertwined with each other. The golden reflections of the plating, once so bright and dainty, were now stained with the marks of time, covered with an unpleasant green color and dirt.
That robot had become a trap for his father, and now, in this grim re-creation, it stood across from Michael, aiming a gun at him.
"Missed," came a mechanical voice from the animatronic, flawless and devoid of any interference.
The rabbit's empty eyes stayed fixed on Michael, as if it were reading his thoughts, penetrating to the very depths of his being. Michael took a step back... His brain was working at maximum capacity, trying to understand what was happening and how to proceed. The situation was clearly not on Michael's side.
Feeling the weight of tension in the air, Michael backed away slowly, trying to put as much distance between himself and his father as possible. Henry, however, did not hesitate to move forward, trying to put as much space between him and Michael as possible. The movement pierced Michael with a sharp sense of resentment. Henry was far from the last person in Michael's life. And seeing him afraid of him and trying to get away made Michael feel like a terrible person.
"Fathe...William," not knowing the proper way to address his father from this universe, Michael chose the easier option of addressing the one by his first name, "Put the gun down, I just happened to be here completely by accident."
"Don't lie to me, Michael," William hissed, "I've seen your attempts at deception. You will not escape responsibility."
"I'm not lying. Henry's okay, is he...?"
"You, seriously think I'm going to fall for that trick?" muttered William mockingly, raising an eyebrow in contempt, "Like you care about anyone but yourself, brat."
In that instant, everything became so strange and incomprehensible to Michael that he felt trapped in an event over which he had no control. Why was this happening to him? He was really worried about Henry, who looked so lost. But what could he do? When Henry looked at him like he was a villain.
His father, trapped in an animatronic suit, looked at him accusingly.
"...And no matter what, you always come back, don't you, Michael?" muttered William tiredly and somehow doomed.
Michael grimaced. Those were usually the last words Michael's world father would say before he went to the other side of the world.
William was approaching, his footsteps sounding heavy and confident.
The huge animatronic he was in made the creaking sound of old springs that hadn't been oiled in a long time.
"You've gone too far. But I'm going to give you one last chance. Do the right thing."
"What's the chance?"
"Don't pretend like you don't know," William hissed, his robotic eyes going out. "I've tried to save you so many times, forgiven all your crazy behavior! Gave you second chances, but you always continued... Continued to be a murderer, Michael. I'm tired of it, Henry and I, we are tired of it. We should have ended this a long time ago."
Michael clutched the wrench tightly, as if it were the last symbol of his strength in this intense confrontation. His fingers turned white with tension. He wasn't going to wait for something to happen in his father's head and he was going to take another shot. So Michael decided to act quickly.
In the blink of an eye, he aimed the tool at the animatronic's elbow joint and brought it down on his father's arm with a clatter. His fingers unclenched, and Michael had time to fling the gun as far away as he could. William groaned in pain and immediately struck Michael in the solar plexus with his other hand.
Screaming in pain, Michael fell to the floor, holding his stomach.
"You never changed, Michael," came William's voice, sounding like a mixture of bitterness and disappointment. "You always go down the same road. Why can't you stop?"
A noise came from Henry's side as he noticed Michael pointing his weapon at William, wanting to strike again, but at the animatronic's knees. The threat was growing, the tension so thick you could feel it in the air.
"Are you trying to kill me again?" William asked. "Aren't you a little overconfident, thinking you can kill a dead man? How stupid are you, Michael?"
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
He wasn't a killer.
Michael rose again, determination not leaving him. Before he could attack, however, his hand was grabbed, clutching the wrench hard. He tried to hold on to it, but William's strength and speed were unexpectedly high. He wrenched the tool out of Michael's hands, taking away his advantage.
The heavy hand of the robotic rabbit swung around, striking Michael in the face. He jerked back, trying to avoid the next blow. An unpleasant pinching in his nose made him touch his face. He stared fearfully at the black liquid that began to run down his fingers.
Michael dodged the next blow by grabbing onto one of the animatronic's paws. In his struggle to free himself, every effort seemed futile - the animatronic's strength easily held him in place, leaving no illusions of escape. His body was fragile. And the metal hand clutched his shoulder harder and harder, making Michael curse his father.
A crunch sounded from Michael's hand and he felt the fingers of his hand begin to go numb and he could no longer feel his hand.
Deciding that there was nothing more to lose, Michael struggled to hold on and grabbed his numb fingers around his father's neck. It was the only point he could reach.
There was nothing left to lose. Michael struggled to his feet and grabbed his father's neck with numb fingers. It was the only point he could reach.
With the last remnants of his strength, he yanked the wires entwined with the remains of his father's body.
"AAARGH!"
William, feeling the infernal pain, let go of Michael in a desperate rush, clutching at the damaged part of his body. Sparks began to fly from the bare wiring. Every now and then his father flinched from the electric shock that ran through his entire body.
Michael, on the other hand, had completely lost feeling in his left arm. Things were bad. All of his clothes were stained with the black liquid that was leaking from his stomach. It was so disgusting.
At his father's new move in his direction, Michael flinched. He wasn't ready to continue fighting him, so he gathered himself and spoke loudly: "Stop it, I'm not going to hurt you or Henry. This is all just a big misunderstanding. Please, father."
The words seemed to have an effect on his father, for he froze and stared at Michael as if seeing him for the first time.
"Please?" repeated the word William after him "So now you're asking me to stop?"
Michael shook his head tiredly.
"Yeah, I didn't mean for any of this to happen."
"If you didn't want to, why did you do it?"
Why did he hit his father first, not waiting to shoot him in the head?
Or why, in this universe, did Michael find himself in his father's shoes, a brutal killer who knew no mercy?
Michael didn't know the right answer, he couldn't be responsible for the Michael of this universe. Yes, he had made many mistakes, he was not innocent, after all he was the one who had taken his little brother's life. But he couldn't be responsible for another person, he didn't know why their Michael had lost his head.
Thus, a silence was formed between father and son.
All Michael wanted to do at this point was just go back home.
William stood still, not rushing at his son again, trying to break his bone. He lowered his head sadly, as if thinking about something. In the silence that enveloped the room, there was only the slight sound of electric sparks.
Henry was out of Michael's sight, and now he didn't know where the old owner of this pizzeria was. Maybe he'd gone to get help, or maybe he'd just run away from the damn place.
Finally the silence was broken by William's voice.
"I failed to raise you properly, Michael," William spoke, sorrow audible in his voice. "You were my son. If I'd only known what was going on in your head, I wouldn't have let it happen."
William's words pierced Michael like sharp blades. He felt a heaviness inside him and an unwanted but still present guilt for what he had become in the world. Michael tried to turn away, but his gaze was captured by the ghosts of the past he was trying to forget.
His father never cared what happened to his own children.
"Yeah, I must have been a terrible father, Michael. We're both going to hell, and we're both going to have to pay for our sins. You for all the children you left behind, and me for not being able to stop you."
"It's not your fault," came out of Michael's mouth.
"I've lost all my children."
All the kids?
"Are you ashamed of what you've done? Do you feel anything at all after... after killing Evan and Elizabeth?" - William's voice sounded insistent, but full of pain and frustration.
Michael tried to collect his thoughts, but the words stuck in his throat.
Did he kill Evan and Lizzie?
Michael felt panic begin to clench his chest, and a bitter realization came to him. He was known as the one who did terrible things, the purple guy who killed everyone. The thought disgusted him. He tried to figure out how this happened, how he could have become like this.
The names of his younger brother and sister flashed through his blurred memories. He saw their happy smiles, heard their laughter, but along with that, moments surfaced when he was too busy with himself to notice their needs. His bullying of Evan. What had that been for? For the sake of making his friends think what a tough guy he was?
He had a serious talk with Henry that it was just an accident. Yes, it was. But sometimes he still caught himself thinking that his whole family was dead because of him.
And this world was the epitome of his worst nightmares.
Behind Michael, the animatronics, Baby and Freddy, were moving, their mechanical eyes glowing piercingly, as if reading his deepest thoughts. But there was something different about their movements-they seemed alive, and in that liveliness Michael recognized something familiar. In this light he recognized ghostly reflections, like echoes of the past.
He recognized them as his sister and brother, whose souls still seemed to reside in the animatronics.
Step by step, Michael backed away, his knees buckling as he struggled to keep his balance. William continued to stare at him, as if reading his soul, as if knowing what he was thinking.
But he wasn't their Michael!
"William, get down!"
Weakness overcame Michael, and he collapsed to his knees. He wrapped his arms around his head, whispering for them to stop looking at him. At that moment, he saw Henry pointing a gun at him. It was the same gun that Michael had knocked out of his father's hands. Was Henry really going to do this...?
William looked at Michael with the same blank stare. For a second, he thought he saw heartbreaking sadness in them.
And a shot rang out.
The world around Michael ceased to exist. He plunged into darkness, intangible and endless.
Consciousness returned to him briefly, very slowly.
At first it seemed only a subtle pressure on his leg, but gradually it became a sharp pain that woke him from sleep. The dizziness and throbbing pain made him groan, his head ached terribly, for that was where the bullet Henry had fired had struck.
After waiting for the sensation to subside a little, Michael tried to open his eyes, despite his inner fear. Fear of opening his eyes and seeing that he was still in that place, of seeing his father and the other Henry again.
Instead of familiar faces, however, his gaze met a pair of sparkling eyes of a small animatronic. Helpy, his faithful assistant, was looking at him anxiously and insistently, as if trying to convey something important.
Michael exhaled with relief.
"Where have you been? I've been looking for you."
In response, Helpy only stared at him perplexed, and then pointed a hand at his head. Right. Michael had yet to figure out the code in the little helper's head.
However, before he could begin to unravel the code, Michael felt he had to do something else. Michael slowly looked around the room, fixing his gaze on his old chair, which should have been replaced long ago.
A change of scenery, so to speak.