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Gregory woke up one morning, a couple months since the incident at the Pizzplex. The sun shone through his small bedroom window. It originally was a storage room that acted more like a big closet, but it was the only other room Vannessa had in her small apartment. He didn’t complain though. He was grateful for a place to stay to begin with. Now he no longer had to scrounge for food and a warm place to stay.
It took him a while to gain Vannessa’s trust. When he first started staying with her, he wanted to run away, not trusting her. But eventually, he grew used to living with her. It was a lot better than living on the streets. Plus, Freddy said she could be trusted. And Gregory believed Freddy.
As Gregory started to wake up, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched, his teddy bear falling to the floor. He noticed it fall and reached over to pick it back up. However, a horrible pain erupted from his stomach. He doubled over as the cramp overtook him. He never felt anything like it before. He squeezed his eyes shut. It was pure agony for about a minute before it finally calmed down.
When it died down, he slowly removed his blankets to try and get ready for the day and maybe tell Vannessa he wasn’t feeling well. They were supposed to go back-to-school shopping today since he was going to be starting school in about 2 weeks.
However, when he removed the blankets, he let out a small gasp in shock. Nothing could have prepared him for what he was seeing. All over his sheets and pajama pants was blood.
Gregory didn’t know what was going on. Was he dying? Another cramp washed over him and he doubled over in pain. Yep this was death.
It was so confusing, he didn’t know what was happening to him. Everything hurt and he was in pain and just generally uncomfortable. Why was he bleeding?! And from down there no less!
Suddenly, his watch on his wrist lit up. He must’ve forgotten to take it off when he went to bed.
“Gregory, I am sensing an increased pulse in your wrist. Are you alright? Did you wake up to another nightmare?” Freddy’s voice sounded from the watch.
“I’m f-fine, Freddy,” Gregory practically panted. His heart was racing as panic took over and he began to freak out. After the Pizzaplex incident, he started having a lot of panic attacks, whether they be from PTSD, or just normal anxiety.
“Are you having another panic attack? Should I alert Vanessa?” Freddy asked. Although he could communicate through the watch, his head usually stayed in the living room and kitchen, where Vanessa likely was. On late nights, she’d sometimes end up falling asleep on the couch.
“No! I’m fine, she doesn’t need to know,” Gregory tried to assure him. He hated how much of a burden he already was on Vanessa. Here he was, taking up space in her apartment and giving her one more mouth to feed. He didn’t want to drag her into his stuff.
Just thinking about Vanessa finding out about this made him start to panic even more. What if they needed to go to the hospital? How much would it cost? He just ruined his sheets as well and would probably need new ones.
“Gregory, your heart rate is exceeding beyond a regular BPM! This is not safe. I am sorry, but I must alert Vanessa,” Freddy announced through the fazwatch.
“No! Freddy!” Gregory cried but Freddy didn’t respond. He could just barely hear the animatronic’s voice through the wall. He couldn’t make out what he was saying but he knew he must’ve been waking Vanessa.
Knowing that he just woke her made the situation feel worse. He could feel the walls closing in on him and his lungs felt as if they were ready to collapse from overuse. He couldn’t breathe. Vanessa was going to hate him and kick him out. Just like his parents did.
Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. Fuck.
“Gregory? Are you okay? Freddy said you’re having a panic attack,” Vanessa said, worriedly.
The boy tried to say something back, but all that came from his throat were heavy pants. He gripped his hair as another wave of pain shot through his stomach. A small cry was let out in the midst of his hyperventilating. Why did this have to happen to him?
With the small, cheap apartment she had, the walls were in no way thick. She could hear the cries coming from him. Not being able to bear hearing him in pain, she opened the door and walked inside.
When she barged in, Gregory tried to quickly cover up the blood and threw the blankets back over his lap, but Vanessa had already seen it. Her face softened when she realized what was going on. She would have to talk with him about it, but right now, she needed to calm him down.
“Lets take some deep breaths, alright?” She said. Gregory shook his head and curled up in a ball, the pain starting to come back. A couple tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I know it hurts but we gotta get your heart rate down. Do you want me to grab Freddy?” Vanessa asked. Gregory hesitated before nodding. They had tried to find him other forms of comfort, specifically the teddy bear stuffed animal that looked a tiny bit like Freddy. Gregory definitely had some separation anxiety with the real Freddy. He never wanted to be without him and always felt unsafe when he wasn’t wearing his Fazwatch. But FredBear, the freddy stuffy, provided some of the comfort the normal Freddy did, just without him being there. It was a better alternative, especially with Gregory starting school. There was no way a middle school would let him bring in a giant head of glammock freddy, but they would let him bring in a small stuffed animal.
Vanessa rushed out of his bedroom and into the living room where Freddy’s head was sitting on top of the kitchen counter, a charging cable attached to him. She unplugged it and carried him back to Gregory’s room.
When she returned, she carefully placed Freddy in Gregory’s arms. She sat next to him and rubbed his back as he hugged the animatronic head.
“You’re going to be alright, superstar. Take some deep breaths for us,” Freddy told him. Gregory hiccuped and gasped for air but nodded.
It took him a while, but Gregory’s breathing finally started to even out. The back rubs definitely helped him with the hiccups and Freddy’s soft vrring noises reminded him that he was safe.
Once he was calmed down, leaned into Vanessa’s back rubs and whimpered in pain, trying to curl up a little more.
“It hurts…” he whined.
“I know, kid. Is this your first period?” Vanessa asked.
“A what?”
“Oh jeez…” She sighed, she was not expecting to have to explain menstruating at 8 am. But she did, and Gregory’s face definitely said a lot.
“Only girls go through this?” he asked defeatedly. How was he ever going to be a boy if he was going through a female puberty?! Was he going to sprout breasts as well? How was he going to pass now?!
“No, some boys such as yourself go through this as well,” She assured him. She knew of a couple trans and non-binary AFAB people. Maybe they would be better at assuring him… But luckily, Gregory seemed to take this well because he moved onto something else.
“But its painful and happens every month?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, yeah…” She told him. He whined and fell into her lap. She gave him a small empathetic smile. Periods sucked, but she imagined they were a lot worse for someone who was trans.
Vanessa held Gregory in her lap for a little while, stroking his hair and scratching his scalp, trying to alleviate the pain by providing comfort. The poor kid didn’t deserve all this pain and suffering, so she tried her best to help him feel better. But eventually, the smell of blood filled the room and quickly became overwhelming.
“Come on, let’s get you a bath,” She said, lifting him up into her arms. He whined and tried to wiggle his way out, but was too tired or in too much pain to really do much.
“Noo,” he whimpered.
“You got to, kid.” she told him. He shook his head.
“Hurts too much…”
“It’s alright, I’ll help you out. And then we’ll make chocolate chip pancakes. Does that sound good?” Vanessa asked.
“Mmm…fine” Gregory complied, snuggling up in her arms.
It took almost an hour to bathe Gregory. The boy was very stubborn when he was in pain. He wanted to do everything by himself but then would get frustrated when he couldn’t. Vanessa tried to have patience though. She knew a little bit of what he was going through. With everything going on, he was probably feeling very emotional as well.
When the bath was done, Vanessa helped him figure out how pads worked and got him dressed in a clean pair of pajamas. After that, he curled up on the couch with his FredBear stuffy while real Freddy helped Vanessa out with the pancakes.