Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mike was not having a good day.

“I know you’ve got to support yourself somehow,” Vanessa was saying, “but we’re working through a ton of lawsuits right now. The owner dying in the back isn’t a good look.”

Mike sighed. “So what you’re saying is, you can’t pay me.”

Vanessa shrugged. “Not right now, no. Think of it as… temporary leave. Look, I inherited the rights to the franchise, but it’s going to take a while to get back on our feet. I’m laying off a bunch of day staff, too. I’ll rehire you as soon as I can.”

Okay. Right. So, he couldn’t afford to live, let alone make sure Abby was okay. Hm. He sighed again and decided this was an all time low. He’d have to go work for some fast food chain or something.

“I’m really sorry, Mike,” Vanessa apologized again.

“It’s fine,” Mike said, even though it really wasn’t. “I think some diner nearby is hiring. I’ll see if I can get a housemate to help with the rent or something.”

Vanessa nodded. “I can take care of Abby for the afternoon if you want to go looking right now,” she offered.

“Thanks,” Mike said, relieved. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Good luck!” Vanessa called as he left.

Mike got in his old, rickety car and drove slowly to the diner. He glanced at the gas meter - he needed to get some more. Great, another thing to pay for.

The doors chimed pleasantly when he swung them open. It was almost two, and the diner mainly sold breakfast, so it was nearly entirely empty.

A brown haired waiter glanced over. “I’ll be right with you!” he called.

Mike winced. Social interaction was not his strong suit. “Um. I’m… actually here to see if you’re still hiring?”

“Oh!” The waiter made his way over to Mike. His name tag read, Ness. “Probably. I’m in charge of hiring - I own this diner, actually, I just like waiting tables. What’s your name?”

Weird man, but okay. “Mike Schmidt.”

Ness’s eyes lit up. “Sure, we’re hiring!” He whipped around and pointed at the back wall, which had a framed picture with the words ‘Fourth Wall’ on it.

“What kind of cameo would I be if I didn’t give the main man a job?” He asked the wall. The wall did not reply, but it did appear to crack for a moment, before quickly repairing itself.

Mike blinked. “Um.”

Ness turned back to Mike. “You’re hired.”

“Don’t you need my info and everything, or an interview, or—“

“No, just give me your email, and I’ll send you everything you need to know,” Ness promised.

“Okay,” Mike said with a shrug. He decided not to question his good luck. “I’ll… see you soon, then?”

“I think you're going to do great here,” Ness said energetically. “But that’s just a theory!”

“Right,” Mike agreed, slowly backing out of the diner.

An hour later, he’d posted a couple ads online for renters. Hopefully, with someone else paying part of the rent, they’d be able to make it until Freddy’s could hire him again.

He stopped by to pick up Abby.

“Hey, how was your time with Vanessa?” he asked as she climbed in the car.

“It was fine,” Abby replied. “Freddy said —“

Mike rolled down his window to yell at Vanessa, who was still standing in the parking lot, “I told you to stop letting her near the animatronics!”

“She was fine!” Vanessa yelled back.

“They’re literal murderers!”

Vanessa shrugged. “Sorry?”

“You’ve lost Abby privileges,” Mike said solemnly.

“No, wait, give me another chance—“

Mike drove away before she could finish. “Sorry, Abbs. What did Freddy tell you?” Then he frowned and added, “wait, since when have you been able to have full on conversations? Was he actually talking to you?”

Abby nodded enthusiastically. “He’s only going to be able to do it that one time, I think. I could only make out a couple words. Something about the spirits being stronger for a little bit because worlds are colliding?”

Mike blinked, 100% too tired for this. “Sure. Okay. So the ghost are more… ghost-y for a bit?”

“Yep! Also he said something about Michael Afton meeting you.”

….huh? “Does Vanessa have a brother I don’t know about?”

Abby shrugged. The rest of the ride was spent in confused silence.

It didn’t take too long before they got home. By then, it was pretty late, so Mike sent Abby up to her room to work on homework while he searched the cupboards for something to eat. There wasn’t much, just some old mac-n-cheese packets and a singular, suspiciously soft cucumber sitting in the back of the fridge.

Mike sighed and started making the mac-n-cheese. It would end up a little watery, since they had no milk, but food is food. He made a mental note to go to the store in the morning - he’d have to budget himself even more than he usually did, but they needed to eat something.

Mike was pulled out of his thoughts by a knock at the door. He glanced at the pasta, decided it probably wouldn’t explode or anything in the next few minutes, and hurried over to the door. He wasn’t expecting anybody, so he glanced through the peephole before doing anything.

So, he’d thought he’d seen everything.

Apparently not.

Standing on his porch was a man about his age, with dark brown hair and a hat planted firmly on his head, shading his face. Even so, Mike could make out the dark, hollow pits masquerading as eyes. His face was sunken - not unnaturally so, but in a definitively unhealthy way. He was trying for a smile, but it looked a little strange with his chipping, broken lips. There were holes in his face and neck - the only uncovered parts of his body - that were being held together with thick staples.

Oh, and his skin was purple. Did Mike mention his skin was purple? It was just barely tinged purple, like his entirety was one giant bruise. It made him look… cold. Dead.

This was definitely a ghost thing. Mike was familiar with ghost things - not this specific one, but ghost things nonetheless. Right. All he had to do was walk away and pretend he hadn’t seen this.

But.

Against his better judgement, Mike swung the door open.

Hope lit in those dark, empty eyes. “Hello. Are you Mike Schmidt?” He leaned casually against the side of the house.

“That is me, yes,” Mike replied, eyeing the man carefully. Cool. So he could talk. And he was physical, if he could touch the house like that. That… told Mike nothing.

“Great! I’m Michael Afton. I’m here about the roommate request.”

….ah. Okay, it all made sense now. An Afton. Of course he was so…. Weird. Mike was definitely not overwhelmed. Of course not. Now he just had to decide what to do. He didn’t want this guy anywhere near Abby, but apparently the spirits had said they were supposed to meet. He wasn’t sure what that meant, either.

He was too tired for this. He had a history of making poor decisions, anyways. What was one more?

“Come on in.”

Chapter Text

“So, this is going to sound a little crazy.”

Mike stared at the man - corpse? Ghost? - in front of him flatly. “Try me.”

Michael chuckled. “Yeah, you’ve probably dealt with some pretty weird stuff by now. Well… you’re not dead and held together by remnant yet, actually, so maybe not?”

….um. “Excuse me?”

“Never mind!” Michael said hurriedly. “That’s… you’re not supposed to know about that yet. Sorry. But, uh, entirely unrelated, are you working at Baby’s yet?”

“Baby’s?” Michael questioned slowly. “Never heard of it. So no. I worked at Freddy’s, and now I’m at some random diner down the road.”

Michael frowned. “You’ve got to have Baby’s, though. It was part of William’s plan to reunite with all his kids and his wife. It’s, like… instrumental.”

Mike sighed. Worlds collide. Of course, because his life wasn’t complicated enough. He would’ve thought he’d be a lot more upset or confused, but honestly, he was probably just too overwhelmed to deal with it. He’d have an existential crisis later that night.

“So. I don’t think Vanessa has any siblings, actually,” Mike noted.

Michael cocked his head. “Who’s Vanessa?”

“William’s kid?”

“HUH?”

“Okay, let me back up,” Mike said, leading Michael into the kitchen. “I’ll explain what my universe is like while I finish dinner, then you tell me about yours. Good?”

Michael nodded numbly. “What, uh… tipped you off that I’m not from here?”

Mike raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Michael’s decaying body. “No offense, but you don’t really look like a local. Not to mention the name. And the ghosts said worlds were colliding, so.” Mike shrugged. He turned to the stove – damnit, he’d left it on. The mac-n-cheese was going to be a little soggy. “Do you like mac-n-cheese?” He paused. “Can you eat food?”

“Yes to both. I’m sorry, the ghosts talk to you?” Michael settled himself down at the kitchen table - which was good, because there was no way Mike was letting him help with food. Who knew what kind of nasty stuff was living in those rotting hands? It felt rude to think like that, but still… gross.

“Not to me specifically,” Mike said, ripping open the cheese packet and dumping it into his soggy noodles. “Okay, sort of, actually, I can talk to them in my dreams sometimes. I thought that was me just managing to remember things perfectly, but sometimes the dreams veer off track, so at this point I’m pretty sure a lot of it is them.”

“Huh,” Michael said, looking mystified, like that was weirder than him being a walking corpse.

“They're not very helpful, though,” Mike admitted. “They mostly just berate me for losing my little brother. And if they ever do anything else, it’s super cryptic. Anyways, it’s my little sister who can talk to the ghosts.”

“Your little sister? Elizabeth?” Michael questioned.

“No?” Mike replied. “Abby. She can sort of… communicate, I guess, with the kids in the animatronics. Mostly they just don’t kill her, but sometimes it feels like they’re almost friends. They’ve never actually spoken to her before, as far as I know.” Mike deemed the cheese evenly distributed, turned off the stove, and started hunting for clean plates or bowls. “I’m assuming that when our worlds started mixing together, they got stronger for a little bit, and that’s how Freddy managed to warn Abby.”

“Freddy. Warned Abby,” Michael repeated slowly. “Okay. How about you tell me the important parts of the story? I think our worlds are more different than I thought.”

“Sure.” Mike had now come to the realization that he had a choice to make. Was he going to involve Abby in this, or not? Obviously, he didn’t want to, but she was going to get herself in a mess whether he told her or not.

Hm. He’d have her come down and meet Michael, then he’d send her to Vanessa’s until they had a more clear picture of what was going on. Yeah, that was probably the best move.

“Abby!” Mike called down the hall. “Dinner!”

“Coming!” the girl yelled back. A moment later, she appeared in the kitchen doorway. She glanced at Michael uneasily - fair, since he was kind of rotting a little bit. “Who’re you?”

“Abby, this is… me?” Mike turned to Michael, who shrugged. Mike took that as a yes. “From another universe. Michael, this is my little sister, Abby.”

Slowly, never taking her eyes off of him, Abby waved.

Michael waved back awkwardly. “Hi? We’re, um… having mac-n-cheese.”

Abby brightened and immediately took a seat at the table. She sat in the seat furthest from Michael, but again, it’s not like Mike could blame her. Honestly, he’d rather she steered clear - the further she stayed from Michael, the further she stayed from whatever hell was about to break loose.

Mike split the mac-n-cheese into three separate bowls, handed them off, and sat at the table. “Okay. Well. All of this started with our brother.”

“I don’t remember him,” Abby offered solemnly. “But Vanessa says he’s a main part of Mike’s trauma.”

Mike scowled at his little sister. “I don’t have trauma.”

Michael laughed. “I literally don’t even know you, and I can tell you that’s a lie.” He paused. “Wait, your brother isn’t the youngest?”

Mike shook his head. “Nope.” He cleared his throat and tried to get the conversation back on track. “Right. Anyways. When I was a little kid, I was supposed to be watching him. But.”

A vivid picture of his brother’s terrified face flashed before his eyes. They were back in those woods again. If only he were faster, if only he could move-

Mike blinked, and he was back at the table.

“You okay?” Michael asked, something like understanding in his tone.

“This happens sometimes,” Abby told Michael, shoveling mac-n-cheese into her mouth. “Especially when he doesn’t take his meds. Which he hasn’t been for a while.”

“I have,” Mike protested.

“You haven’t,” Abby replied serenely. “I’m a kid, I’m not dumb.”

Okay. Well. “Moving on,” Mike continued. “Garrett got kidnapped and killed on my watch. So that’s a thing I dealt with for a while. I tried to get the memory of his kidnapping - because I’d sort of blocked it out - so I did all sorts of stuff to lucid dream so I could figure out who took him. Which messed with my sleep cycle a little. And then I took a bunch of different kinds of sleeping pills and stuff. Which messed it up even more. But! It worked, kind of, because I managed to get a little of the memory back.”

“Also he messed up the way his dreams work so badly, the ghosts use it to tell him stuff sometimes,” Abby added. “It screwed with his brain a little, so now he can’t really ever get restful sleep unless he full on blacks out. Most of the time he gets stuck in memories or visions or stuff, and when that happens, his body won’t actually rest.”

Mike frowned. “How do you know about that?”

Abby shrugged. “Vanessa told me. She said she’s worried about you. Can I have more mac-n-cheese?”

Mike sighed. “Vanessa and I are going to have a talk later.” Even so, he scooped some of his own dinner into Abby’s bowl. She continued to munch happily.

“Anyways,” Mike said, trying in vain to stay on topic, “it’s fine, I have new sleeping pills that help. Not important. So, our mom died and our dad ditched, so I’ve been taking care of Abby. I had an old job, but I got fired,” he wrinkled his nose at the memory, “and I had to find a new job fast or I’d lose custody of Abby. So I went to Freddy’s.”

“Let me get this straight,” Michael interrupted, leaning forward in his chair. “You went to Freddy’s of your own violation completely on coincidence.”

“Yeah,” Mike admitted. “If it helps, it turns out my career counselor was actually William Afton, and he’s the one who convinced me to work there. But yes.”

Michael rubbed his face. “This is so weird.”

“The coincidences just get stronger from there,” Mike promised. “I’m, like, half convinced somehow a spirit organized this or something, because it’s seriously crazy. Someone masterminded this whole thing. Or I’m talking crazy,” Mike shrugged, “who knows? But I slept through the first week of the job.”

Michael threw his hands in the air. “It’s unfair,” he complained, “unfair, I tell you. You didn’t get attacked? You just slept?”

“Yep. Kept Abby with me, too, and she was fine.”

“That is fucking insane,” Michael told him. “You are so lucky. I cannot believe this. I literally got attacked every single night. I almost died every single night. I actually did die at Baby’s, and the only reason I didn’t die at Freddy’s was because I was so careful - and it’s a little harder to kill someone who’s already dead. But no. You were just asleep?”

“Dunno what to tell you, man. I got some good rest there.”

Michael dropped his head onto the table and let out a defeated sigh. “Unfair,” he repeated.

“Yeah, knowing what I know now, I’m super lucky the cupcake didn’t murder me,” Mike agreed.

Michael looked up. “The cupcake?”

“Yeah. Does your cupcake not rip off faces and eat them?” Mike asked curiously. “It’s definitely the most violent of all of them. Even more than Golden Freddy, and he left the pizzeria to murder my aunt.”

Michael blinked. “The fuck? Your animatronics can leave?”

“Yours can’t?”

“No? Why did yours murder your aunt?”

Mike shrugged. “She was being a bitch, and she was going to take Abby. Gold is very protective of Abby.”

“Because he’s your brother, right? Or at least half your brother?” Michael guessed.

Mike blinked. “What.”

“Nope, never mind,” Michael hastily backpedaled. “Just, uh… go on with the story.”

Like that wasn’t an existential crisis. Mike decided to shove that resolutely into his Not My Problem Yet box in the back of his mind.

“Right. Worked at Freddy’s for a while, got a bunch of increasingly cryptic hints from a cop, Vanessa, and more and more worrying dreams every time I slept there. Honestly, a lot happened? I’ll just summarize. Basically, I found out the animatronics were possessed, got attacked a little bit, almost got tortured, tried to trade my soul for Garrett’s but that fell through.”

“You can trade souls?” Michael asked.

Mike shrugged. “Unclear. Anyways. My aunt got murdered by Golden Freddy after he scared the shit out of an uber driver to get to her house, Abby got chased around by Steve Raglan, who’s actually William Afton, who’s actually a furry with a knife, Vanessa and I tried to kill him - oh, turns out Vanessa’s actually an Afton kid, so that’s something - Abby drew some pictures to communicate with the animatronics, they got the message and started attacking Afton. He’s… dead? I think? And then the pizzeria collapsed. We all got out, but Vanessa was in a coma.”

Michael blinked. “That is… different.”

“Yeah. Vanessa’s fine now, and since Afton died, she inherited the franchise. There’s a second Freddy’s location a town away, so she’s willing to let me work there - and we had to move the animatronics there, too, because we couldn’t exactly leave them there - but I don’t have a job right now, because Vanessa has to fight off a bunch of lawsuits before she can afford to hire a new security guard.”

Michael grinned. “Wow. You’re only a little traumatized. You haven’t even hit the crazy parts yet.”

“Not traumatized.”

“Just a little,” Michael argued. “Okay. Let me tell you what happened in my universe, and we’ll figure things out from there.”

Mike leaned back in his chair. Sounded like this would take a while. “Sure. Let’s hear it.”

Chapter Text

He knew.

He didn’t know how he knew. It probably had something to do with being half dead himself. More than half, if he was being honest with himself - but he wasn’t really into honesty. Why start now?

Whatever the case, he knew - he could feel it in the shards of his bones. Could feel it in the scraps of flesh intermingling with wires.

Somehow, somewhere, someone exactly like him had arrived. Someone like him had done this. And he was willing to bet that it had been planned for a long, long time.

William was a bit rash when he was overcome with bloodlust, but he was nothing if not a planner. If another of him had forced their worlds to collide? Well. He must’ve had a good reason.

Alone, the Aftons were just rotting corpses, sustained by the souls of those they slaughtered. Together? Who knew?

There was more than just a new him here. A few others, expected, of course. And two lost souls, out of time, but connected to unlikely counterparts.

And another. Soulless. It was following the new William now, but it would only be a matter of time until it stumbled upon him.

How did he know this? Because the other him did. They shared a soul, after all - both of them were missing parts of themselves, and the moment they’d entered the same world, he could feel their souls filling in the gaps. They would never be one - of course not - but the perks of being dead meant communication was easy.

He thought he’d done some terrible things. Been part of insane, arguably impossible, events. But this? This was something new.

Slowly, painfully, he began to drag himself out of the ruined building.

He had work to do.

Chapter Text

“Sorry, hold on,” Mike interrupted. “You,” he pointed his macaroni covered spoon at the corpse across from him, “killed your brother.”

Michael shrugged. “It was an accident?” he offered.

With all the blood and gore Michael had been describing, Mike was increasingly glad he'd sent Abby to bed before they got too far into the explanation.

Something in Mike’s brain short circuited for a minute before deciding that he definitely didn’t get paid enough for this. “Looks like you’ve paid for it, anyway,” Mike decided finally. “Hey, what kind of Michael would you be if you weren’t at least partially responsible for your brother’s death?”

Mike knew, probably better than anyone, the guilt Michael would’ve been carrying with him. Who was he to add to that? Besides, they might have been very, very different people, but down at the core they seemed to be pretty much the same. If there was one thing he knew, it was that no Michael would ever stop trying to make up for what they’d done.

Michael looked a little relieved that his counterpart didn’t immediately stand up and scream, murderer!!!

“Right, no more questions,” Mike decided, turning back to his mac-n-cheese. “What happened next?”

It took several hours just to get through the basics of what Michael had been through.

“Okay,” Mike said once Michael had finished, “so that’s… a lot.”

Michael nodded. “Tell me about it.”

“My universe is pretty young then,” Mike said, clearing the table and getting started on the dishes. “That’s kind of a lot and I don’t think I want to think too hard about how all that stuff is going to happen here,” he decided. “I guess that brings us to how you managed to get here in the first place?”

Michael shrugged. “Yeah, no clue. Henry and I -”

“Yeah, who’s Henry, exactly?” Mike cut in. “I mean. Clearly there’s no Henry here. But your account was kind of convoluted, man. Is Henry your favorite ally or something? Did he only get involved because his kid died? Or is he, like.. Your father figure?”

“I still can’t believe you don’t have a Henry,” Michael said, shaking his head. “No wonder you’re so…” He gestured vaguely towards all of Mike.

“Hey!”

“Mostly we just worked together because of depressing stuff, honestly,” Michael said, answering the question. “But I think sometime around there he ended up being more of a father figure, yeah.”

“Sounds nice,” Mike noted, drying the dishes.

“What happened to your dad?” Michael asked curiously. “I know he wasn’t William, but I genuinely can’t imagine a Michael with parents.”

“Oh, yeah, no,” Mike agreed. “No parents. My mom died and my dad ditched.”

Michael nodded slowly. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean,” Michael corrected himself, “that’s kind of what happened with me, too, except when my dad ditched us he became a psycho murder bunny.”

Mike grinned and held up his hand for a high five. “Dead mom club?”

“Dead mom club,” Michael agreed, returning the high five. “Anyway. You wanted to know how I got here?”

“Right,” Mike replied. He finished drying the dishes, put everything away, and sat back down at the table. “Continue.”

“Henry and I were trying to light the building on fire, because everyone was in the same place. Did you know setting them on fire releases their souls?”

“I did not.” Mike filed that away for future reference.

“Huh. Anyways, we were planning on setting it on fire, and doing our best to keep everyone in there while it burned down. That way everyone would be released, my father would die a painful death, and Henry and I would die and not have to deal with this shit ever again. That was the plan.” Michael trailed off, eyes looking at nothing, probably stuck remembering everything he wished he’d left in the past.

“But?” Mike prompted.

“But, Father pulled out some random alive kid. Poor guy looked extremely confused, but not too surprised, so I’m guessing he’s already used to this kind of thing. William started ranting about a ball pit? And how Agony is the key to dimensional travel, as long as it’s linked to the right souls, and stuff.”

“Agony is remnant’s more corruptive counterpart, right?” Mike clarified.

“Uh. I think so,” Michael replied. “Honestly, it’s kind of unclear. But something like that. It’s a lot stronger than remnant, though. I know that Henry used to theorize that, if we were careful enough, agony might actually be able to fully heal my body. Which sounded great, because who would want to spend their lives as a corpse? But the process of getting agony is… not something I’m willing to do.”

Mike inclined his head. Fair enough. The one thing he was glad about was there were a lot of things that Michael seemed to know just as little about as he did. “Okay. So what did William do with the kid?”

“He used the kid as a shield,” Michael admitted. “We couldn’t burn it down while there was another living person in there. I mean, okay, it would’ve been the smart thing to do, right? But I’m not going to trade lives. I’m not going to kill another kid.”

“Understandable.”

“Thank you. So he held the kid hostage while he rambled about some terrible plan-”

“Your William monologues too?” Mike cut in.

“He never shuts up,” Michael agreed. “He doesn’t even have vocal cords anymore, and he still monologues.”

Mike sighed and rested his head on the table. “I’ll never be free.”

Michael patted his back in sympathy. “Nope. He’ll be back any day now to monologue at you.”

Mike groaned, just realizing the implications. “He’s still alive,” he said, his defeated tone slightly muffled by the table. “Does he ever stop?”

“Nope!” Michael said cheerfully, giving Mike a sympathetic head pat. “He’s like a cockroach. He just won’t die.”

Mike groaned again. “Fuck,” he mumbled into the table.

“What revelation are you having this time?” Michael asked curiously. Which, fair question, because Mike had stumbled into a lot of very identity crisis inducing revelations in the past couple hours.

“Abby deserves better than this,” Mike said, head still on the table. He refused to move - maybe, if he was lucky, he would become one with the furniture and never have to deal with this again.

“Maybe,” Michael admitted, because what child deserved to be mixed up in this kind of stuff? “But think of it this way. Abby gets to have a childhood.”

Mike sighed. “Not really. I’m broke, I don’t have the time to be with her very often, I don’t really know what I’m doing, I keep dragging her into my problems, I’m not a very good brother…”

“You’re doing better than I ever did,” Michael tried.

“Your siblings are dead,” came Mike’s response through the table.

“My point still stands.”

It was silent for a moment before Michael finally spoke again. “Look. I don’t really know you that well, and I don’t know Abby at all. But that kid who just joined us for mac-n-cheese? She’s happier than anyone in my world ever was. More than that, she’s alive. You’re doing a good job, Mike.”

“Is the bar that low?” Mike asked quietly.

“....kind of, yeah.”

Another moment of silence.

Mike lifted his head from the table. He didn’t want to dwell on this anymore, thank you very much. He added all of the William’s going to chase after you and your family for eternity to his box of Things that Aren’t My Problem Yet in the back of his mind and tried to move on.

He took pity on Michael - who was still sitting there awkwardly - and tried to get their conversation back on track. “So,” he sighed, “what happened after William’s monologue?”

Michael took the invitation eagerly and launched back into his story.

“Right. He made a machine, because that’s what he does. He said something about an Agony extractor, and something about ‘tweaking time travel’ - honestly, no clue what he was talking about. I was a little more focused on the animatronics trying to kill me and figuring out how to save the kid. All I know is, he started up the machine, and I blacked out. Next thing I knew I was in this world, and a little after that I found you.”

Mike blinked. “So. Your William is probably here, then.”

“Most definitely, yeah.”

“And some of your animatronics?”

“Almost certainly.”

“And that random kid?”

“Probably.”

Mike sighed heavily. He was too tired for this. “Okay. Well. This is a problem for the morning. You can sleep on the couch.”

Michael tilted his head. “I’m helping you pay for this house.”

“Do you even have money?”

“Maybe? If somehow my accounts got transferred over into this world?” Micheal tried.

“That’s a no,” Mike replied. “You get the couch.”

“Fair enough,” Michael conceded, leaving the kitchen and plopping down on Mike’s couch. “I’m assuming we’re figuring out what to do in the morning?”

“Yep,” Mike said. Hopefully he’d have more energy then. “Don’t kill anyone in their sleep, don’t die, and don’t burn down the house.”

“Do you trust me that little?” Michael asked, mock hurt.

“Yes,” Mike said, exhausted. “Good night.”

He needed sleep. He needed to process. He needed a lot of things. But, finally, he was going to get the chance to crash in his bed and ignore all his problems until the morning.

So, of course, that’s when someone knocked on the door.

Chapter Text

Mike peeked through the peephole in his door to see who was outside.

It was a child. Because of course it was a child. Well, he’d already committed to letting one crazy man into the house. Why not?

Mike opened the door. “What do you want?”

It sounded a little gruffer than he would’ve liked, but come on. He was tired. It had been a long day, he’d recently gotten fired, he didn’t know how he was going to keep the house, he had to find a way to keep Abby safe, there were a bunch of killer half-dead rabbits running around, and he was struggling to push away an impending identity crisis. So. He felt like being a little snappy was allowed.

“Uh…,” the kid said, tugging on his unruly brown hair. “Vanessa told me to come here?”

Mike sighed and rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to stay awake. “Okay. Sure, why not? Come in. I have to warn you, though, there's a corpse version of me laying on the couch.”

The kid shrugged. “I’ve seen weirder things on a couch.”

Mike scrunched his nose, morbidly curious. “Such as?”

“A demon masquerading as a bunny who was pretending to be my dad. I knew the whole time, but he's been fooling my mom for like a week.”

Ah. Another one for the trauma club. Mike pushed the door wide open. “I’ve got an extra bedroom you can take.”

He didn’t, actually, but he could sleep on the floor in Abby’s room. He wasn’t about to deny a kid a bed.

Michael had retreated back to the hallway - probably to avoid scaring the kid, which was nice of him, but they were going to have to meet eventually. Especially if the kid didn’t have anywhere else to stay. So Mike picked up a pillow and threw it at Michael’s head.

“Introduce yourself,” Mike told him.

Michael waved awkwardly. “Hey. I’m Michael.”

The kid waved back, not a hint of disgust, confusion, or concern in his eyes. His gaze didn’t even linger on Michael’s purplish, dead skin. “Sup. I’m Oswald.”

Mike frowned. “So you’re not another one of us?”

“A Michael?” Oswald asked. “Dunno. I don’t think I can be. I’m from the future.”

Mike shrugged. “Okay, why not.”

Michael finally spoke up. “You’re taking this incredibly well.”

Oswald shook his head. “Oh, no, I’m definitely freaking out. It’s just not going to register until later.”

The Michaels looked at each other and chorused, “Oh, yeah, he’s one of us.”

Oswald shrugged. “The dead guy’s dad thought so, at least. I mean, my world’s Michael - or whoever was taking his place, anyways - has been dead for, like… forever. He died before I was born. But I’m not connected to Freddy’s in any way, and I didn’t know anything about their animatronics or anything, but I was always drawing pictures of Freddy’s and the people there.”

“Am I the only one who doesn’t have a cool subconscious connection to any of the ghosts?” Michael asked in exasperation.

“Yes,” Mike told him. “So, Oswald, you’re not connected to Freddy’s at all?”

“Nope,” he replied. “Except through dreams and drawings. But, for some reason, I ended up falling into a bloody ball pit in the back of the building that used to be Freddy’s, and it took me back in time to some sort of incident - a kid got bit, I think? - and I got stuck there trying to outrun a demon who later followed me back to my time, dropped my dad into the pit, and impersonated him.”

Mike blinked.

“Wow,” Michael remarked, “I thought my life was weird.”

“A demon?” Mike clarified. “Not a dead man possessing a bunny suit?”

“Uh…,” Oswald tugged on his hair nervously. “I’m not actually sure? It wasn’t a person. When I was trying to get my dad back, I ran into a bunch of kids that needed help escaping, and most of them got out. One guy didn’t, though, and I saw… the thing… eat him. It was not anything that could’ve ever been a human.”

“Okay, moving past the time travel for now, although I definitely have questions, how did you get here? To this world?” Mike asked, because apparently he was the only one in the room who wasn’t content with half-answers.

“I only know what this guy’s,” Oswald pointed to Michael, “dad mentioned when he was rambling about some master plan or something.”

“You can call me Michael, and him Mike,” Michael clarified. “It’s kind of confusing, but we’ll make it work.”

Oswald nodded. “Sure. Anyways, your dad had a lot to say and I only understood, like, half of it. Honestly, not sure how he figured this stuff out himself.”

Michael shrugged. “I don’t know how he does half the stuff he does.”

“Fair enough. Anyways. He definitely called the demon thing an ‘Agony Creature’, whatever that is.”

Michael groaned. “Of couuuurseeee it is. That’s definitely not going to be a problem later.”

“Oh, it is,” Oswald promised, “I’m pretty sure it followed us here. Anyways, he called it an Agony Creature. He said the ballpit I was traveling through was full of Agony, too.”

Mike turned to Michael. “Did you know you could use Agony to time travel?”

Michael shrugged. “No? I think you’re overestimating the things I know. I’m just as confused as everyone else most of the time.”

Oswald carried on like he’d never been interrupted. “So. Agony is super destructive and unstable, and I was crazy desperate to get away the last time I used the Pit, and since Agony is so influenced by emotions, he figured that’s why things went so wrong.”

“But how does that translate to traveling universes?” Mike asked. He could actually feel his eyebags growing darker by the minute. He’d just had his first brush with ghosts, man - he wasn’t ready for all this.

“I have no idea,” Oswald admitted. “William had a couple theories, but he eventually settled on one.”

“Oh, right–” Michael cut in, “You were stuck with him for a while, then? How long?”

“Like… a week?” Oswald guessed. “I’m not super sure, but I’m definitely kind of traumatized by that.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Michael agreed. “Not sure how I survived so long in the same house as him.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t,” he pointed out.

Michael opened his mouth to disagree, considered that for a second, and shut his mouth again.

“Your dad killed you?” Oswald asked.

“Eeeeeh, kind of,” Michael replied, tilting his hand in a so-so gesture. “He forced someone else to kill me. But it was in his building, while I was following his command to get his stuff.”

“He’s kind of a shit dad, then,” Oswald observed.

“Yep,” Michael agreed. “Genius, but definitely evil. So what was the theory he decided on, then?”

“Oh, right.” Oswald sat down on the edge of the couch. Mike sat cross legged on the floor, and Michael sunk into the pillows on the other end of the couch. “He figured it had to do with souls, because apparently Agony is super soul based along with being emotion based? Does anyone actually know what Agony even is?”

“No,” Mike said, shaking his head.

“Nope,” Michael agreed.

Oswald nodded, looking like he’d expected that answer. “Cool. Anyway, he figured that, if used in desperation by someone in tune enough with the dead, it could draw you to the soul the most similar to yours. He thinks that’s how I ended up in his world in the first place - he thinks my soul is somehow the same as Michael’s soul, so I ended up traveling to the closest world that had that soul in it.”

Mike just blinked. “What.”

“William thinks I’m a Michael,” Oswald clarified. “And that all our counterparts have similar souls, so we’re all connected enough where we can travel to each other’s universes as long as we have Agony and desperation. He also thinks that this holds true for other central people, like other members of the Afton family.”

“Ah,” Mike said, nodding. “Okay.”

“Why does he think you’re one of us?” Michael asked, frowning.

“Oh. Cause of the dreams and the drawings and stuff,” Oswald replied simply. “My world already had a Michael, but he thinks that when Michael died, he became… me? Sort of? Like… reincarnation, but instead of fully, pieces of soul became part of mine.”

Mike raised a hand. “If that’s true, why doesn’t that happen to other people? Like, normal people?”

“Dunno. Because Aftons are the only people that ever mess with souls that bad? And because my world’s Michael’s soul was probably mutilated and stuff - he might’ve ended up half dead, too, when he died - so the pieces tried to heal themselves by attaching to me? He’s not really sure. But he’s pretty sure that somehow, either I’m Michael, or part of Michael is me.”

“That is so convoluted,” Mike sighed.

“Welcome to my world,” Michael told him cheerfully. “Insanity is the new normal.”

“But that’s how he got here, right?” Mike guessed. “He used Agony - maybe used your Agony creature? Maybe he had some just lying around? - put himself in a situation where he would be desperate enough, and pulled himself into the nearest world with a William as messed up as him.”

“Probably,” Oswald agreed. “Except looks like he accidentally pulled the rest of us in with him.”

“Well,” Michael reasoned, “I know William can build some impressive machines, but I doubt he managed to limit it to one specific area. He probably just used the agony to drag anyone in our world into this world who happens to have a counterpart. You and I both has Mike as our counterpart, there’s a William here as my dad’s counterpart, and who knows who else might’ve gotten dragged in. It can’t be everyone with a counterpart, or else half of my world would’ve ended up here. But the qualifier was probably just anyone whose soul has been corrupted by Agony or remnant.”

“True,” Mike agreed. “He’s messing with stuff that can reach through time. Literally anyone could’ve gotten pulled in, so we’re definitely going to have to keep an eye out.”

Mike’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. It was Vanessa.

He pulled it out and put it on speaker. “What’s going on, Nessa?”

“Heeeeey, Mike, there’s a slightly schizophrenic version of me holding a knife outside my door? I talked to her a little and she seems very confused, but I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do now.”

“Is she going to kill you, do you think?” Mike asked. He turned to the other two. “Do either of you know a Vanessa?”

Both shook their heads.

“I don’t think so? She says she’s ‘not a murderer anymore’ and she’s ‘trying to fix things’.”

Michael shrugged. “Coulda phrased that better, but that sounds a lot like something I would say. And I’m not going to kill anybody.”

Mike sighed. Once again, he was too tired for this. “How about you let her in. You sent Oswald here, did he already fill you in?”

“Sort of?” Vanessa replied.

“Good enough,” Mike decided. “You go ahead and explain what you can to the other Vanessa. We’ll all meet up in the morning and figure it out, okay?”

“But what if she kills me?” Vanessa asked, worried.

“We’ll avenge your soul,” Mike replied. “I’m going to bed. Bye.”

“Bye, I guess.”

Mike hung up. He put the phone away and stood up. “Well, this has been a crazy evening, but I have work tomorrow. Micheal, there’s some spare sheets in that cupboard.”

“You keep sheets in your cupboard?”

“Whose house are you sleeping in again?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Statement withdrawn,” Michael replied.

“Good. Oswald, follow me, you can sleep in the bedroom at the end of the hall, then I’m gonna crash. Nobody wake me, nobody go anywhere near Abby, and don’t touch anything. Got it?”

“Got it,” Michael and Oswald chorused.

“Good. Go to bed.”

Chapter Text

As important as all this multiverse time traveling stuff was, Abby took priority. If he wanted to keep her healthy, happy, and make sure he had a roof over her head, he needed to get to work.

Mike had checked his email right before bed and - as promised - Ness the diner owner had sent him everything he needed to know, from hours to salary. Which was good! But he also started that morning. Which was… less good.

It was still good, but he wasn’t about to leave Abby alone with a bunch of random guys - even if they were (at least probably, in Oswald’s case) him. And he couldn’t leave her with Vanessa, either, not if there was a slightly murderous version of herself there. Plus, Vanessa had already lost Abby privileges.

Hopefully, Ness would be chill and let at least Abby, if not the others, hang around the diner while he worked.

Mike sighed. He was alone, early in the morning, sitting at the kitchen table. Nobody else was awake yet. His head was still reeling from yesterday’s revelations, and the pressure of having another two people in his care - one of them a child - lay like a physical weight on his chest. He’d forgotten to take his pills, so he’d slept like shit, and every dream was filled with visions of a little kid who felt just like his brother with tears streaming down his cheeks and defeat in his eyes, screaming out for him.

He rubbed his temples. At this point, he was definitely going to end up with a splitting headache. The ghosts had never felt so angry before - some of them, specifically at him. When he was asleep, he could practically feel their fear and malice sinking into his bones, and some of that had stayed with him once he woke up, manifesting in the form of a headache that promised to become a migraine later if he didn’t do anything about it.

He was alone. The world was quiet and still, practically empty. It was just him and his pain, him and his anxiety.

There was no one to see him, so just for a little bit, Mike allowed himself to break.

Not for long. He needed time to pick up the pieces and glue them back together in a vaguely normal shape, and then he needed to get ready for work and drag everyone with him. And then they had to go talk with Vanessa. And then they had to figure out what to do with everyone. And how all this was affecting the dead kids, and where the other William was, and if they were working together, and if Oswald’s Agony creature would appear, and–

The list felt never ending.

Mike let his head fall into his hands and just… sat. He was too tired to cry and too overwhelmed to do anything, so he just… was for a little bit.

It hurt, kind of, and at some point he realized his breaths were coming out in tiny, hitching little half-sobs, but he didn’t really have the energy to stop, so he let it happen. He wasn’t sure what he was crying about. Everything, maybe.

Eventually, he pulled his head out of his hands when he felt a small hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Abby.

She smiled at him a little. “I dunno what the ghosts showed you last night,” she admitted quietly, “or what’s going on, but for what it’s worth, I think you’re a great big brother.”

Well, shit, if that didn’t fully break him. “Thanks, Abby,” Mike said, miraculously holding all his tears in. He tousled her hair. “And I think you’re a great little sister.”

She grinned and ducked away. “You messed up my hair,” Abby complained, but she was betrayed by the smile in her eyes.

“It’s an improvement, don’t worry,” Mike promised, his grin growing to match hers. He swallowed his residual sorrow and focused back on the present.

She gasped in offense. “Wounded! By my own brother!”

Something about those words threatened to trigger some sort of flash of fragmented dreams in the back of his mind, but Mike resolutely found those annoying dreams, cornered them, and beat them back with a stick. Nothing was going to stop him from enjoying Abby’s company.

But all too soon, an alarm buzzed on his phone. He sighed. “Go get ready, Abby, I’m bringing you to work with me. Can you wake up Oswald, too? He’s in my bedroom.”

“Who’s Oswald?”

….right. Abby had been in bed by then. “Um. Another, much younger me. From a different universe’s future.”

“Okay,” she replied cheerfully, taking that information in stride and running off to her room to pack a bag of things to do.

“Michael,” Mike called, “Get up. We gotta go.”

The other man groaned and placed a couch pillow over his face. “It’s too early to be alive,” he complained.

“Good thing you aren’t, then,” Mike replied mercilessly. “Get up. I have to take the kids to work, and I’m not going to leave you alone in my house, so you’re either coming with or sitting in the car. Actually, no, you’re probably going to end up with the Vanessas. Either way, you gotta get up.”

“I’m an adult!” Michael protested. “I can handle myself for a few hours.”

“Forgive me if I don’t want to leave the arsonist man I just met alone in my house,” Mike said dryly. “Now hurry up.”

Michael mumbled something less than kind under his breath, but he stood up. It was at this moment Mike realized that Michael had brought nothing with him. Including clothes that weren’t nasty, outdated, and looked like he died in them.

He might’ve, actually.

“Hang on,” Mike sighed. “I’ll get you a set of clothes.”

“Oh, good, because I was not gonna ask.”

About thirty minutes later than Mike would’ve liked, everyone finally piled into his tiny car, and he drove off towards the diner. The car ride was awkward and quiet, and he practically bolted from his seat as soon as he’d parked.

“Everyone out,” Mike said, opening the side door for Abby and Oswald. “I’m going to talk to my boss, and depending on what he says, we’re going to decide what to do.”

He hurried into the diner, not bothering to make sure everyone else was following him. Ness was waiting for him, apron already on, his smile just as wide as it had been before.

“Hi, Mike,” Ness said cheerfully. “You brought some people with you.”

“Yeahhhh, uh,” Mike shrugged, “these are my… siblings. They don’t have a place to go? So I brought them here. Is that okay?”

Oswald and Abby nodded dutifully. Michael looked like he was trying to disappear into the floor. He had a borrowed sweater with the hood all the way up and his hands in his pocket, like he was trying to hide the fact that he was very much dead.

Ness glanced at him suspiciously. Michael resolutely tried to look less purple.

It did not work.

“Not sure what to do about your friend here,” Ness admitted. “He might scare some customers away. And I think keeping him in the back might be some sort of health violation. No offense.”

“None taken,” Michael said softly, looking down.

Ness immediately looked like he’d just realized he’d kicked a puppy. “Um. Hold on.” He retreated into the back and emerged a second later, a medical mask in hand. “Wear this, keep your hood up, and sit in the corner,” Ness instructed, holding the mask out like a peace offering.

“Did you just… have one of those on hand?” Mike asked while Michael took the offered mask gratefully.

Ness shrugged. “Where I’m from, everyone does.”

Mike decided he didn’t want to know. “Okay. Thanks for letting everyone stay.”

Ness grinned. “The things I do for the plot,” he sighed. “Oh. Speaking of which. Your friend over there needs access to his bank account, doesn’t he?” Ness asked, pointing at Michael.

Mike blinked slowly. “Um. How did you know about that?”

“It’s just a theory,” Ness began, “but I can probably help. Just… gimme a second.”

“Okay?” Mike asked, mystified.

Ness turned and marched toward the fourth wall. He glared at it, and cracks began to form. As the cracks spread the nametag on Ness’s apron began to fluctuate between Ness, Sans, and MatPat. The cracks widened and a chunk of the wall broke open in a vaguely door-shaped hole. With zero hesitation, Ness marched through.

He waved at us. “Hey author. Readers. I have a favor to ask.”

Dude. I am not funny enough to pull off a wall break this big.

“Sorry. Give the man a bank account, though? It’ll help with the plot, so you don’t have to spend so much time trying to deal with his financial instability.”

I mean. Sure? But seriously, dude, get back behind that wall.

“Thanks!”

A moment later he was back. The wall repaired itself immediately.

“What’s back there?” Mike asked curiously.

“A laptop,” Ness replied. “Anyways,” he turned to Michael, “your bank account with all the money you inherited from the Freddy’s franchise has been moved over to this world. Congrats, you’re rich again.”

“I… thanks?” Michael replied, confused. Mike could actually see the exact moment that Michael decided, I don’t want to know, actually.

Mike also didn’t want to know. Ness was just weird, and that was a fact of life. He wasn’t about to dig any deeper.

Mike’s first day went pretty well, although it was kind of long. He stood at the register and waited for most of the time. Sometimes, Ness would pop over and pose questions or hold a brief conversation.

“What do you think of a lunch menu?” Ness mused. “We have brunch, but there’s not a whole lot that’s actually lunch food. What about… Helpy Hamburger? Lefty Lunch?”

In the corner of the room, Michael made some sort of choked noise. “Lefty, my son,” Michael whispered. “My beloved.”

Mike ignored him. “I dunno. Helpy sounds kind of stupid. And why Lefty?”

“Your face sounds kind of stupid,” Michael muttered under his breath.

Ness glanced at the fourth wall. “You’re right,” he agreed, “those names are kind of lazy and uncreative, and it either really takes the magic out of it, or it’s kind of funny because someone that high up was really done with their job and just went with the first thing that came to mind.”

“Uh… yeah,” Mike said, filing the whole encounter right into his Things that Aren’t My Problem Yet box, along with almost everything else Ness said or did.

Soon enough, though, his shift was over.

“Everyone, into the car,” Mike ordered as he hung up his apron. “We have to go meet up with Vanessa.”

“Good luck!” Ness called, waving.

“Thanks,” Mike replied, stepping into the parking lot. “I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

Chapter Text

“You’re weak,” the other man croaked, pushing the words past rotting vocal cords entwined with a voice box.

There was nothing but wreckage surrounding them. A collapsing building that captured echoes of laughter and reeked of death.

“And you’re dead,” he replied humorlessly. “I’d say we’re even.”

“You’re dead too.”

The man removed the mask that had been sitting over his head. He grinned, and it stretched wider than any being’s should. Something about his eyes was unnatural, uncanny, somehow even more disconcerting than the mangled corpse that stood opposite him.

“Am I?”

Afton against Afton. Murderers. The intent had been to work together. But something about this new, freshly killed William... something was wrong.

It was supposed to be man against man. Monster against monster.

But his ambition was a void. It was never just about the thrill of the kill, about the power he felt when he watched life leave a child's eyes. It was about control.

And humanity, of course, is hard to control. So he rid himself of it.

“....how? How are you still…”

“Human?” William questioned slowly, his grin stretching ever wider as madness lit his eyes. “That was always your problem, it seems. Obsessed with being alive again. Whole. It’s humanity that holds you back, Afton. You were smart enough, strong enough to make it here. But not enough to become what you needed to.”

“What are you?” the dead man asked, horrified.

“Immortal,” William replied, cocking his head to the side. “But you aren’t. And, alas, there can only be one.”

He had already begun to hunt down the Agony's vessel. All he had done so far was remove an arm before the creature escaped, but already, one arm was rich in Agony. He was far more powerful, far more in control, than this rotting corpse could ever even dare to comprehend.

He needed more.

And so he took it.

Afton never even had a chance to scream.

Chapter Text

“Mike, if you don’t open your eyes a little wider, I’m not going to be the only dead person in this car,” Michael warned.

Mike grumbled, but forced himself to stay awake. After no sleep - no restful sleep, anyway - a mini breakdown that morning, and a long shift, he was done. And they hadn’t even gotten to the really draining part of the day.

He finally pulled to a stop in front of Vanessa’s apartment. His legs felt like lead, but he managed to drag himself out of the car. He sighed as he knocked on the door - there was no way he was making it through the rest of the day.

“Hey, Mike!” Vanessa said, flinging the door open, far too energetic for his taste. She glanced over his shoulder. “Oh. There’s more of you than I thought.”

Michael waved, mask still on his face and hood covering his head in an attempt to look more normal. “Hi, I’m Michael.”

Vanessa nodded. “Sure, why not. Come in and we’ll all get our stories straight, okay?” Once everyone had filed inside, she turned to Mike. “You look dead.”

“More than the actual dead guy?” Mike asked skeptically.

“You know what I mean. Are you good?”

Mike shrugged. “Long day,” he offered instead of an explanation. “How’re you taking this whole thing?”

“Oh, no idea, it hasn’t really set in yet,” Vanessa admitted. “Turns out me and other me have a lot of trauma in common, so. We’ve been bonding over our mutual pain.”

“That sounds… fun?” Mike replied.

“Yep. C’mon, they’re waiting.” Vanessa shut the door behind them.

Having everyone in one room was definitely an experience. Initially, they skipped over introductions in favor of getting the kids out of the room. Abby and Oswald were sent off to the living room while the adults hung out in Vanessa’s kitchen. Hopefully they could entertain themselves well enough. This wasn’t going to be a suitable conversation for kids.

“Soooo,” Michael started, “is everyone else here alive?”

“Physically, yes,” Vanessa 2 agreed. “Mentally? Maybe I was brain-dead? Maybe not? Definitely possessed.”

“Mmm, doesn’t count,” Michael decided, shaking his head. “It’s okay. I’ll be in the Dead Club all by my lonesome.”

“Do we really need a club for every kind of trauma we have?” Mike questioned.

“Yes,” Vanessa 2 and Michael agreed in unison.

“Right,” Vanessa 1 said, “formal introductions. I’m Vanessa, but you can call me Nessa.”

“I’m also Vanessa,” said the other blonde. “You can call me Vanny.”

“Mike,” he said, raising his hand.

“Michael,” the other finished. “Great, that’s out of the way. So. What’re we going to do about this whole ‘universe hopping’ problem?”

Vanny squinted at Michael. “Michael Afton, former security guard at Freddy’s? Like. The owner’s son?”

“Yeah? Are we from the same universe?” Michael questioned. “Because I don’t remember you.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” Vanny promised. “I worked at the pizzaplex. That’s from way after that fire burned down the old restaurant.”

“It actually burned down?” Michael asked. “I thought I failed at that.”

“Hm,” Vanny said, frowning. “Maybe the same universe, but a different timeline? Things probably branched out a little differently, especially if you got yanked out of your spot in time.”

Mike was already lost. Time travel was too complicated for him. “Ask Oswald later,” he suggested. “He’s our resident time traveler. Maybe he’d know.”

“The kid?” Vanny asked. “He actually time traveled?”

“Oh, yeah,” Michael told her. “There was this whole thing where some bunny impersonated his dad, too–”

“Bunny trauma club?” Vanny cut in hopefully.

“Bunny trauma club,” Michael agreed sagely.

“Bunny trauma club,” Nessa agreed, nodding, holding her hand out for a high five. The other two high fived her and grinned.

Everyone turned to Mike.

“Don’t look at me,” he said, shaking his head. “My dad was a piece of shit, but he wasn’t a bunny.”

“That’s okay,” Michael told him. “You can be part of the Deadbeat Dads Club instead.”

“Ooh, I like that one better,” Nessa said. “It illiterates nicer.”

“We can talk about our backstories and stuff later,” Mike said before things could get too far off track. “More importantly, how many William Aftons are in my world now?”

“Your world?” Nessa asked, putting a hand on her hip.

“Our world,” Mike amended, desperately wishing he were napping instead of dealing with this. “Aftons from other worlds can get here if their souls are intact, touched by Agony, and just as corrupted as our Afton.”

“My William doen’t have a soul,” Vanny offered. “He died, I only have a digitized copy of his brain.”

Mike blinked. “Okay. That’s one we don’t have to worry about.”

“Mine is definitely here,” Michael added. “He’s the one who took everyone from my universe into this one. I’m assuming random Williams can’t show up, because it looks like he only dragged in people from my universe and its connected timelines.”

“Except Oswald,” Mike pointed out.

“He was in my universe at the time,” Michael countered. “So there should only be two.”

“And the Agony Creature.”

Nessa frowned. “What’s an agony creature?”

Mike sighed. “I literally don’t think this could get any more complicated.”

Someone knocked on the door.

He groaned. “Aaaand I jinxed it. Hold on, it’s probably another one of us.” He walked over to the door, where Abby and Oswald were guiltily pretending like they hadn’t been listening in on the conversation.

“You’re not fooling anybody,” Mike told Abby. “I’m confiscating your lollipops for the rest of the week.”

Abby’s sigh sounded eerily like his own. She pouted a little, but didn’t repent.

Mike ignored her and flung the door open.

He sighed again, heavier this time, and called back into the apartment, “Nessa! It’s another child!”

The messy boy in front of him frowned. He was dirty and his hair didn’t look like it’d gotten a trim in a long time. His clothes were torn and threadbare. “Hey,” he protested.

He looked homeless. Based on how most of their lives had gone, he probably was. And Mike didn’t have to question if he was anybody’s counterpart - he already knew.

This kid looked eerily similar to Garrett. That would definitely make Mike’s nightmares worse later, but for the moment, all it meant was he probably belonged with their sad, traumatized little group. Nobody could really tell with Mike and Michael, mostly because Michael was a corpse, but it was clear with Vanny and Nessa. They didn’t look exactly the same, but they were definitely close enough to pass as siblings. The fact that this kid looked like Garrett had to mean something.

“Come on, join us,” Mike said, exhaustion dripping from every word. “The others are trauma dumping in the kitchen.”

The kid followed him in.

Mike stopped in front of Abby and Oswald. “You’re going to listen no matter what I do, aren’t you?”

Oswald shrugged. Abby grinned.

“Fine. You can be part of the conversation, but no interrupting and no repeating anything we say. We’re not talking about fun stuff, so if at any point it gets too brutal, I’m sending you out and you will go out. Understood?”

“Thanks, Mike!” Abby said, grinning, and flung her arms around his waist.

Mike poked his head into the kitchen. “Guys, we might as well move to the living room. At least it has couches.”

They filed into the living room.

Vanny froze and locked eyes with the new kid. “Gregory!”

He also froze and slowly inched closer to the door.

“Relax, I’m not trying to kill you anymore,” Vanny promised. “I was mind controlled at the time.”

“So you admit you were trying to kill me before!” the kid - Gregory, apparently - said triumphantly. “I told him so.”

Vanny hesitated. “Maybe?”

The kid spread his arms, like, see? “I don’t trust you,” he announced, but he sat down on a couch anyway.

“That’s fair,” Vanny admitted. “Good news, though, you can join our killer bunny trauma club.”

Gregory looked intrigued. “Do we have a dead mom trauma club?”

“Yes,” everyone chorused.

“Sweet,” he said, relaxing a little bit. “So, what’s going on exactly?”

Oswald spoke up this time. “We all got pulled through space and time into this guy’s,” he pointed at Mike, “world, and barely any of the crazy trauma stuff has happened yet.”

Mike’s head hurt. His headache from early that morning began to shift from a dull beat into a steady throb. He did not have the patience for this.

“Okay!” Nessa said, clapping her hands. “We have a lot of explaining to do, then we’ll decide what to do with everyone and how we’re gonna deal with the Williams.”

“And the Agony creature,” Oswald added.

“And that,” Nessa agreed.

Mike desperately wanted a nap.

Chapter Text

The spirits were restless.

Something was very, very wrong. Of course, things had been wrong for a long time. And now there were more of them, yanked across universes and floating aimlessly in a new world.

And yet, there was something else.

Some of them - the new ones - offered to keep an eye on William. But he had been… changing, lately. Sometimes they floated in to look at him and he turned sharply and stared right at them. They knew he had somehow healed himself of all injury, too.

And the new William, the one who had caused all of this in the first place, was gone.

Or, well, not gone. His body was still there, laid out on the ground, lifeless. But his soul? Disappeared, without a trace. Any remnant that might have resided in the metal structure of his corpse had been harvested meticulously.

And then there was the Agony creature. Or, at least, they were pretty sure that’s what it was. Only one of them reported seeing it. More foreboding than its existence was the fact that it was missing a few pieces.

Very few beings would dare to take on an Agony creature.

Even fewer could succeed.

The creature was still dangerous - even to Afton. But things were getting more dangerous, and the living had no idea this was happening. The children came to a consensus – they had to warn them somehow.

The new souls voted that they try to connect with Abby. The girl could understand their drawings, couldn’t she? That would be worth a shot.

The originals, the ones still trapped in metal bodies, disagreed. They knew better than most how wrong it was to get children involved in these kinds of problems. If they could shield their friend, they would.

There was one other option, of course. Mike would suffer for a bit - living minds aren’t meant to be quite so connected with the dead, even if he had originally connected them on purpose, and there would always be consequences for that. But they would be able to project their memories and tell him what they knew. It would be worth it.

It was the best option. The safest option.

Hopefully, they weren’t already too late.

Chapter Text

There is nothing worse than lucid dreaming.

Okay, yeah, that sounds opposite to what most people say, right? But it’s true. At least, it was true for Mike.

He could be fully aware he was dreaming and still be unable to control anything that was happening. Sure, more often than not he had normal dreams, but when he didn’t… it was bad.

It had gotten better for a while, after Abby befriended the ghosts that kept haunting his dreams. There was less for them to try and tell him, and at least a little less animosity towards him. During that time, the only nightmares he had were ones of his own making, where he was stuck in whatever endless loop his mind created. Sometimes it was memories of almost being tortured on loop. Sometimes it was his attempt to trade his soul away.

Sometimes it felt like the memories of the dead kids were leaking into his mind as they, too, tried to find rest. Those ones never felt malicious - just afraid. He knew they weren’t doing it on purpose.

He never brought it up when they accidentally linked to his own dreams while they slept. They never did either. But after nights like that, they always sent a happier drawing home with Abby.

He figured that was the best apology he was going to get.

But tonight didn’t feel like any of those.

Tonight, he felt like he was suffocating.

The moment he dropped into a dream, it was like plunging into an ocean. He didn’t know which way was up, only that he was surrounded in darkness. The world was cold. Cold, lonely, broken - tinged with a hint of relief that was all but swallowed by the fear.

Memories were shoved into his mind, all at once. It took him a moment to even try to sort through them when all he could focus on in the moment was the steady pulse of frantic emotions that came along with them.

The pain of death caught him off guard, but he’d realized by then he was supposed to be looking for something. He struggled for a moment, but pushed off the foreign memory of teeth in his skull and knives in his gut as the deaths of multiple people washed over him in quick succession.

Then he could see someone else’s body. A mangled corpse of a man, laying still on the floor - a jolt as a different set of eyes turned to meet his, and a creature lunged for his throat.

Help us.

There was something else. Something worse. It dripped agony, pulsing with an imaginary heartbeat, darkening the edges of his vision. It was so full of malice and hatred and triumph that it felt close to breaking open, spreading its filth all through his mind. It grew steadily, dark and charred around the edges, nearing him until he could make out the vague shape of something that could once have been called a man.

A soul so corrupt that just seeing it made him want to vomit drifted towards him, reaching out to touch him. Mike could do nothing but stare, paralyzed with fear.

Help us, young voices chorused. If not for us, then for you.

“What?” Mike managed, the word broken and raw.

Did you not know? a young girl’s voice asked curiously, echoing through the emptiness of the space. You’ve been trying to do it for so long, and you finally succeeded. You bridged the gap.

Mike knew he didn’t need to breathe, not here, but he still sucked in air in quick, short gasps as the thing drew ever nearer.

“What?” he asked again.

Between living and dead, the voice said. When you dream, you’re stuck here with us. Which means you’re stuck with part of him, too.

“Who?”

You know. He’s still physical, though – we have some time. Not much. But some.

The thing touched his chest.

A deep voice, one he recognized, echoed through the mindscape he was aimlessly drifting in.

Hello, Mike.

Mike jolted awake.

The world still felt blurry around the edges, like he was half asleep. Afton’s voice echoed in the back of his head.

Hello, Mike.

Hello , M i k e .

H e l l o,
M i k e.

It was fine. He was fine. He was laying on the floor of Abby’s room, where he’d gone to bed after the long discussion the night before. Everything was fine.

He could still feel the horrific creature’s polluted soul touching his chest.

He stood up and practically bolted out of the room. Mike fled to the bathroom, shut and locked the door, and turned to the mirror. He stared at the harsh rising and falling of his chest as he checked to make sure that thing’s soul hadn’t stained him where it had touched him.

“Day two without real sleep,” Mike muttered to himself, sinking down onto the cold tiles of the bathroom floor.

He went over what he remembered from the dream. By now, Mike knew better than to dismiss something he’d seen as just his overactive imagination. It meant something, and the souls were warning him about whatever that creature had been.

He’d recognized that voice, though.

William Afton. His William Afton. And he’d seen the other William Afton’s corpse lying empty on the floor.

Mike had no idea what that meant, but it definitely wasn’t good. Especially the part about being stuck in the same world as the spirits when he slept - which… made sense? Sort of? But if his William was still alive somehow, how did something with his voice manage to touch him?

He could still feel the touch.

That probably wasn’t good, was it.

Oh, fuck, that wasn’t good, and now his breaths were coming too fast again and his fingers felt numb and his head was floating and he could still see that creature when his eyes began to blur, like it was haunting him, like it wouldn’t ever leave him alone–

There was a knock on the door, but Mike was too lost in his head to really register it. After a moment - someone might’ve called his name, but it felt too fuzzy and unimportant for him to bother figuring out who, let alone respond - the door handle jiggled.

Michael pushed the door open, peeking through the crack.

When he saw Mike, he swung the door open all the way and closed it gently behind him. Mike couldn’t seem to focus on his face. For some reason, he managed to focus on the screwdriver in Michael’s hand.

How did he get a screwdriver? Did he just carry one of those with him wherever he went?

The next - five? time was hard - minutes were a blur. It took him a while to even register Michael’s voice, and even longer for his breath to slow to a manageable pace. He sighed heavily and pulled his knees up to his chest, then dropped his head onto them, like curling into a ball might make the horrific corruption touching his chest disappear.

“You good?” Michael asked finally.

Mike knew this was important. But he also knew that nobody else had to get involved. This was his world, and his Afton. He could fix this himself. And if something happened to him… well, now there were other people who could help Abby.

And he was far too drained and tired to explain what little he’d managed to piece together.

“Bad night,” Mike rasped, deciding to leave it at that.

Michael nodded. “We all have those,” he agreed quietly.

“Yeah.”

Mike allowed himself to take the time to pull himself together. Michael left after a couple more minutes so Mike could clear his head in solitude.

This was his problem. He knew a little more now, and he’d figure out the rest. He’d have to go back to Freddy’s to see what else he could learn.

Mike wasn’t stupid - he wasn’t going to go in alone. This was just as much Vanessa’s problem as it was his, and he wasn’t about to deny her right to know whatever he found. But the rest of them didn’t need to worry about stuff like this.

Yeah. Besides, he had time, right? Maybe they could put this off for just a little longer.

Hello, Mike.

Mike shuddered. He had time.

It would be fine.

Chapter Text

“So,” Gregory said, crossing his arms. “Time travel.”

Oswald crossed his arms too. “Yeah. And?”

“What’s it like having a possessed dad?”

Oswald blinked. “I mean… he wasn’t possessed, he was just replaced.”

Gregory waved a hand impatiently. “Same thing.”

“Not really?”

“Meh, wouldn’t know, I don’t have a dad.”

“Okay,” Oswald said, breezing right past that. “So. Wanna bother Mike?”

Gregory grinned. “Which one?”

Hm. Oswald hadn’t considered this. “The dead one,” he decided eventually. “I bet his legs are all nasty and decomposing, so it’ll be harder for him to chase us around.”

Gregory nodded sagely. “Wise.”

“Nobody,” Michael said, joining them in the living room, “will be chasing anyone. Mike’s going to need some quiet today, so I’ve got to get you out of the house. You will behave, understand?”

Gregory crossed his arms. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Please,” Michael tagged on.

Gregory wrinkled his nose. “Try and sound like you mean it, bitch.”

“Watch your fucking language, you little shit,” Michael replied, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Oswald just looked very confused. “So… what are we doing?”

“Dunno,” Michael said with a shrug. “This is a different universe. Don’t you want to go look around? Take a break from all the murdery robot ghosts and stuff?”

“No offense, but you don’t have a great track record with watching kids,” Gregory pointed out.

Michael winced. “I… yeah. True. I’m not going to make the same mistakes again, trust me. I would give anything to go back and be a better brother. I can’t, but at the very least, I can try and stop other kids from suffering like we did. But if you don’t trust me, I don’t blame you.”

Gregory softened. “I don’t trust you,” he admitted, “but I don’t really trust anybody. It’s not personal.” He looked down at the floor. “I’ll stay here. I can be quiet.”

Michael nodded. He didn’t push, instead he turned to Oswald. “You want to come with me? Nessa can show us around, and Vanny’ll probably tag along. I’ll wake Abby up and take her with us.”

“Sure.”

A couple of minutes later, Oswald, Abby, and Michael were gone. Gregory stood alone in the living room, unsure of what to do now. He started looking through Mike’s shelves for a book or something - he couldn’t read very well, but at least it would be something to do. He found a thick binder and pulled it out of the shelf.

It was a picture album. It was mostly family photos, but near the end a lot of it was drawings. Probably Abby’s, Gregory reasoned.

He settled down on a couch and started flipping through the pictures.

After a while, he heard heavy steps approaching the living room and hurriedly shoved the photo album under a couch pillow.

Mike dragged himself into the living room, looking dead on his feet. He looked around for a second before he noticed Gregory.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Out driving around,” Gregory replied, making sure to match his tone to Mike’s, so he was as unnoticable as possible. “They’ll probably be back in the afternoon. They were trying to give you the house to yourself.”

“Oh,” Mike said slowly. “That was… nice. Did they take my car?”

“No,” Gregory said. “Nessa picked them up.”

“Oh,” Mike said again. “Okay. Um. I’m gonna… go to work. Are you going to be okay here by yourself?”

Gregory nodded. He’d been by himself for a long time. Frankly, he was kind of insulted that Mike didn’t think he could handle it.

“Um. Bye, then,” Mike said awkwardly. He slipped his shoes on, grabbed his keys, and left.

Gregory was alone again.

He pulled the photo album back out of the cushion and went back to flipping through the pages.

He was interrupted by a vague cracking sound. Gregory looked up, but didn’t see anything. Just to be safe, he put the photo album back on the shelf. The cracking sound grew louder. Quickly, he pulled his shoes on - you never know if you’re going to have to run or not.

The cracking grew even louder, and now he could see fractures spreading across the wall he was standing next to. He backed up and glanced to the front door, preparing to make a run for it.

The wall shattered. A man stepped through, a spotless apron around his waist and a smile on his face. His name tag read Ness in cheery, neat capital letters.

“Hi! Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Gregory blinked. What. “What the fuck.”

“If you keep cursing, the author’s going to have to up the maturity rating,” Ness warned.

“What.”

Ness smiled. “I’m Mike’s boss. He was supposed to come in to work today, but he didn’t show up. So I can only assume he’s making poor decisions right now.”

“He said he was on his way, like… fifteen minutes ago?” Gregory said. He knew he should probably be concerned about whoever this was, or about the demolished fourth wall in front of him, but something about Ness felt safe. Plus Gregory definitely didn’t care enough to deal with this kind of thing.

“Yeah, but the diner’s only five minutes down the road,” Ness replied. “That’s not where he’s going.” He turned and stared.

He’s staring at you right now. Can you feel it?

“You should be worried.”

Ness turned back to Gregory and smiled. “You have a unique connection, kid! You have part of the Crying Child™’s soul, and yet, the Crying Child™ is here, along with this world’s version of him. Never have there been so many unconfirmed names in one place before. Anyways, basically, you’ll probably be able to reach and connect with them more than everyone else. Which is important, because Mike is dealing with more spirits than he realizes.”

“Are you saying I need to go bail him out of crazy ghost stuff because he keeps making poor choices?” Gregory clarified.

“Yes!” Ness said brightly. “That’s exactly it. So if you don’t mind stepping through this wall…”

Gregory looked at the broken wall suspiciously. There was no way that was structurally sound. He couldn’t see anything through the holes in the wall, though. Just an empty black void. “What exactly is the wall?”

“A convenient plot device for when the author doesn’t know how else to get you anywhere,” Ness explained. “It’s probably best if you don’t think about it too much. Now walk through.”

And really, Gregory was kind of known for going into places he probably shouldn’t, so of course he immediately walked through.

And popped out in the backseat of Mike’s car.

What just happened? His memory of the past five minutes was super blurry. Did he sneak into Mike’s car? When did he do that?

Probably some sort of ghost thing. Who knows.

The car came to a stop in front of a ruined Freddy’s building. Mike stepped out of the car without a word, clearly not having noticed Gregory yet.

Well. This didn’t seem like a good idea. Gregory slipped out of the car after him, making sure he followed Mike at a distance, so he wouldn’t be noticed. He figured Mike needed somebody watching his back, because whatever he was doing, it was stupid.

Somebody had to be the adult in this situation, after all.

Chapter Text

Mike was not having a good day. The upside of that: it probably couldn’t get much worse. Maybe.

Who was he kidding, it was about to be so much worse.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t deal with this alone. He’d promised he’d bring Vanessa, because it was her dad. He’d promised.

But.

Look, he was just going to scope out the area. He wasn’t going to do anything crazy. Plus, he’d brought a gun - not that it would do much against a corpse, but he could hope.

He wasn’t going to engage, or do anything risky. He just wanted to check and make sure his dream hadn’t been some sort of hallucination or something.

Plus, he had a hunch. Everyone had counterparts - even the souls of the children. He was willing to bet that, hidden somewhere in the old building, there would be old animatronics with several children trapped inside. His world’s souls couldn’t tell him much, just what they managed to show him in his last dream. Maybe, though, these ones could tell him more.

Even more than all that, he had to do something. Anything, really. Anything that could help him figure all this out - or distract him from how quickly he was falling apart. Anything to get rid of the corruption he could still feel squirming in his chest, pushing to get out dragging him towards its source.

Probably not a good thing, but Mike was trying to ignore his problems. Unfortunately, he couldn’t put this in his box of Things That Aren’t My Problem Yet, so he was going to have to find some sort of solution.

So when the house was empty - minus Gregory, but that was fine - Mike jumped at the chance to go and investigate alone.

He climbed into his car and drove off, desperately trying to convince himself that this wasn’t the dumbest thing he’d ever done. It didn’t take too long to get to the old, collapsing location, so he didn’t have much time to convince himself. Before he knew it, he was out of the car, standing in front of the building, forcing one foot in front of the next.

Chapter Text

It was more… desolate than he remembered. It wasn’t too run down, but there was dust caking the windows and broken glass scattered around the pavement. The inside felt hollow, empty - but not in the way it had before. Not in the vaguely haunted, sinister way, just… empty. Lifeless.

He stepped carefully over the broken glass and tried the door. Locked - because of course it was. That didn’t stop him, though, he just walked over to one of the more shattered windows and squeezed through. A shard of glass caught his jacket, but he pulled free without much of a hassle.

Honestly, Mike still wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Afton’s corpse, really, but… how was he going to find it? Half the building was collapsed. Either William was lying somewhere, half dead, under piles of rubble, or the man had actually managed to free himself and crawled away to die somewhere else.

Hello, Mike.

Mike pushed away the memories of that morning’s dream. Nope. Not thinking about it.

Unless… Hold on. Mike paused and stopped to think through the scenario for a minute. He had seen an Afton’s corpse on the floor, and another one of them had spoken to him. He’d been sort of working on the assumption that the dead one was his Afton, but what if it wasn’t? If it was the other Micheal’s Afton, then his own had definitely freed himself from the rubble somehow.

Which meant he was roaming free. Probably somewhere nearby.

Mike stared down at the wreckage on the floor and realized that he might be in considerable danger. He was an idiot. He didn’t have to be here alone. He could’ve told somebody, brought others with him, something other than a needless self sacrifice.

He’d just… wanted answers without anyone else getting hurt. Closure. Proof he wasn’t going crazy. But the others would believe him even without proof, wouldn’t they? He didn’t need to be here.

But his feet wouldn’t move. Something at his core held him in place.

No… His chest.

Where the creature had touched him.

If not for us, then for you, they’d whispered.

He… he hadn’t come here of his own free will, had he? He’d been dragged. Convinced by the thing that tried to taint him. His chest burned where he’d been touched, like the skin was trying to self-destruct so all record of the Afton-creature could be removed from his soul.

Mike was an idiot. But even he wasn’t this stupid.

Now that he’d realized, he could recognize the vague fog settling in the corners of his vision. It had been there ever since he woke up. Clouding his thoughts. Making him less rational than he usually was. Like an ever present, heavy static of fear, forcing him to remain still.

Well. He was going to have to do something about that. Abby would never forgive him if he died without saying goodbye.

A wave of putrid obsession seemed to curl around the abandoned building, leaking through the halls and creeping ever closer to Mike. It felt like corruption, like someone had laid their humanity bare and let it fester, leaving nothing but condensed rot behind.

Through the haze of overwhelming wrongness stepped a familiar, strangely whole man.

Mike furrowed his brow and willed his rapid heartbeat to slow. He tried to move, but it was slow and sluggish. The fog threatened to overtake his vision, but he pushed it back. He was stronger than this. Better than this.

William grinned. “Miss me?”

Mike glared. At least that was one action he was still capable of. “You killed my brother,” he pointed out flatly.

William shrugged. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

“....No.”

William shrugged again. “Your loss.”

Mike blinked slowly. His hatred towards the man cleared the fog a bit. His best guess was the thing that’d touched him was made out of some sort of Agony - and as much as he wasn’t clear on what exactly that was, he was pretty sure it fed on fear.

Fine, then. He’d focus on his anger instead. This man killed his brother. He tried to kill Abby. Mike was not letting him get any closer. He was not going to allow himself to be manipulated in this way, told he was crazy, left alone again. Not now. He was not letting him win.

The burning feeling in Mike’s chest receded. Hm. Seemed like he’d found some sort of solution here, then. “I’m going to punch you,” Mike informed William.

The arrogant, vaguely dead, murder bunny man scoffed. “Please. I’m literally immortal. What would–”

Mike punched him. It was a direct hit to the jaw, and while it might not have killed the man, it was incredibly satisfying.

William coughed and spluttered. “You insolent little–” He sucked in a deep breath and settled back into his signature, unhinged grin. “You really thought you’d be free of me, did you? You should’ve known better. I don’t leave work unfinished. And that little girl communicates with the spirits so well… I wonder how I could use that.”

Mike clenched his fists. “Over my dead body.”

William’s grin widened. “I mean, if you insist.”

Okay, okay, bad choice of words on Mike’s part. He would’ve run, but he didn’t think he could make it very far before the murderer caught up to him.

“Listen, Afton, I–” Mike said, trying to stall.

Turns out he didn’t have to. The sickening crunch of metal colliding with bone rang through the empty building. Afton’s eyes fluttered, closed, and he collapsed to the floor.

Behind him stood Gregory, a metal pipe in his hands, still raised in the air. For a moment, the two blinked at each other.

“We should go,” Mike said breathlessly, deciding to ask questions later.

“Yep,” Gregory agreed, dropping the now slightly bloody pipe on the floor and darting ahead of him, beelining towards the broken window. He climbed through and dashed towards Mike’s car.

Mike hesitated for a second, staring at William’s form. It felt wrong to leave him there. Shouldn’t they tie him up or something? Or… shoot him? He actually had a gun on him.

Yeah. That sounded about right.

Mike pulled the gun out of it’s holster – in the midst of realizing he’d been sorta possessed-ish, he’d forgotten about it – and emptied the clip into Afton’s skull.

He had no doubt it didn’t do anything. But again, it was very satisfying. Then he hurried out after the kid. Mike slid into the front seat, locked the doors, and started the car. He waited until they were on the road to ask, “How’d you get here?”

Gregory shrugged. “Uh. I followed you? I’m not sure, actually, but you looked like you needed help.”

Good enough. “Thanks, kid. You didn’t have to do that.”

Gregory shrugged again, sinking a little lower into his seat. “I didn’t do it for you. If you died, Abby would’ve cried,” he mumbled.

Mike didn’t reply. He was right, after all.

“So… that’s your William?” Gregory asked.

“Yep. That's him.”

“He looks pretty alive for a dead guy.”

Mike sighed. “Yep. Super worried about that, actually. None of this is good.”

“Why’d you go off by yourself?” Gregory asked, crossing his arms. “That was stupid.”

Mike pursed his lips. “Yeah, I know. I just… I wanted to make sure, I guess? Also, I thought maybe there were other souls in there, but it felt pretty empty, so maybe not. And maybehemighthavetouchedmysoulandmanipulatedmetogetmethere.”

Gregory blinked. “Huh?”

“Maybe half possession-ish? That I can break out of, apparently, so that’s good news. But. Yeah,” Mike explained quietly, like speaking softly might make the impact a little less hard.

It did not.

“Oh. Of course it’s possession, that’s one of that family’s favorite shit to do,” Gregory replied simply, unfazed. “I mean. Vanny was possessed, all the animatronics are possessed, pieces of Oswald’s soul are maybe possessed, pieces of my soul are possessed, because I’m apparently like Oswald and maybe carry pieces of the Crying Child™ in me or something–”

“Sorry, what? When did you figure this out?”

“Ness told me,” Gregory replied.

Micheal nodded. Sure. He had no idea when Gregory managed to meet Ness, but at this point, Micheal was pretty sure Ness literally held the power of life and death in his hands, so he wasn’t surprised. If Ness said it, it was probably true.

He sighed. Explaining all of this to everyone else was going to be horrible.

Chapter Text

“Hold on, I’m sorry,” Nessa said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “You what.”

Mike stared resolutely at the floor. “Visited the old pizzaria alone and ran into William?” he repeated for the second time in a row.

Nessa’s righteous fury turned to Gregory. “And you. You didn’t think to call anyone? Don’t get me wrong, I’m super proud of you for whacking that thing with a pipe. That’s awesome. But you should’ve told someone.”

Then she turned right back around to Mike. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t?” Mike offered. “I, uh. Think my soul might have been slightly corrupted and influenced by him?”

Michael cocked his head. “Corrupted?”

Mike winced. Yet another thing to explain. “So. Remember when you found me dying on the bathroom floor?”

Vanny, Nessa, Abby, Gregory, and Oswald raised their hands.

“Panic attack,” Michael said briefly.

They lowered their hands.

“Yeah. I’d just learned that when I sleep, I enter some sort of in between that all the souls are stuck in.” Mike shivered, remembering the drowning cold that permeated the place. “They could touch me there. They begged for help.”

He glanced at Nessa. She seemed to be able to read the “Garrett begged me for help,” hidden in his broken gaze.

“And then there was this… thing. It was maybe human once? But now it’s just. Rot. Corruption. And it’s made of remnant and agony, and it was standing above the other William’s corpse. And it…”

Mike trailed off. He could almost feel the presence of the decaying soul, stretching, reaching, taking—

He blinked the fog out of his eyes. No. Now was not the time.

“It touched me,” he finally finished lamely. It didn’t seem an adequate enough description for the horrifying experience, but he’d never been good with words.

Michael looked horrified, probably remembering his own brushes with Agony. “It touched your soul. That’s probably not great.”

“Yeah,” Mike whispered, willing the fog to stay back. “It can hurt me while I’m in there, apparently. And because I was so panicky and tired and stuff, I didn’t realize there was a lasting effect I had to fight off.”

“And is that effect… still there?” Vanny, the resident expert on possession, questioned.

Mike shook his head. There was still fog, but not the same reason-stealing, numbing kind that brought him to Afton and kept his feet from moving. This was just regular old panic fog. “Pretty sure it only lasts for a little while after he touches me.”

“That's good, at least,” Nessa offered. “Did he say anything useful while you were there?”

“No, just…”

H e l l o , M i k e .

Mike blinked hard. “Sorry.” He forced himself to stay present, but it was getting harder now that William’s voice was echoing in the back of his head.

Nessa looked at him, concern in her eyes, but didn’t push. “So every time you dream, you’re in danger.”

“Basically.”

Nessa frowned at him. “How long has it been since you actually slept? Without ghosts bothering you, because obviously your body is not counting that as rest.”

Mike shrugged. “Two, three days?”

She stood up and left, walking straight into his bedroom. A moment later she returned with a pill bottle in hand. “These pretty much completely knock you out, don’t they?” She tossed the bottle at him. “Take a nap. If it looks like you’re starting to dream, Abby will wake you up. Okay?”

Abby gripped his hand. “Please, Mike?”

He was too tired to argue. “Fine.” He swallowed the pills dry and immediately collapsed face first into the couch he’d been sitting on. “Also, our Afton is like, completely healed somehow. And I’m pretty sure he consumed the other one? Good luck dealing with that,” he mumbled as he drifted off.

“Well, shit,” Michael said dimly, and Mike fell asleep.

Back so soon? the voices asked, swirling around him, filling the void he had found himself in. You know he’s hunting you, don’t you?

“Hey, I gotta sleep sometime,” Mike protested, twisting around to get a full view of the endless black expanse. As long as he didn’t see the William-creature heading towards him, he should be fine. “Besides, I’m sure he has better things to do than hunt me down.”

No, said one voice, solidifying itself next to him. The voice was teary and cracked, but not unkind. You are the link between the living and the dead. He wants to find you more than anything. You have access to all of us – if anyone can find him before he takes us all, it’s you. He knows better than to leave a threat lying around.

Mike hesitated. The voice sounded familiar, almost like… but he had more important things to focus on. “How do you want me to help?”

Find a way to kill him before he consumes us. Your world’s spirits are still trapped in the animatronic’s bodies, so find a way to keep those safe,the voice begged. He has no soul, so he won’t die easily.

He had no idea how he was going to kill an immortal, but he nodded. “Okay. You guys stay as far away as you can. I’ll go pick up the animatronics and keep them with us, yeah?”

Thank you.

…that was definitely someone he knew. “Are you Garrett?” Mike asked quietly, only half expecting a response.

No, the dead child replied, his voice regretful. Only his counterpart. Garrett is not whole enough to speak just yet. I’m sorry.

Mike sighed. He’d thought so. “Keep him safe?” he requested of the child.

Of course. The spirit hesitated, then asked softly, Tell my brother I forgive him, will you? I never got the chance to let him know, back in my world. He paid for his actions many times over. He doesn’t have to keep working off a debt that’s already been paid.

“I’ll tell him,” Mike promised.

Thank you.

The void and the voices of the dead faded away, and Mike fell into blissful, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

“So. We have to go get the animatronics,” was the first thing Mike said when he woke up.

Nessa twisted her hands nervously. “Okay. Well. Slight problem with that.”

Mike eyed her warily. “You did move them, right?”

“Oh!” Nessa nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I did. They’re safe. But we… might not be. I’m surprised you slept through it, honestly.”

Mike pushed himself up off of the couch and blinked away the head rush. “Slept through what?”

Michael rushed into the living room. The hoodie he had taken to wearing to hide his face had been discarded and tied around his waist. Some of his long-ish hair had been tied back in a half up, half down, and a slightly manic look glinted in his dark eyes. One hand held a hammer, the other a lighter.

“Nessa,” Michael said breathlessly, “Yay or nay on the arson?”

Nessa frowned at the undead man. “We are not lighting the house on fire.”

Michael nodded grimly. “Worth a shot. Did you bring any guns here?”

“I hid them in the spare bedroom, back of the closet,” she instructed.

“Thanks.” Michael ran off, presumably to grab said guns.

Mike blinked. “What’s going on? Also, we’ve talked about bringing guns into my house.”

“Sorry.” She did not sound sorry in the slightest. “It’s the Agony creature,” Nessa said briskly. “It found us. We’ve boarded up the doors and windows, but that might not last long.”

The last of his foggy sleep faded from his mind. “We’ve got to get the kids out of here.”

Nessa gave him a look like, no shit. Mike ignored her in favor of rooting around the couch, sticking his hand in the crevices, searching for his phone. He found it and pulled it out triumphantly.

“This’ll fix it.”

Nessa frowned. “Your… phone?”

“Yep!”

“Whatcha gonna do, throw it at the thing?”

Mike huffed out a laugh. “No. I’m going to call a distraction. You haven’t met Ness yet, have you?”

Nessa’s brow wrinkled. “I’ve heard about him.”

“Perfect. I’m sure he’d be delighted to meet you, but first we’re gonna need him to lure the creature away. Any plans on where to go next?”

Nessa looked around the house. They’d all been staying at Mike’s ever since their first meeting, mostly because it was better suited to hold more people than her tiny apartment. But with all the trips back and forth between the two houses, the Agony creature might already be aware of the link. So neither of their houses were an option.

“Uh. You said something about needing to find the animatronics?” Nessa ventured.

Mike nodded. “Yeah. Guess the other Freddy’s is a good enough place to crash as any. Besides, you’ve got crazy security over there, don’t you?”

“I had to, with all this lawsuit nonsense,” Nessa grumbled. “But yeah. I’ll get the kids to pack their stuff.”

Mike sighed and started sorting through his contacts for Ness. He still had a bunch of spirit information from his dream to talk to the rest of them about, but that could wait. He could hear the banging on the doors now, and it was getting louder.

He paced in circles in the living room as the phone rang. Distantly, he could hear the others arguing.

“I don’t need this,” Vanny was saying.

“You can’t attack the Agony with a butter knife,” Michael reasoned.

“Watch me.”

“Fuck’s sake, Vanny, just pick up the shotgun.”

Ness finally picked up. “Hello and welcome back to another GTNot-Live – wait, wrong universe. Ness speaking, how can I help you?”

“I need your help,” Mike admitted, glancing nervously in the direction of the front door.

“Honestly,” Ness sighed over the phone, “I was supposed to be a cameo. You’ve gotta stop giving me plot relevance. What do you need?”

Mike dismissed the first half of that, as he often had to do with Ness. He realized he’d roped in his boss to help fight off a ghost, and Mike had literally never explained anything about the situation. Actually, you know what? Ness probably knew all about the souls and possession and everything. “Do you know what an Agony creature is?”

“I have a theory,” Ness said, laughing at his own little joke. “Sorry. Yes, I do. I know pretty much everything about Agony, Remnant, and souls.”

Of course he did. “Great. Do you know how to distract one?”

Mike could practically hear Ness grinning. “Don’t you worry, I’ll be there in a second. Consider it distracted. I’ve always wanted to study Agony, anyway.”

His boss hung up on him.

Hm. This was crossing dangerously close to Mad Scientist territory. Well, he’d deal with that later. It wasn’t like Ness ever made sense, anyway. Maybe he was already involved in all this soul stuff? Regardless, it was too complicated for Mike’s tired brain.

“Abbs, Greg, Oswald,” Mike called. “Are you ready to go?”

Abby darted towards him, backpack in hand. “We’re going to go see Freddy?” she asked, eyes shining.

Mike ruffled her hair. “Yeah. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Abby grinned and turned to her new friends. “You’re going to like them,” she promised the boys. “They try very hard to be artists.”

Oswald blinked. “Um. Okay.”

Gregory shrugged. “Sure. Your Freddy can’t be as cool as my Freddy, though.”

“Oh yeah? Wanna bet?” Abby asked, hands on her hips.

A feral smile crept onto Gregory’s face. “Oh, yeah. Mine’s badass. He’s also my dad.”

Abby took that in stride, nodding. “Our Cupcake is badass, too, it eats people’s faces.”

Mike poked Abby’s shoulder. “Language, young lady.”

Abby stuck out her tongue.

Gregory looked vaguely impressed with the idea of a cupcake eating a face. “Sick,” he offered.

Oswald had no Freddy and just watched his peers with a look that said I’m the only sane person in this house. Mike was inclined to agree.

“Okay,” Mike said, before the conversation could go any further. “Ness is going to draw the Agony away from the door. As soon as he does, we bolt for the car, okay?”

All three of them nodded. “Great,” Mike said, satisfied. “I’ll go round up the adults before they make a bomb or something.”

They were not, in fact, making a bomb. They were arguing loudly with guns in hand, which was a little concerning, but honestly kind of unsurprising. Nessa had already explained what was going on, and Michael – the only other adult who’d met Ness before – was trying to explain to Vanny that yes, he’s maybe an eldritch being, and no, we do not have to shoot him.

Yeah, that summed up Ness pretty well.

Mike wandered over to the front door. As Nessa had told him, the door was boarded up. Where they’d found boards was, he decided, none of his business. The Agony creature was pounding on the door, hard enough to make the wall shake. Occasionally it let out something that could’ve been a garbled, broken roar.

That door wasn’t going to last long. Hopefully Ness would show up soon.

“Any of you have anything you need to pack and bring with you?” he called to the adults.

“We’re packed,” Vanny called back. “Nessa packed for you.”

Mike walked back to where they were standing and took a bag from Nessa’s outstretched hand. “Thanks,” he told her.

She nodded. “Hope the nap was worth it.”

“Oh, it was,” Mike promised. Not only did he gather information, but he felt more rested than he had in weeks. He turned to Michael. “By the way,” he added softly, “your brother wanted me to tell you he forgives you.”

Michael froze. It was almost comedic, actually, how stiff he became. “Oh. He did?”

“Yeah.”

Michael relaxed a little, and his sunken eyes looked like they were threatening to fill with tears. Mike turned away to give Michael at least some semblance of privacy. “Oh,” he said, the word somewhat watery. “Okay.”

The pounding outside the door suddenly stopped. The Agony creature roared, but it sounded like he was facing away this time.

Mike grinned. “That’s our cue.” He turned around and yelled, “Kids, time to go!”

Chapter Text

They couldn’t all fit in the car, so they shoved Michael in the trunk. He grumbled loudly about “sure, toss away the dead guy, that’s fine,” but as soon as the engine started it drowned him out, so everyone ignored him. Mike drove and Nessa sat in the passenger seat. Vanny refused to take one of the three seats in the back, protesting that those should be saved for the kids. Instead she lay prone on the floor of the car.

It was awkward, but it worked. Nobody complained. Okay, Michael did, but that didn’t count. They drove in silence, only Nessa occasionally breaking it as she told Mike where to turn.

Naturally, Mike ended the silence with the most awkward subject change ever.

“So. William is eating souls, I think.”

Silence.

“And he’s maybe immortal.”

More silence. Off in the distance, a stray cricket could be heard chirping.

“And we’re supposed to kill him before he… eats the animatronics? And the Agony creature? And everything else? I think?”

Nessa sighed. “Dead people are never helpful, are they?”

Mike shook his head. “No. They don’t even know how to kill him. I think we’re supposed to just go for it.”

“Well,” Vanny piped up from the floor of the car, “we’ll have to kill him away from anything his soul can attach to. No technology or metal or anything – that’s how mine kept coming back.”

Mike nodded. “Lure him into the woods.”

“Since he has a whole body, I don’t think we can just light him on fire. That worked on the animatronics because they were trapped in the metal, and it melted their souls along with it. Or something like that. Unclear,” Vanny continued. “But if he has a whole body now, that also means he has enough remnant or agony to fully heal himself. So he could probably heal himself again from any mortal wounds we inflict.”

“Maiming or shooting probably wouldn’t do much,” Nessa agreed.

“We lure him into the woods and hack off his limbs,” Mike suggested.

Nessa raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ve been watching horror movies again.”

“Maybe.”

“We could blow him up,” Vanny pointed out. “Any sort of complete pulverization is worth a shot.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mike replied dryly, “let me just use one of those bombs I have on hand.”

“We could make one,” Vanny countered. “It can’t be that hard.” She turned to Nessa. “You were a cop. Do you have a bomb or something?”

Nessa cocked her head. “Cops do not carry bombs on them, no.”

Vanny shrugged, like, worth a shot.

“I’d also prefer we kill him sooner rather than later,” Mike added. “I don’t wanna get almost possessed every time I fall asleep.”

“We could throw him in a pit of lava,” Gregory offered from the back.

“This isn’t Minecraft. We don’t have lava. And digging pits takes forever,” Mike replied. “I dunno. If we burn him for long enough, would that work?”

Nessa shook her head. “He’s not going to stand there and let us set him on fire indefinitely.”

“Beartrap,” Mike suggested.

“Where are we supposed to get a bear trap?”

He shrugged. “Bass pro?”

Nessa shook her head again. “No. Plus, he might just rip his leg out of the trap or something. He has crazy healing, remember?”

“Again, bomb,” Vanny repeated. “One of us might have to sacrifice ourselves, but we could make it work.”

“Nobody will be sacrificing ourselves,” Mike said with a sigh. “No bombs.”

“Shoot him?” Abby asked.

“Nah, we dropped a building on him and he survived. I don’t think that will do anything,” Mike replied. “What if we, like… cut off his head or something?”

“With what?” Nessa asked, looking like she was seriously considering this as an option.

“Uh. A chainsaw?”

“Where are we gonna get a chainsaw?” Vanny asked.

“Home depot,” Mike replied confidently. He had no idea if that was true, but Home Depot had all sorts of things. They would probably have a chainsaw.

Nessa nodded slowly. “Huh. Yeah, we could attack William with a chainsaw. At the very least, we might be able to hack off enough pieces that he can’t heal himself.”

“I can’t believe the most sane option here is to hack at William Afton with a chainsaw,” Mike muttered.

“I vote we tag team it,” Vanny said. “Mike gets him with the chainsaw, I find a metal pipe or something and smack him over the head with it while that’s happening, and Nessa shoots him. Maybe all of that will be distracting enough or something for him to die.”

“Sure,” Mike said, beyond tired. “Yeah, why not. Overkill is probably the way to go.” He twisted in his seat to look all the kids in the eyes. “Do not get involved. We don’t need more dead kids haunting the place.”

All three of them nodded. Satisfied, Mike turned back to the road.

“So, any idea where to find him, then?” Nessa asked.

Mike shrugged. “The spirits seemed to think he might go after the animatronics. He could go for the agony creature too, though. Dunno.”

“Okay,” Nessa replied. “Well. We’ll go to Home Depot and get the chainsaw, and pick up a pipe for Vanny. We’ll make sure the animatronics are fine – if he’s not there, then we can ask them if they can sense him or something.”

“They can do that?” Vanny asked curiously.

“No idea,” Nessa replied. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Mike changed course to the nearest Home Depot. “Sure. Why not.”

Chapter Text

It was annoying, how quickly reality slipped through his fingers. He was immortal, undefeatable, and yet it was becoming harder and harder to remember what having a soul was like. His life, his being, felt far away.

No matter. He would just take someone else’s.

If that didn’t solve the problem, well, nothing would matter anymore, would it? He could do anything. Go anywhere. But there’s no point if you’re no longer human.

He couldn’t die. He couldn’t truly be alive. But he wasn’t content to just be. He was nothing if not vindictive. If he couldn’t live, nobody could.

No need to get so extreme just yet, though. He just needed a bit more Agony – just because, honestly, and he wanted to see if he could beat the Agony Creature. And then? Off to go hunt down some old friends.

An untainted soul might be a good substitute for his own. Then again, he might need a corrupted one. One that he could twist to be close enough to his to count. Whichever one filled the hole in his chest would do.

Whichever one Old Man Consequences hadn’t staked a claim on already. He’d have to move fast – the old entity was quickly getting attached to the humans around him. If there was one thing Afton stood no chance against, it was that thing. Reality bends to its will.

Hm. He would have to hurry up, then.

With that in mind, he strode out into the open. He had some work to do.

Chapter Text

A dead man, a formerly possessed woman, the daughter of a serial killer, a homeless boy, a time traveler, an insomniac, and a girl beloved by the dead walked into a Home Depot.

Michael got a couple weird looks. Which was understandable, honestly, considering the man was literally a walking corpse. A couple employees glanced at the group as they entered, but didn’t approach.

Too bad. Mike approached them instead. “Excuse me,” he said, rather politely considering the fact that they had an immortal madman after them, “do you sell chainsaws here?”

The employee glanced at their little group suspiciously. Michael was trying to pretend he wasn’t dead. Gregory had already found the power tools and was holding a drill above his head triumphantly. Abby had run off to the plant section and was sprinting back towards them with two trees cradled in her arms. Oswald was dragging Vanny by the hand in the opposite direction, saying far too loudly, “I bet the metal pipes are this way!” Vanny looked far too enthusiastic about the prospect. Nessa had wandered down the nearest aisle and was comparing two different light bulbs.

“Uh. Yes, we do,” the employee replied, evidently deciding that they weren’t paid enough for this.

“Great. Where are those?” Mike asked, bone weary. He didn’t even attempt to round up the kids. He just wordlessly followed the employee.

“Mike, Mike,” Abby said breathlessly as soon as she caught up, “can we take these home?”

The two unidentified trees were now drooping slightly and missing a couple of leaves. Abby held them close to her chest, her arms barely wrapping around their pots. Some of the soil had spilled on her shirt. Mike was sure that if he looked back, he would see a trail of dirt from where she’d been running around.

“No.”

“But I named them!” she protested. “I’m already attached!”

“Oh yeah?” Mike asked. “What did you name them?”

She grinned. “This one is Helpi, with an i,” she said, tilting her head towards the right one. “The other one is Helpy, with a y.”

They looked identical to Mike. “Still no.”

“But–”

“Where would we keep them?”

Abby paused. “The front porch?”

“No. Go put them back.”

She sulked, but turned and started running back.

“No running in the store!” Mike called back.

“Sure, dad,” Abby replied, still running.

Mike sighed. “Sorry about that,” he told the employee.

They just shrugged. “The chainsaws are in aisle nine, sir. Let me know if you have any further questions.” Then they hurriedly extracted themselves from the situation. Fair – Mike would’ve, too, if he weren’t responsible for all of these people.

He doubled back to find another adult. He knew literally nothing about chainsaws. The other three probably didn’t either, but hey, if they helped choose which one to get, then at least it wouldn’t be all Mike’s fault if they got a bad one.

Michael was the easiest to drag away from whatever he was doing – which was mostly just hiding from employees and other shoppers – so Mike brought him over to the area with chainsaws.

And immediately sighed. “$290 for a chainsaw? Seriously?”

Michael laughed. “It’s fine. I’m rich, remember? Ness brought my bank account over. I’ll pay for it.”

“Good,” Mike told him, “because you’re paying for the battery too. That’s an extra $170.”

Michael pursed his lips. “We could just steal it,” he suggested.

Mike shook his head. “That’s illegal.”

“Attacking someone with a chainsaw is also illegal,” Michael pointed out.

“That’s different.”

“You’re right, it’s worse,” Michael agreed.

Mike sighed. “Not as bad as arson.”

“You think murder is better than arson?”

“I think murdering William is better than arson,” Mike maintained. “And anyway, you’re rich. We don’t have to shoplift.”

“I’m not that rich,” Michael protested.

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Mike told him, placing a chainsaw in the dead man’s arms and stacking a battery on top of it. “Go buy that, will you? I’ll go round up the others.”

Mike ran off before Michael could protest. After stopping Abby from smuggling plants out of the store, forcing Gregory to throw up the paint he ate, convincing Nessa not to buy a lamp, and stopping Vanny from bonking random people on the head with her pipe while Oswald cheered her on from the sidelines, Mike finally made it out of the Home Depot. It wasn’t too far of a drive from there to where the animatronics were kept in the back of Freddy’s secondary location.

Abby jumped out the car and sprinted towards the building, desperate to meet her friends. Mike followed her, just barely remembering to warn the newcomers, “Stay away from the cupcake. It’ll eat your face off.”

Considering them sufficiently warned, Mike chased after his sister.

The animatronics were held in the back. Once they’d gotten in, Mike did a quick headcount. None of them were missing. None of them moved, either, but Freddy blinked at them, so the robots were definitely still possessed. Good. William hadn’t gotten here yet.

Problem with that – there wasn’t a very good way to figure out where William was.

Vanny solved their dilemma pretty quickly. “Mike,” she said, “you can sort of venture around his plane of existence once you’re asleep, right? Think if you do that, you can track him down?”

Mike shrugged. “Um. Maybe? But I just slept a little bit ago. We’d probably have to wait a while.”

Vanny laughed. “Nah.” She pulled out her metal pipe and whacked him on the head.

Mike vaguely heard Nessa yelling at Vanny. Then the world faded to black.

Chapter Text

Normally, the heavy darkness would be reaching out towards him, trying to suffocate him. Right now, though, it was occupied. Which gave Mike just enough leeway to poke around where he didn’t belong. It wasn’t hard to locate the epicenter of the darkness - the thing that used to be Afton had such a putrid stench that Mike would’ve known where it was, even if he didn’t want to.

It was different than the last time he’d seen it. Bigger. Stronger. Maybe an extra limb or two, it was hard to tell. Maybe it had gone after the Agony creature? That would explain the strange boost in malicious power that emanated from the thing.

It was preoccupied, barely in their shared space. The other ghosts were nowhere to be seen. Mike drifted closer, trying to make out what it looked like the thing was doing. It appeared to be sprinting away from someone. Anything that could scare Afton was something Mike didn’t want to mess with, but whatever it was wasn’t dead, because it wasn’t here with them.

Okay. He could use this, somehow. He hadn’t exactly had time to think this through before Vanny gave him an impromptu concussion, so he had no idea if he could even track Afton at all. Afton was only half in the same reality as the spirits, so… Mike couldn’t tell where he actually was in the waking world.

Hm. Okay, he had an idea, but it would require doing a stupid thing.

Mentally, Mike shrugged. He’d been doing a lot of stupid things lately. One more couldn’t hurt, right?

He willed himself forward and caught up with Afton. The once-human thing didn’t seem to recognize that Mike was there at all, but that was about to change. Mike leaned forward and grabbed its arm.

A familiar coldness began to creep through his veins. Afton whipped around and made direct eye contact with Mike, but he looked more surprised than malicious. Mike closed his eyes and willed himself to focus. If Afton could connect to him through this place, it had to go both ways somehow.

It did.

It wasn’t much, but he managed to get a flash of the building Afton was running towards before he let go of the creature’s arm and flung himself backwards. Afton snarled at him, but seemed preoccupied, and didn’t even give chase when Mike ran for the hills.

He woke up unceremoniously. Ness was standing over him, her face far too close to his for comfort, scanning his eyes. “How’d it go? You possessed?”

A headache immediately began to bloom behind his eyes. “I don’t think so. I found where he is, at least.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re not possessed, because you definitely have a concussion,” Michael informed him.

Mike glared at Vanny, who grinned and waved her metal pipe unrepentantly. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but now I have to fight Afton with a concussion,” Mike complained.

“And I have to fight him dead,” Michael cut in. “Suck it up.”

Mike sighed, but dropped it. Nessa – the only adult on his side, apparently – handed him some Advil. Mike took it silently before saying, “He got stronger somehow. Probably attacked the Agony creature. But he was also running for his life, so I’m going to assume that didn’t end well.”

“Oof,” Gregory remarked with absolutely zero inflection.

“L,” Abby agreed, equally deadpan.

“Skill issue,” Oswald said, nodding sagely.

Mike decided to ignore them. “He’s heading back to the ruined Freddy’s. Probably to hide, or something. What is it with Aftons and inevitably crawling back to their mistakes?”

“Hey,” Nessa and Michael protested.

“Am I wrong?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Michael admitted. “I’m still offended, though.”

“You do that,” Mike told him. He didn’t have time for sympathy, not with the raging headache he had. “So. Did any of you figure out the chainsaw while I was out?”

“I did!” Vanny said, eyes sparkling. “And I’ve got a proposition. I think Mike and I should switch – he should get the pipe, and I should get the chainsaw. You know, because of the concussion.”

Was that flawed logic? Probably. Was it a terrible idea to let Vanny run wild with a chainsaw? Yes. Did Mike think that bonking William Afton with a metal pipe would be really, really satisfying? Also yes.

So really it was inevitable that Mike shrugged and said, “Sure.”

The manic grin spreading over Vanny’s face did not reassure him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at that point. He’d already agreed. Why did this feel like he was signing away his life?

Oh well.

“So…” Nessa said awkwardly. “Are we gonna stand around, or are we gonna go?”

“I vote we go,” Gregory said, raising his hand.

“No,” Mike told him immediately. “All you kids are staying here. You coming with us will do nothing but further traumatize you with the image of a man getting hacked apart with a chainsaw.”

Oswald opened his mouth to protest, but Abby beat him to it. “You’re going to leave us alone with the murdery animatronics and the cupcake that eats faces?”

Freddy blinked helpfully.

“They don’t seem that murdery right now,” Mike pointed out. “And they’re definitely less murdery than William.”

“What if we die, though?” Oswald asked.

“Then we’ll avenge your souls,” Mike replied peacefully. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. If not, there’s probably some extra non-possessed animatronics around here somewhere you can latch on to, or something.”

“Are you giving me permission to die and become an animatronic?” Abby asked, hands on her hips.

“No, I’m just too concussed to care right now,” Mike said, sighing. “Please do not die. Do not kill each other. Freddy and the others will probably leave you alone, but don’t provoke them.” He aimed the last part at Gregory, who had slowly inched closer to Bonnie and was about to poke him.

Gregory rolled his eyes, but stepped back. “Fine. Go have fun murdering an old man.”

“Oh, we will,” Vanny said, tossing her pipe at Mike. He only barely caught it before it smacked him in the face. “Hurry up, concussion boy!” she called, walking off.

Nessa and Michael followed. Mike sighed again. Why was this his life?

Most of the car ride was spent in silence. Mike gripped his metal pipe tightly. Nessa calmly inspected her gun. Vanny cradled the chainsaw like it was her child. Micheal – since he was already dead, and therefore voted as the distraction – didn’t need a weapon, so he drove. At least he didn’t have road rage. That was nice.

They slowed to a stop in the empty parking lot of the pizzeria.

“Okay,” Michael said, “I’ll go in first and get him to start monologuing — actually, no, he’ll monologue even if he’s facing someone holding a chainsaw. You can probably come in with me. While he’s distracted, you attack. Sounds good?”

“Sounds stupid,” Nessa admitted, “but yeah. Let’s go.”

So they did. They weren’t even subtle about it – Michael marched up to the front door and kicked it in, shouting, “Yo! Old man! Get over here!”

Which worked, sort of. After a minute or so of awkward silence, a slightly winded, very annoyed William Afton appeared from the abandoned hallways of the pizzeria.

“What do you want.”

Michael blinked. “Huh?”

“I’ve had a long day. Either get out of my way in the next ten seconds, or I kill you,” Afton explained, very much not clearing anything up.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said, sticking out one hand in a hold up motion. “No monologue? No gloating? Nothing?”

“I have had,” Afton repeated, seething, “a long day.”

Which… fair. So had they.

“That agony creature give you a run for your money?” Michael asked sympathetically as the rest of them slowly moved to encircle the serial killer.

Afton cocked his head, confused. “What? No. That thing isn’t strong enough to do anything to me. I killed it and ate it, obviously.”

“Oh,” Michael said, surprised. Then understanding dawned on his features. “It was Ness, wasn’t it.”

Afton growled – the man was such a furry. Genuinely, who growled? Actually, not even furries did that, they were pretty chill and honestly not deserving of the hate, in Mike’s humble opinion. Not that his opinion on furries really mattered, but still. Afton was really misrepresenting a whole community here.

“Its name is Ness? Really?” Afton spit out.

“Hey, hey,” Michael said, rather calm given that a renowned immortal killer was staring him down with murderous intent. “That’s not very nice. Ness is a little weird, but he’s not an it.”

Mike finally made it all the way behind William, pipe at the ready. Which is, of course, when he had to spoil the whole thing by noticing a sluggishly bleeding cut on William’s leg and blurting out, “Oh, wait, did Ness actually hurt you?”

William whirled around, now fully aware that he was being surrounded by a bunch of angry adults armed with a random assortment of weapons. “No,” he hissed, staring Mike down, daring him to say anything else.

Unfortunately for him, Mike was too tired to deal with this shit. “You’re literally bleeding, man.”

William glanced down – maybe to check and make sure he was actually, in fact, bleeding. Which you’d think he would have known, but maybe he couldn’t feel it? It was super unclear how immortality worked, actually.

Nessa took the wonderful opportunity of Afton’s distraction to shoot him rapid-fire in the head.

“Nice to see you again, dad.”

William turned towards her, blood streaming down his face, but still very much alive. “Vannesa. Fancy seeing you here.”

Nessa raised an eyebrow and adjusted her aim. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

He shrugged. “Is there something you’re waiting to hear?”

She sighed. “No, I suppose not.” Two more shots rang out, this time piercing William where his heart would’ve been, if he had one. Clearly he didn’t, because he was still standing.

William smirked. “That’s not going to do any–”

He was interrupted by the sound of a revving chainsaw and a sharp blade being buried in his shoulder. Apparently this man was past pain, because he didn’t even wince. He simply looked at the chainsaw - which Vanny was trying to force deeper into his shoulder - in surprise.

“Interesting tactic,” he commented. “Should have gone for the head, though.”

“Oh, my bad,” Vanny said cheerfully. She yanked the now red-soaked chainsaw out of William’s body and swung it at his neck.

“Now, now,” William said, dodging it easily, “let’s not be so hasty.”

He pulled out a pistol of his own and aimed it at Mike. “Unlike me, it should only take one shot to bring you down. Now, put the weapons down.”

Disappointed, Vanny stopped revving the chainsaw.

Mike sighed, shifting the metal pipe in his hands. “I didn’t even get a good whack in.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what you were hoping to accomplish,” Afton told them. “I have all of the power of the Agony creature. If I was killable before, I’m not now.”

“Well, we didn’t know that,” Michael huffed, exasperated.

William opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, a familiar voice called, “Oh, William! I know you’re hiding in here!”

It was almost comical how quickly Afton paled.

Mike grinned. Ah. A weakness.

Ness stepped into the broken building, a slightly manic grin on his face. “Why, hello, my friends. Rest your souls for a little while – it’s time to leave the demon to his demons.”

Chapter Text

The tense atmosphere was immediately broken by William Afton tossing his pistol to the side, turning around, and darting away. Vanny blinked in surprise and lowered her chainsaw.

“Um… who’re you? And why is William running?” Vanny asked, peering curiously at Ness.

Michael stared at Ness like he was simultaneously his savior and greatest fear. “That’s. You’re Old Man Consequences.”

Mike blinked. “No, that’s Ness.”

The brown haired waiter laughed, his apron still in place but his nametag missing. “I’m glad you haven’t forgotten about me, Michael.”

The air around him grew dark and heavy, laced with a static that prickled Mike’s skin. Something about him was profoundly other and out of place. The rest of the world bent and warped to fit it, twisting to become part of the reality that Ness embodied. His eyes were hard and empty, but not unkind. His gaze was directed, for the moment at least, on Micheal.

Michael just stared back at him, dazed.

The being ignored him and turned to the others. “To answer your question, Vanny,” the woman in question tensed but met his eyes, which seemed to make the man happy, “I have been called many things. Ness, Sans, MatPat, Mathias Pathias, Lorekeeper in one of my retirement endings, and yes – Old Man Consequences. I am whatever they need me to be. Your reality does not apply to me. In fact, the me often associated with most of these names does not even exist here. But that’s alright,” he said, turning to you and winking as the fabric of reality momentarily shattered before righting itself, “it’s fun to pretend.”

Nessa stood there, confused. “What.”

“What I’m saying is,” he said, turning back to the weary adults standing in the middle of a broken down restaurant, “Michael. Your consequences have already been reaped. Your debt it paid. You have nothing to fear from me.”

Michael exhaled in relief and took a step back, falling in line with his counterpart. Mike stood stock still as that eerie gaze became focused on him, instead.

“Mike. Afton is not your only enemy. His bitter creations will live on without him. We haven’t met yet, in my other form. We will. It will hurt, and you’ll never be the same, because the truth is not kind after being buried for so long. You must suffer before the world can heal, and that’s not fair, but to restore justice we have to upset it. Your pain will be for the good.”

Truth echoed in the man’s words. Undeniable reality, inevitable, insurmountable, but not unfeeling. A kindness wrapped in hardship. Mike swallowed hard, but nodded. He didn’t understand yet, but he had no doubt that he would someday.

“You,” Consequences said to the Vanessas, voice echoing through Mike’s bones, “have suffered enough already. Fate is not merciful, but at least it will be kinder to you than it has been to them. Pray that reality is never broken so far that we must meet under harsher circumstances.”

He faced Mike again. “This is your world and your responsibility. Break the cycle. Take the children and raise them well. There is no escaping the suffering, but now you can all shoulder it together, as long as the children remain uninvolved. Take this as a warning.”

Mike took a deep breath and tried to find his voice in the face of the ancient wisdom standing before him. “I’ll keep them safe,” he promised.

Justice incarnate, brought out by suffering and the countless cries of lives ended too quickly, nodded. “See that you do.” It glanced back at Michael. “The pain will live on in your mind, and the scars will not fade, but the punishment is over. You will not be whole, but I will return what is owed.”

It waved a hand towards the confused Michael. Purple receded from his skin and skin knit itself back together, eyes regaining light and hollow cheeks filling with life once more. In the walking corpse’s place stood a bewildered young man. He patted himself frantically, like he was checking for wires that might still be hidden under the skin, but he was unblemished save for the scars now littering him where tears in his skin once were.

“You… made me human,” Michael whispered, staring at his now flesh-colored hands. He looked like he was in shock.

“You have one more chance. Use it wisely,” it told him. The heavy static in the air receded slightly, and its undeterminable face – Mike hadn’t even recognized at what point it became something entirely inhuman – returned to the smiling one of Ness. “Now,” he said, dusting off his hands even though he hadn’t done anything, “Who would like to get a good whack in before I tear his skin off of his body?”

Everyone’s hands shot into the air.

“That’s what I thought!” Ness said cheerily. “Just a moment.” He crooked one finger in a beckoning gesture. Concrete walls smashed apart and crumbled to dust as William Afton’s body came crashing through them, pulled by an undetectable force until he was standing, panicked, directly in front of Ness.

“Go on, have a shot,” Ness offered as William struggled against an invisible hand holding him still.

Mike grinned, twirling the pipe around in his hands. “If you insist.”

William was hit simultaneously by a metal pipe, a bullet, a chainsaw to the stomach, and a freshly healed fist to the face.

Ness nodded, impressed. “It’s good to get your anger out, you know,” he noted. “Might I suggest one of those destruction rooms? Might feel good to chuck an old computer at a wall sometime. Eh, even if you don’t do that, they say the best revenge is living well. That sounds wise and all, but I’d love some proof to back it. Might have to do a theory on that sometime… well, I’m retired, but I can convince one of the others to do it. Which one does that fall under? Not food theory, game theory, film theory, style theory… It’s pretty random. Probably better to hand it off to GTLive, Ash and Sam would get a kick out of that one.”

Mike was pretty used to his eldritch boss’s ramblings by now. William looked vaguely confused – or at least, as confused as a man with a chainsaw stuck in his stomach could look.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ness decided. He turned back to William, some of that static leaking back into his voice. "Ḓǿ ɏǾʉ ꝄᴻǬẉ Ⱳĥȭ ɨ Ⱥɱ?”

William whimpered.

“The consequences of your actions.”

Flesh evaporated, revealing straining muscles and a pumping heart. Afton screamed as the muscles unwound around the living bone as the bullets still in his body and the chainsaw that was buried in now missing flesh clattered to the floor, veins bursting and drenching the floor below in blood. Vocal cords disappeared, thrusting the man into unnerving silence as bones disintegrated and every remnant of him, down to the blood pooling on the ground, evaporated into nothing.

Mike threw up. Michael looked a second away from joining him. Nessa watched with cold light in her eyes. Vanny looked vaguely disturbed.

Ness gasped in horror, but not at the carnage he’d just unleashed. “My diner! What if there’s hungry patrons, and I’m not there to serve them!” he glanced at Mike. “I’m going to have to dock your pay, sorry – you missed a lot of shifts.”

Ness disappeared.

“What the fuck,” Vanny said faintly.

Mike nodded. That about summed all of this up. But before he could dwell on what just happened – that was definitely going to haunt his nightmares for years – he had a promise to keep. “We’ve got to get back to the kids.”

Nessa shook herself. “Right. We do. And you’re all stuck in this universe forever, so we’ve got to figure something out about all that, too.”

“It’s over. We have time to deal with that later, now that he’s gone,” Mike replied. “For now, we’ve got to move them somewhere. They’re alone with those animatronics, remember?”

“Right,” Nessa agreed. “We’ll work through everything later.”

Mike smiled. Afton was gone. Michael had a living body. No more kids had died. He’d gained a couple allies. Abby wouldn’t be alone anymore. The group of them would probably have to coparent two feral boys, but hey, that wasn’t so bad.

Sure, there were still animatronics roaming around. There were more problems to be solved. But for now? They’d won.

He watched as the Vanessas bickered and Micheal egged them on as they walked to the car. Yeah. Everything would work out just fine.