Chapter Text
Today, Michael Afton was turning fifty-five years old.
The only issue was that he had been dead for thirty of them.
He hadn't bothered with a birthday party or anything. Who could he have invited? Unsurprisingly, it was rather difficult to make friends as a corpse. Most people tended to scream and run away at the sight of the undead, no matter how politely said undead introduced themselves. There was a reason he'd taken to only leaving the house at night. He would zip his jacket as far up as possible, pull his hood up, and, if someone was to walk towards him, he would immediately turn around and run away. Better to be seen as a socially inept weirdo than to spark fears of the zombie apocalypse. Mike wasn’t too upset about not celebrating his birthday- after all, they really begin to lose their magic once you're functionally immortal. Besides, it would have been a bit of a struggle trying to blow out fifty-five candles. Especially considering the fact he didn't even have lungs anymore.
Nowadays, Mike's life had been consumed by one goal: hunting down the remaining members of his family. It would have been a lot easier for him if this had been a simple family dispute, one that could have been solved through heartfelt apologies and tearful reunions. However, Mike's situation was a bit more complicated, as all his family were in various states of undeath.
It was Evan, his baby brother, who he worried about the most. Ironic, as he was the one who had killed him. Back when Mike was still living and needed to sleep, he had regular nightmares of the incident. Even now, he could vividly hear Evan's desperate screams as Mike had forced him into Fredbear's gaping jaws, the gasping wails for him to stop and let him out. The dreams always ended the same way. The screams are interrupted by the screech of springlocks snapping shut, the wet crunch of plastic teeth and metal jaws as they bite through flesh and bone. And the last thing Mike sees before he jolts awake is Evan's limp body, tiny and frail, hanging from the bear's blood-stained maw. But it wasn't enough that Mike had robbed his brother of his life, for there was no peace for Evan in death either. His brother was still in that damned bear costume, he was certain.
Mike jumped back against the wall, putting as much distance between himself and the twitching golden costume that had suddenly appeared in the security office. His eyes widened as he recognised the suit that flailed in front of him, as he saw the blood that matted its aging yellow fur. Looking closer, he realised that the bear wasn't going to attack him- at least, not yet. While the right side of the costume was shuddering violently, the other side was still. While one arm was viciously clawing at him, one leg seeming desperate to lunge at him, the other limbs hung limply, refusing to move. Mike was suddenly aware of a gentle whispering in the back of his mind, a vague murmur that wavered like static, fading in and out of coherence. He looked into the bear’s empty black eye sockets, desperate to ask his question but terrified to hear the answer.
“Evan?”
And suddenly the whispers grew clear, the answer repeated like a chant in a soft voice that Mike realised had almost forgotten.
‘It’s me.’
The voice felt like sunlight and warmth and childhood and Mike was immediately consumed by an almost painful nostalgia. Tears sprang from his eyes, and he was suddenly debating whether he should go and hug the now still bear. (Luckily, some instinct of self-preservation stopped him from doing so; looking back, he realised that whoever was inhabiting the suit alongside Evan would have probably eviscerated him if he got too close). Before he could decide on what to do, the alarm he had set on his watch went off, emitting pealing chimes that marked the end of his shift. He quickly checked the time, but when he looked back, the bear was gone, leaving him alone in the office again. The sheer joy that had consumed him upon reuniting with his brother was replaced by a mounting sense of horror. His brother hadn't moved on. He was still trapped here, still trapped in the animatronic that had killed him a decade earlier. Was he at peace? Mike swore to himself that he would not leave until he had an answer, until he ensured that his brother was happy. But then Mike had been fired, under the false pretences of odour and tampering with the animatronics. He had tried breaking into the pizzeria after ensuring they hadn't yet found a guard to replace him, but it was pointless. The place had been completely abandoned. Someone or something had dismantled (not even dismantled, destroyed) all the mascots. Mike couldn't help the vindicative pleasure he felt at seeing the creatures that had tormented him for the past week in pieces. Amongst the fabric scraps and plastic shells, he could recognise the parts of the four main animatronics. However, there was no sign of the golden bear, amongst the scattered pieces or anywhere else in the pizzeria, and Mike was forced to continue his search elsewhere.
Next on his list was his father. William Afton, co-founder of Fredbear's Family Diner and the franchise that it spawned. The mastermind behind Afton Robotics, and a beloved children's entertainer who, despite having lost his youngest son in a tragic accident, was dedicated to making children smile. The man who was left blind-sided when his best friend and fellow co-founder, Henry Emily, committed a string of murders at their restaurants beginning with Emily's own daughter. Afton had withdrawn into himself, before suddenly vanishing, now missing and presumed dead.
Mike knew better. He knew that beneath a visage of eccentric genius, William Afton was a monster.
Even before Evan had died, he had been an awful man and a terrible father, flipping between cold and neglectful to suffocatingly overbearing mere moments apart. He was prone to taking out his frustrations with the world on his own children, a far cry from the model father he pretended to be in public. However, as his youngest son took his final breaths, whatever had held William Afton together had snapped, unleashing an evil that once had been confined to his household onto an unsuspecting public. It was William who had killed Charlotte Emily, unable to bear the fact that Henry's daughter survived, while he had lost his son to their creation. Overwhelmed with rage and jealousy and a sick sense of justice, he had taken her life as she stood outside of Fredbear's before speeding off in the pouring rain.
But Charlie never left the restaurant. Stubborn and headstrong even in death, her soul lingered within the Puppet (her father's last gift to her before she was taken from him), desperate for revenge against her killer. William noticed how the Puppet's blank visage now always seemed to follow him, always watching, silently seething with an undying rage. And now that knew that it was possible that his son could come back too, he was determined to study this phenomenon. From then on, tragedy would hang over the Fazbear brand like a shadow. William told himself that it was simply part of a noble scientific quest, to help overcome the eternal foe of death, but he knew he was lying to himself. He enjoyed every moment of the murders, the thrill it gave him to rob the life of another, the sick sense of power that flowed through his veins. His favourite trick had been to dress up in his old Springbonnie costume to lure children- which ultimately proved to be his downfall.
Mike peered through the window, finally able to see the animatronic that had been roaming Fazbear’s Fright for the past week. It was a familiar face; one Mike had not seen in the decades since Fredbear’s was shut down. Springbonnie. Its wide grin remained unchanged, a toothy smile that remained awfully cheerful despite the mascot's condition. Fur that had once been golden had turned green with rot and decay, stained with mould and mildew and wait was that blood? Looking into the holes that riddled the suit, Mike realised that intertwined with the rusty metal endoskeleton were huge ribbons of flesh, left mangled by the moving parts. It wasn't just metal ribs in the suit but splintered bone too, protecting a rotting heart that was still somehow beating. Looking back at the costume’s headpiece, peering through the cracks, Mike saw a face. It was barely recognisable, with huge plastic eyes seemingly jammed into their eye sockets, and pieces of sharp metal protruding out of blood-soaked skin, embedded deep into the skull. But Mike could never forget that face.
“Father?”
“Michael?”
The voice was an uncomfortable melding of the rabbit’s dulcet tones, its voicebox failing with age, and his father’s ever taut voice, left raspy and wheezing by the metal parts must have been stabbed into his throat.
“Michael. My darling boy.” The thing his father had become spoke with a tenderness that he had never shown Mike in life.
“The springlocks. Went off. Help me.”
Mike could vaguely recall his father warning him about springlocks. Amid a self-aggrandising speech about the wonders of his robots, his father had admitted that his animatronic suits had one fatal flaw. The springlocks that allowed them to switch between robot and suit were unstable, and if one were to go off, it would set of a chain reaction that would return the suit to animatronic mode. Fatal if a person was still inside. His father had taken great pleasure in describing the gory fate that would befall a person trapped in a springlock suit when it went off. How ironic.
Michael had come in with a plan to burn the place. For all he knew, the many relics of the past held here still housed children’s spirits. Even if they hadn’t, the idea of people profiting of a tragedy like this made him feel sick to his (no longer existent) stomach. Now that he knew that his father was still here, a danger that could not be let loose, his plans were only accelerated. Turning to his tablet, he played the audio lure in a room close enough for the suit to hear, but far enough to give him time to act. As expected, the suit slowly turned towards the sound (moans of pain were audible from within, along with the sound of flesh tearing as servos turned) and the rabbit began trundling towards the noise. Once he was sure that it had gone, Mike grabbed the petrol canister that he had brought and began spilling it over every nearby surface, throwing it against the walls, taking particular care to soak any parts that may have come from an animatronic. He then ran to the exit, prepared to set the place ablaze.
As he fumbled with the matches, he was suddenly aware of pounding footsteps approaching him, the heavy footfalls of an animatronic racing towards him. Just as the rabbit had turned the corner, Mike finally managed to light one of the matches, and he threw it into a puddle of petrol. With a roar, the petrol was set ablaze. The flames raced across the floors, climbing up the walls. Vintage posters curled and blackened as they were consumed by fire. Relics of restaurants past were devoured by flames- Mike could faintly hear a soft crackling as the plastic masks of the Toy animatronics began to melt. He and his father were separated by a wall of flame, but the roar of the blaze wasn't sufficient to cover his father’s screams.
“MICHAEL!”
Mike watched in horror as the rabbit began to deform in the burning heat. The green fur was being charred by tongues of flame. The shell of the suit was beginning to melt, sinking into the crevices of the endoskeleton, molten plastic consuming rotting flesh and rusted metal. The tears in the suit were widening as the fabric began to droop, giving Mike a clearer view of the furious face of his father underneath.
“THIS WON’T STOP ME! I’LL COME BACK, AND I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”
The sheer hatred with which his father spat the words at him was tangible, his eyes alight with rage. Unable to bear the heat of the growing inferno, Mike ran out of the building, slamming the heavy door behind him. He ran as far as he could before collapsing into the soft grass, taking great gulping gasps of the cool night air, not out of necessity but simply for comfort. And Mike would stay there until the early morning, watching Fazbear’s Fright burn to the ground.
But he wasn't actually sure that his father had perished in the blaze. According to the newspaper reports, there hadn't been any corpse found on the site. Mike had hoped that his father had burned to ashes, but this may have just been wishful thinking. He had taken to perusing local paranormal investigation forums (Hurricane was quickly garnering a reputation amongst cryptid hunters for the strange creatures rumoured to live in the area) and one local legend that had sprang up soon after the fire was that of a bipedal creature, with no identifiable qualities other than its looming stature, awkward gait and charred skin. He would have to look into that.
But there was one more member of his family who Mike needed to find to bring his family back together: his sister. Even though his father was perhaps the single most evil person that Mike had ever known, he somehow still had more reservations about coming face to face with his sister again. After all, it was his sister that had killed him. Then wore his skin like a suit. And then cursed him with functional immortality.
It was not going to be a fun reunion.