Archive of Our Own

Not a single thing went right for Evan that day.

Well, he couldn’t say nothing , but not much. Nothing has truly, really, gone right in his entire life. No one in his family, actually. It must be genetic. From getting his head shoved into an animatronics mouth by his brother and getting permanent brain damage to running away from home with all his siblings after finding out their father is a serial child murderer… he could’ve been doing far worse.

Still, it hadn’t been good either. Ever since he woke up from his half-year long coma, he hadn’t been functioning right. There was something off, something wrong. The doctor’s warned him about the changes he’d have to go through during the coming years after his recovery. He was given a state-issued therapist and monthly doctor visits. Evan assumed their plan was to slowly ease the information into him so it didn’t overload his tiny nine year old brain. It wasn’t their fault they ran away after barely a year passed. Still, he wished they had told him more.

He didn’t even care about the scars. Well, that's a lie. He was a teenager, he couldn’t help thinking about his appearance. But he was more concerned about his brain. Sometimes, it felt like it was slowly rotting away into mush from the inside. Evan couldn’t keep a single thing straight. 

“Ev! Where’s the remote?” He heard his sister call from the living room.

Since running away, the Afton children moved into a tiny, two bedroom apartment in a sketchy neighbourhood in LA. At first, him and Elizabeth shared a room while Michael got his own room. That changed when Elizabeth got older and Michael didn’t want to make her share a room anymore and Evan moved his minimal amount of things into Michael’s room. Thats where he was standing at the moment, attempting to find a pair of pants that weren’t his brothers. 

“I don’t know.” Evan responded, brushing her off.

“You were the last one to use the TV, I know you were.”

“Are we really fighting at seven in the morning?” Michael asked from the bathroom. The thing about their apartment is that you could have full, entire conversations in your regular volume from across the property. Worth it, when paying so little in such a large and expensive city. 

Elizabeth scoffed and gave up. Evan continued to scurry around his room like a starved raccoon in the dumpster outside McDonalds. He could tell Michael entered not because of the sound of the door creaking, or his footsteps, but the sound of his very disappointed-but-not-surprised sigh. “Dude.” The room was, admittedly, a mess. Every drawer was open, clothes draped half-in-half-out of the drawers and plenty were simply thrown on the ground. “What are you looking for?”

“Pants.” Evan said simply. He felt a little bad, but he was intent on not going to high school nude. 

“Uh, like this?” Michael held up one of their new ones. Now that Evan was actually, finally, growing, they saved money by sharing their clothes. Depending on her mood, Elizabeth joined in as well.

“How did you find that so fast?!”

“You threw it on the floor.”

“Oh.” Evan’s cheeks would’ve burned, but he was getting so used to his own stupid behaviour that he was barely phased anymore. “I’ll uh-” he paused to look around. “Clean this up at some point.”

Michael nodded. “Right.” He had zero faith in Evan, and he couldn’t even be that upset about it. 

Evan changed quickly after that. He grabbed his toothbrush and did his routine, which was turning around, away from the mirror, and thinking of anything else other than his face while brushing. Something Evan and, he’d face it, everyone in his life observed were intense mood switches. It could be from his injury, but those trauma books Michael used to take out from the library and force him and Elizabeth to read would always say the same thing happens due to childhood trauma. Not that the source mattered all that much. He found that things like looking at his reflection a second too long, nightmares, or certain sounds and words could flip a switch in his brain. No matter how happy he had been, no matter how long it was, Evan reverted back to the sad, pathetic child he used to be. He’d start crying as easily as a child, so his siblings would treat him carefully, which made him feel shittier and it would spiral, spiral, and spiral until the tornado in his mind slowly faded and he returned to normal. 

It was hard. So hard. He couldn’t control what haunted his dreams, the sounds in public, nor the words of strangers. But what he could control was making sure he only looked at himself when necessary. If he looked like utter shit, he’d be informed by Elizabeth swiftly anyway. 

“Shit. Evan, we’re going to be late for the bus!” Elizabeth yelled.

Evan spat out his toothpaste, probably too early to wash away all the bacteria, and met with his sister by the door. As he grabbed his backpack, Elizabeth raised her eyebrow at Michael, who sat lazily on the armchair. “Aren’t you supposed to be out of here before us?”

He waved his hand. “I told you, I have a day off today. Nothing’s getting me off this couch for, minimum, six hours.”

“OK fatass, have fun.” Elizabeth said. “Evan and I are off to be scholar’s.”

A scholar, Evan is not. 

Evan tapped his finger repeatedly, and aggressively, as he bit the inside of his cheek. It was probably comical to look at. All the cheap, sharpy graffitied chairs in clean rows. Each student was calm, pencil in hand except for an anxious Evan, who forgot there was a test today. Who forgot his pencil. Again.

Usually when he forgot one, which has been everyday for the past two weeks, an acquaintance took pity on him and gave him his spare pencil. After Evan lost a third one, he started to watch over Evan during class and ask for the pencil several minutes before the bell rang so they both didn’t have to be late to their next classes searching for it. But Evan had spent too much time at his locker, and didn’t get to ask. Mrs. Jones already told them all to quit talking as she handed out the tests. 

His heart felt like it was pounding out of his chest. You’d think, after so many years in school under his belt, that Evan would find it even a little bit easier to talk to teachers. But Evan still felt like a young child having to tell the teacher he broke their highest quality glue stick. As she put his math test on his desk, Evan whispered as quietly as he could. “Excuse me, could I borrow a pencil?”

“What did you say?” Mrs. Jones asked loudly, interrupting the silence. Evan blushed, and repeated just a little bit louder. “You walked into my classroom, on test day, that I’ve talked about for a week, without a pencil?” She asked, just the same overly high volume. He could feel the gazes of his classmates as his face likely turned into a tomato. 

“I-I didn’t-”

“You’ll have to sit here all period and think about how you’re going to get more organized in the future then, alright?” She said sweetly, but the content of her declaration didn’t match her tone in the slightest.

Did that mean Evan would get a zero on the test? His grade couldn’t take another zero! Michael would be so upset. Not in a yelling and screaming upset like their father, but a frown and a sigh kind of upset. A resigned response. I’d prefer if he didn’t keep failing his classes but, what can I do? It’s Evan Afton. Michael had never directly said something like that, but Evan knew he thought it. Evan would be disappointing his guidance councilor as well! He had gotten an eighty in his last math class, a god must’ve been watching over him that semester or something, so she convinced him he could move up a level. He was doing far better than he usually did too! Not exceptionally good, but Evan was doing much better consistently doing his homework.

As Evan sat at his desk, he stared at his hands. It was utter silence, other than the flipping of papers and scurried writing. He doesn’t do well in silence, especially after something so embarrassing and mind-spiraling. When something like that happened, he usually tried to talk to someone about anything he could think of, to distract himself, or listen to the radio or watch a show at home. But he had nothing, for the whole period. 

When Evan was younger, on his weakest days, he’d imagine a life where he was never injured. A life where Michael never made them run away, and Evan was in school with the kids he knew from kindergarten like he thought he would. He’d be smart. He’d read non-fiction, do all his work on time, and enjoy it. He’d always have a damn pencil on him, and he’d have an extra one in his backpack pocket because he remembered to put it in. He’d be like Elizabeth with her good grades and charisma, but he’d be like Michael with his wittiness and secretly caring attitude. He’d have a good and stable career, like their father. He’d make mistakes, but I’d be OK because he’d learn from it, and he’d have his kind mother to talk to-

No.

Evan wouldn’t think about that. He couldn’t. He’d been having such a good week. The switch hadn’t flipped and he didn’t want it to happen now. He’d be happy. Happy, jolly, and good. Yes, he’d be happy. Not only will he be happy now, but he’ll be happy the rest of his life. Happy, happy, happy. He tried to distract himself with happy thoughts, but mostly he just repeated the word urgently in his head like he was trying to summon the feeling Beetlejuice style, so he moved onto thinking about joy-filled memories. 

That was also a difficult task. But manageable. He thought of when he and his siblings all went to a fancy, tourist beach during their first summer in LA. Evan had been especially unmanageable and irritable at 10 years old, freshly bitten and a newbie runaway. But he remembered how it seemed like all his problems swiftly faded into nothingness the longer he was at the beach. He couldn’t fully submerge his head because of the injury, but even that didn’t stop him. He remembered the time in Utah, by the lake. He remembered a far younger Michael. He remembered him holding Evan’s prized possession above his head, teasingly, holding his plush-

Fredbear.

Evan violently flinched when simply the name caused a flashbang of memories and images of the doll to invade his mind. Evan wondered if this was what World War II soldiers felt when they remembered their times in the trenches. God, Evan’s life for years felt like one endless war movie. One where he kept running, and running, and running, yet the battles and the bloodshed never ended. His Fredbear plush, his only companion. His only advisor, his only confidant. His only friend. 

Those beady eyes always reflected Evan’s expression like a mirror. His expressionless face comforted Evan in his worst moments, when he was locked in the closet by Michael and forgotten, when he was shoved off the swing again by that kid Cory, who had always been especially annoyed by Evan’s sensitivity. Michael - new Michael, nice Michael - had always said Evan claimed Fredbear talked to him. Evan remembered it, in vivid detail. It felt like a dream brewed up during a fever, but as much as he verbally denied Michael’s claims, Evan couldn’t lie to himself. Fredbear had spoken to him, on several occasions, in a way that just had to be different than an imaginary friend. He remembered Fredbear telling him-

No. 

Evan motioned to rub his eye until he felt his face and realized he had been crying. That’s one thing that had changed, actually. Evan could cry silently now. It felt like a new ability that you unlock after leveling up in a video game. When he was younger, if he was upset, he let everyone know. His therapist-for-a-year said something about a lack of attention causing attention-seeking behaviour but little Evan had no care to listen to him. He’s not sure fifteen year old Evan would bother to listen, either. Clearly, he preferred to run from his problems and fears rather than face it. That habit hadn’t changed at all.

Evan wanted to ask to go to the bathroom, but Mrs. Jones would see he’d been crying. He used a lot of energy focusing on not fidgeting loudly. Just because he was failing didn’t mean he’d take the rest of his classmates with him. He’d probably get crucified during lunch if he caused someone to lose focus with incessant tapping. 

He remembered that was something his father used to do. In the little times he was allowed in his office, Evan remembered the irritating tapping of his father’s pencil when he was cooking up plans. 

Thankfully, the bell rang before he could think more about him. As he talked past Mrs. Jones’ desk, an action necessary to leave the classroom, she ordered him to stay. 

“Evan.” She started when all the students had left and Evan had sat down. If he claimed his heart was pounding at the beginning of class, it was doing jumping jacks now. Break dancing. Burpees. It was taking a lot of focus to not tear up already. “You know I just want you to do the best you can in my classes, right? I don’t want you to do bad. But you’re not giving me much to work with, here. I can only help you if you try and help yourself.” Oh, what Evan would do to grab her shoulders and scream “I HAVE LIFE-ALTERING BRAIN DAMAGE ,GIVE ME A BREAK, WOMAN!”, but alas, it wouldn’t help. His only proof, unless he wants to reveal his identity as that one missing kid from Utah, was his fucked up looking head. The school could try getting him tested for whatever learning disability they probably suspected he had, but Michael was very careful to not let them go to doctors. It was too easy for them to find out their secret.

This has caused some drama within their fucked up family unit. When Elizabeth fell off her bike, she acquired a massive gash on his calf. She should have gone to the hospital, but Michael decided to fix her up himself. He did a pretty good job, considering he’d never done anything like that before, but it was evident days later that it needed stitches. Michael didn’t trust himself for that kind of thing, so him and Elizabeth made up a thing about being too poor to go to the doctors - not entirely a lie - to their old neighbour, a newly-graduated nurse. She helped stitch it up, but Elizabeth can hold a grudge. She was not pleased. Evan, also, was a major issue. Their father was trusted in the community in Utah, so he got Evan’s painkillers in bulk. So, when they ran away, Michael stole plenty. But when they ran out, he had to use off the counter pills, which didn’t work as well as he hoped. Evan used to keep them, and sometimes the neighbours, up in the night with his cries of pain. His face likely would’ve healed far better and faster if he had access to doctors, as well.

But no. No doctors, so Evan had to act like he never had any damage, and he was just born that stupid. Maybe he was. 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones.” He said, impressed with his lack of tears. “I’m trying.”

“No, you’re not. Quit pretending you are, that’s your first step.” She said, in a far harsher tone than she usually spoke with. “Bringing a pencil, Evan, is the bare minimum. This is tenth grade, not sixth.”

And, the waterworks. 

“I don’t w-want to forget, I just d-do.” Evan looked down, intensely looking at the edge of her desk as he whipped his wet eyes. Something has nicked it, like a pen or something. 

“Try harder, boy!” She raised her voice. “At this rate, I’d be shocked to ever see you working somewhere other than McDonalds!” She paused, breathed in and out to calm herself. “I can tell when you space out or ignore what I say during lessons, you know? Text class, try listening to what I say- yeah? That might do you a little good. Go, now.”

Evan nodded and practically teleported out of there. He kept his head low, and speed walked his way to the nearest bathroom. Once he locked himself in a stall, he allowed the rest of his tears to fall. 

Elizabeth always said crying is healthy. It’s a built in stress reliever, she would say. It releases some chemical he couldn’t remember the name of, and it’s supposed to calm you once you're done. He thinks, maybe, he cries too much for that to be accurate. When his tears calm down, all he feels is an emptiness and a pounding headache. Checking his cheap watch, he realized he missed about half of his second period class. That was English, at least they were still only reading Hamlet , he didn’t miss too much. 

He took a moment to breathe in, and out; to calm himself down. He didn’t want to let this ruin his mood. Evan didn’t have to let this affect him. Just because he was unhappy now, it didn’t mean he had to be unhappy then. After all - 

Tomorrow is another day

Fuck. 

After spending the rest of the period silently sobbing in his stall, and then calming himself down by washing his face and stretching, he impressed himself by actually going to his next class. 

That one wasn’t as eventful. Evan mostly looked down at his paper, making sure no one was looking at him and his like-still-red face, trying hard not to zone out but failing. It was hard to remember anything when he didn’t have anything to write with. During lunch, he went to his favourite corner of the library and ate his lunch in the quiet. He wasn’t allowed to eat there, in case the students accidentally damaged any books, but Evan never actually touched any books there, and he thought the librarian pitied him anyway. He used to bring his notebook and draw there all the time last year, but again, his pencil forgetting streak had left him really bored. Today wasn’t a day he wanted to be left to his thoughts, so after a while Evan began to just lap around the school a couple times. Focusing on not bumping into people kept him busy enough - it was a hard enough task, they were far above the legal limit of student enrollment.

The rest of the day went by OK, objectively. Just a lot of notes he was supposed to be taking, but too embarrassed to task for a pencil again. He spent the whole day battling himself. He clutched onto his scalp and stared intensely down at his desk. He would not let this happen to him right now. The switch wouldn’t be flipped. He would spend his time at home talking to Elizabeth about whatever she wanted, then they’d fight about it until Michael made them go to their separate rooms to calm down. Then, he’d draw something. Whatever he wanted, something nice. 

Evan had almost calmed himself by the time he was leaving the building to go to his bus. Until, he got bumped into as someone was running past. It wasn’t even malicious, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Evan saw red.

“What’s with the face?” Elizabeth asked as soon as she saw him. She swung her backpack underneath the seat and plopped herself beside Evan on the aisle end. 

“Nothing.” He said, refusing to look in her direction. He rested his cheek in his palm, elbow propped up on his knee, as he looked out the window. He couldn’t disguise the venom in his voice. Elizabeth didn’t reply, knowing his moods, and instead opened her book to entertain herself. 

Evan dropped his bag at the door and didn’t acknowledge Michael, who, as promised, was lazing in front of the TV, with Elizabeth like he usually did. He brushed past his brother and went straight to their room. He slammed the door, but as soon as he was alone, shame bubbled. Who did he think he was? Making his moods an issue for everyone else. He couldn’t control his own actions, sometimes, and it infuriated Evan. It didn’t help that he could hear whispers from their living/dining room. He couldn’t hear what his siblings were saying, but it wasn’t hard to figure out who the subject of the conversation was about. 

He ended up doing exactly what he said he would, that being picking up his notebook and drawing his frustrations away. His notebook was half drawings and half journal. The top half of a page may be a drawing, while the bottom was almost unreadable scribblings of his frustrations and anger. A lot of the time, his issues involved writing about their father. At least, when it came to his schooling problems, he could talk to Michael. He wasn’t very scholarly, either. He could relate with Evan about his slow reading, and treatment from his teachers. But their father was a forbidden topic, except for the rare times they’re all awake at night, fatigue weighing on them, and they confess their emotions on the topic. Evan, even after so many years, still found it hard to imagine their father as… who he was. 

He never told any of them that, though. He just nodded when Michael raged and Elizabeth’s voice broke. Michael claimed - old and new Michael - Evan was always his favourite, so that could be a factor in it. At the time, he didn’t feel like their father loved him much. He’d always tell Evan to get over his fears, and to quit crying, which, of course, made Evan cry even harder. But he could see Michael’s perspective, with the power of hindsight. Michael had always gotten the punishment after they fought, Evan couldn’t remember a time their father ever complimented him.

It was rare, but every so often Evan would find himself being comforted by his father. Usually, after Michael scared him. It wasn’t like their mother’s warm hugs. It was awkward, and it felt forced. But Evan knew their father was capable of love for them. It was mostly in the forms of gifts. Elizabeth got a new stuffed toy for every A+. Evan was given more posters and art supplies if Michael was extra mean that week. Michael, even, was gifted with a skateboard once. It was his way of saying he loved them. So, of course, Evan found it hard to understand what happened.

Evan was in the middle of writing a sentence in his book when Michael softly knocked. He knew it was Michael because Elizabeth never knocked, for any reason. Evan never responded, so his older brother took it as permission to enter. 

Their shared room was tiny, most of the room was taken up by the two twin beds lying across from each other, opposite sides of the room. The shared dresser took up another sizable chunk. Evan had been sitting, cross legged, in the corner beside the dresser and at the foot of Michael’s bed. That was the corner he always took up, as the corner near his bed was where the door was. Evan felt more comfortable in enclosed spaces, something that he probably shouldn’t have, after everything, so it was perfect. Sans actual closets - which he refused to put more than an arm into - it was the most private place in the apartment. 

Michael sat at the foot of his bed, as close to Evan as he could be without touching. He looked like he was in thought. Evan preferred Michael when he wasn’t thinking. 

“Your math teacher called.”

“Fuuccckkkk.” Evan whined, without thinking. “What’d she say about me?”

“You could stand to be a little more optimistic, y’know.” Michael said. Evan gave him a flat look, and he finally continued when he realized he was never going to get a response. “Jones just told me how you got a zero on your test today.”

“Did she tell you why ?” 

“Yeah, the pencil thing.” Michael said. “I asked for more details, and I’m fucking pissed about it too. How hard is it to just let you borrow a pencil?” He paused. “Still though, your grades permanent.”

Evan looked down at his notebook instead of his older brother. “I know.”

“You can’t keep this up.”

“I know. ” Evan repeated, this time with aggression instead of dismissal. “I’m told everyday.”

Michael raised his eyebrow. “Then when do you plan on-”

“I’m trying !” Evan interrupted. “This is me at my best, so I’m so fucking I’m not good enough for you!”

Michael reeled back. “That’s not what I meant-”

“Maybe you didn’t mean to say it out loud but it’s what you meant. It’s what you think, I know it is! Stupid fucking Evan, can’t do anything right!” He stood up and began to leave the room. 

Michael followed his movements. “No one’s saying that, Ev! And you’re not stupid it’s just your brain changed after the bite-”

“And whose fault is that?!” Evan screeched. Michael flinched, and halted his attempts at following him. Evan stormed past the kitchen, where Elizabeth sat on the counter with a bowl of cheerios , listening to the whole argument. 

She wasn’t disturbed. “Told you not to do it.” She practically sang to Michael. 

“Shut the fuck up, Lizzie!” 

Evan snatched the doorknob, ready to leave before Michael got his bearings together and continued his attempts to calm him down. “Look, I’m sorry I mentioned it. You know I’ve always said grade’s don’t matter in the long run, I’m making a livable-ish wage without a high school diploma!” 

Elizabeth nodded. “Besides, it’s not like we’re going into high profile jobs if we get good grades anyway. We have no papers, we’re basically illegal immigrants.” 

“God, I’m not going to drop out! Leave me alone for a second !”

“Evan, you are not leaving this apartment!” Michael yelled. New Michael didn’t yell unless it was important. Old Michael yelled at everything. He yelled about Elizabeth not doing the dishes when it was her turn, he yelled at Evan when he wouldn’t stop crying, and held screeching fights with their father over anything and everything. New Michael was far calmer, but he held an air of resignation. He never wanted this life - living paycheck to paycheck, still sharing a room with his fifteen year old brother at twenty-two. “We can’t keep doing this!”

“Doing what?” Elizabeth raised her eyebrow, the same way they and father always did. Evan could never figure out how they did it. 

“Running away, after we fight!” Michael said. “We all do it, I used to do it when I fought with Father, too.” Michael opened up the father wormhole. Uh oh. “I used to run away and do pot in the park for hours and when I came home, it was always worse! Lizzie goes to her friends house when we piss her off, and Evan fucks off to God knows where for hours. And then we go about our day pretending it never happened. No apologies, no conversations, no nothing!” His voice got higher and higher the longer he went on. “We’re going to air it all out, starting now.”

“Ev doesn’t have any friends, he can’t even get pot if he wanted to.” Elizabeth said, to ease the tension. “If that helps.” She was right, of course, but Evan still flipped her off. 

“Shut up.” Michael said, simply. “Evan, what are you mad about?”

“Guess.” 

“No! We’re doing this!” Michael yelled. 

“You’re not a fucking therapist, Michael!” Evan yelled even louder. “Even the best therapist in the country couldn’t fix us.”

Michael scoffed. “This isn’t about fixing , Evan-

i’m sorry.

-You’re right, we can’t be fixed. - 

you’re broken.

- Our father is a serial child murder, I sent you into a fucking coma and gave you brain trauma for a laugh, and we’re still on a missing children’s list! -

we’re still your friends. 

- Nothing about this is normal, -

do you still believe that?

- but it doesn’t mean we can’t get better! -

I’m still here.

- We can be salvaged if you’d just— 

I will put you back together.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Evan clutched his head, gripping onto his hair with all his minimal strength had to offer. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” He wasn’t sure who he was speaking to, Michael or Fredbear. His outburst was successful for both, though. You could hear a pin drop in their little place. “Just leave me alone! Please! PLEASE!” Evan’s eyes tears up. From anger, shame, humiliation; it was anyone's guess, really. 

Evan didn’t look Michael, or Elizabeth, in the eye when he left. 

Michael had said that Evan always “fucked off to God knows where”. The reason he had no idea where Evan went was because Evan wasn’t going to any place in particular. He’d just walk around, just like he did at lunch. This time, though, Evan needed more than a stroll to distract himself. 

he left without you

Evan didn’t want to be this way. He carried the guilt of screaming at his siblings deep in his chest, right where he also kept the humiliation. He felt like a child, the child he used to be. The one that would throw fits and cry, cry, and cry. It’s not Michael’s fault Evan can’t do a single thing right to save his life. It’s not Elizabeth’s fault he has no friends, that he has the voice of his favourite childhood plushie haunting him everywhere he goes. 

he knows that you hate it here

He wondered what Henry would say about his current mental state, even though Evan hadn’t thought about the man in a long time. He felt bad about it, Henry was the only adult in his life that ended up not being insane, leaving him, or hating him. Maybe that's exactly why Evan didn’t think of him as much as the others, by being normal he ended up not making much of an impact. New Michael referenced Henry a lot, though, just as much as Old Michael did. Michael was a Henry worshipper, probably because he was a lot gentler on him than their father ever was. Henry was always gentle, and he was warm. He’d hug the Afton siblings every time they saw each other.

Charlie got her hugs from her father. She was Elizabeth’s age, in between Michael and Evan. She had thought Michael was cool with his skateboard and scrapes, and she had played with Evan when no one else wanted to. She was kind to everyone, just like her father. They spent their christmas at a soup kitchen, for fucks sake. If there was a God, they were sick and twisted for what they did. Her body was found by her classmate, outside Fazbear’s, barely an hour after her estimated time of death. Henry wasn’t the same. He was closed off, - far more open than their father, still - more likely to get angry when he babysat, and Michael said he had caught the man crying when he thought no one was looking. It all happened merely months after his divorce. In barely six months, his whole family was destroyed.

you are right beside the exit. if you run, you can make it. 

Evan moved on from speed walking to jogging. He wasn’t very fast, he wasn’t athletic at all. He spent all his free time held up in a corner drawing, listening to music, or watching TV. Other than his escapes during arguments, Evan was very stationary like a sloth, or maybe a koala. But he enjoyed the wind brushing past him, through his hair, anyway. 

He thought about his father. William Afton, all alone in his four bedroom home with no one to share it with. Was it lonely? Of course it was, it was almost as bad as Henry’s situation. All three of his children up and left him in one fell swoop. Evan wondered if he took a day off. He wondered how the man felt in the morning, when he didn’t hear the usual ruckus of his children. Was it suspicious that he didn’t hear the TV? Did he wonder if they all had slept in when there were no footsteps, no door creaking, or any sound at all? Whose room did he check first, when he realized no one was in the living room, dining room or kitchen? Was it Elizabeth’s room, his only daughter? The one who’d be first to say she loved him on Father’s day? The one who always bragged to her friends that her dad owned Fredbear’s Family Diner, and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza? That her dad made a lot of the designs, that her dad was the genius creative behind it all? Or did he check Evan’s room, his youngest son? The one who used to run to him for safety when he felt scared? The one who hugged him fiercely, when he was given his Fredbear plush by him, and said he was the bestest father ever? Or was it Michael’s room he checked, his first born? The one he fell in love with, the one that made him want to have an even bigger family? The one he taught to ride a bike, and would explain robotics too when he had the time? The one he trusted to keep the younger children safe when he worked long hours?

Evan could think of a million good memories, but he could remember a million bad ones as well. He remembered when he was hiding, watching Michael get in trouble for scaring him again. Evan wanted to watch because seeing Michael get punished made him feel better. He had just expected to have him get extra chores or something, not to watch his older brother get socked in the face! Evan could also remember when Elizabeth came home with another perfect score, and was shoving it in Michael’s face. Evan remembered her calling him stupid, and proclaiming herself a genius! Their father had thin patience for that, and told her she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was and she needed not to have an ego. (Evan had tried to comfort her afterwards, by sharing some of his toys but she called him a baby so he left her to stew in her own misery.) He remembered a million and one times he’d been crying out of fear, and he’d been told to man up, that Evan wouldn’t survive in the real world.

Evan never witnessed any child murder. He simply believed Michael when he said what happened. So did Elizabeth. Michael was older, and this was post-bite. Michael never made up stupid shit to see if they believed him anymore. He was serious, quiet. He had practically made a slave of himself for Evan for months. Bringing him snacks, letting him watch whatever movies he wanted, and bringing him gifts with the money he was getting from his summer job. That Michael would never lie, he wouldn’t do something that would negatively affect his siblings. Not anymore. That was why Evan and Elizabeth chose to believe him, even when they knew the cops wouldn’t. It was why they followed him in a stolen car to LA, with barely a day’s notice. 

Sometimes though, Evan wondered if what Michael saw was simply a misunderstanding. He wondered if father was innocent, wallowing all alone in his home like an old hag in a cartoon. Were he and his siblings in the wrong, for leaving? 

hurry, run towards the exit.

Evan was outright running now. He felt like his lungs, and heart, were slowly being crushed between concrete walls. He felt like he was nailed into a coffin alive, buried deep in the ground with no hope of a saviour and low oxygen supply. 

The people he passed stared at him, but that wasn’t anything new. Ever since the bite, the incident his hometown coined the Bite of ‘83, strangers always stared. They couldn’t help it, at first his face was covered in more bandages than a little kid in a toilet paper mummy costume. When he slowly removed the bandages over time, the gruesome scars were something to marvel at as well. 

The doctor’s had said it was a gift of God that Evan lived with minimal damages. His six month long coma helped his body recover as much as it could. Evan didn’t appreciate the gift. Well, it was complicated. It wasn’t like Evan wanted to die. In fact, Evan was screaming and crying all the damn time because he didn’t. But everything changed after the bite. Their father hid away more, yet showed more affection when he did, Michael was kinder to Evan in one afternoon than he had been every year prior, Elizabeth tiptoed and was highly careful around him, thinking for far longer than she used to before speaking, and even Henry had made another change, skipping out on work and visiting the hospital to talk about nothing and everything at the same time. Objectively, his life seemed better. Nicer father, nice brother and less annoying and impulsive sister. But it was all strange and off. He felt like an alien, that he was possessed after the bite and he was living the life of another kid. 

Evan had changed, as well, though. His irritability was far worse when he had woken up. He couldn’t keep track of the amount of kids Evan screamed at Michael from the top of his tiny lungs, calling him a monster, mean and an awful brother, all while he kept silent and took it. He remembered screaming and hitting his father, saying none of it would’ve happened if he listened to Evan when he begged for weeks not to have his party at Fredbears. That was the first, and the only, time Evan ever saw the man at a loss for words. He screamed at Elizabeth for complimenting him too much, and he even yelled at Henry once, with words he’d regret until the day his bones rotted away into the dirt. He told the man that he wasn’t Charlie, so he needed to quit acting like Evan was his child. Their relationship never truly recovered from that. 

He became cruel at the flip of a switch, but he became depressed just as quickly. He had periods of whole weeks where he couldn’t stop crying. He’d spend hours apologizing. Apologizing about things he said, things that weren’t his fault. He remembered once apologizing for waking up at all, for surviving. Not only did he upset his loved ones, but he couldn’t even allow them to really be angry because their pity overpowered it. 

NO! don’t you remember what you saw? 

Evan remembered, vividly, what he saw that day. Their father, Henry, Elizabeth, and his state issued therapist all said it was a misunderstanding. Fifteen year old Evan understood the same thing, but for years and years Evan believed he had witnessed Spring Bonnie eat someone. Springlock suits was the explanation given. Evan saw someone get into one, and due to the shadows and darkness in the employees changing room, his imagination turned it into something it’s not. Sometimes Evan wondered if what he saw was actually what he believed it was. If he really saw a murder. That didn’t change anything, really, though. The fear, the nightmares, the bite. They were all real, even if the incident was not. 

He could feel the tears that were falling from his eyes, and the wind hitting his face no longer felt as freeing as it had. It stung and it hurt. A sudden rush of pushed down memories kicked him while he was weak. He could remember the sensation of his skull getting brushed by Fredbear’s mechanical teeth. He could hear the loud ringing in his hears, his pounding heartbeat and the ever present cackling of Old Michael and his friends. He remembered seeing the inside of the springlock suit, before he closed his eyes out of fear. He remembered the taste of his dry mouth, at that moment, as well as a quick stream of blood that pooled into his mouth before he was taken out of the animatronics mouth, and he came in and out of consciousness. 

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck Evan couldn’t do it. He quit his running, abruptly, and leaned his back on the brick wall of some building he didn’t recognize, and allowed himself to fall into the worst panic attack he’d experienced since he was twelve.

Evan was experienced in the stuff, but he’d never truly get used to the constrictive sensation in his chest. He needed to do something. He felt it. Evan needed to do something but he didn’t know what. He clutched the wall as he dragged himself into an alley for a tad more privacy. His legs felt like cheap jello, so he sunk into the ground, where he sat for God knows how long, tears streaming down his face, loudly trying to get more air and failing, failing, failing. Some things never change. 

When he’s in this state, the world becomes much louder. He heard a family bantering as they walked past, a couple arguing, and many others in the time he sat there. He felt for the back of his neck several times, an impulsively motion he couldn’t keep at bay, to see how badly he was sweating. His hands were shaky, his teeth chattering like he was freezing when he actually felt uncomfortably warm. Like he did PE class in a hoodie. 

After a while, it became easier to breathe. It felt less like he was drowning, and more like his lungs were half the size they were supposed to be, and he had to take far more breaths to consume the amount of oxygen he needed. His chest felt less like a piano - or Fredbear’s jaw - was slowly crushing it, and more like the usually tightening chest feeling he got when he felt guilty, or embarrassed. 

Evan sat with his face up towards the sky, eyes closed, for longer than he meant to. At some point it had begun to rain. Just spitting, but when it hit his cheek it stung. 

He sat there for a long time with a pounding headache and a void in his heart and brain. He wasn’t thinking about a single thing. Not his failures, not his accomplishments. Not Michael, not Elizabeth. Not Father, not Henry. Just simple, pure nothingness.

It was only when he jerked awake that he realized how tired he was, and how long he’d been gone.

hurry, run towards the exit. 

It was almost past sunset. Fuck. Evan got home at four, he couldn’t have left later than four-thirty. He didn’t notice the time slipping past him. He needed to get home. He knew Michael would never report him missing, as that involved police and documents, but Evan still knew his older brother was worried sick. As much as he believed his brother saw him as a burden, so many years passed that Evan could no longer deny his brother cared for him. 

He found a landmark that he recognized fairly quickly, and Evan began to make his way home. 

you have to be strong.

When Evan stepped into the apartment, he tried to be quiet. It was dark, and their neighbours were likely asleep. He could hear Michael’s rushed footsteps before he saw him. When Evan lifted his head, he was engulfed in an embrace. 

It was strange, the one-eighty the two brothers experienced. Michael had never hugged Evan, thinking it was embarrassing and unmanly. Old Michael would describe New Michael as… pathetic, probably. And that was an undeniable descriptor for the man. He clung onto his siblings like they were the last people left on earth because to him… they were. He left all his friends, his opportunities, the life he built. He left their father, and Henry, just so Evan and Elizabeth didn’t have to live under the roof of a killer a moment longer.

Evan hugged him back, and let even more tears fall. Michael was still quite taller than him, and at this point would probably stay that way. On his way home, the rain fell harder and soaked Evan entirely, so he got Michael went from the rain and his own tears. “I’m sorry.” Evan whispered.

“Me too.” Michael replied. “Lizzie is in bed. Let’s go, too. We’ll talk in the morning.” He paused. “You don’t have to go to school.”

tomorrow is another day.

“Hell yeah.”

Evan carried the guilt of his outburst in his heart. Every day has been, and would be, a struggle. A battle against his own trauma. But as he lay down in his bed - that he suspected Michael had made, considering it was far messier than he left it - he felt truly content.

For the first time in a very, very long time.