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You let out a groan, staring hopelessly down the vent shaft with your flashlight. Even with the light it was very dark. A line of dust seemed to cover the interior. You could just barely make out the slow choppy sound of the fan.
Sitting back on your legs, you rubbed your forehead. "I can't see what the problem is from here. One of us is going to have to crawl inside." You said, turning to look up at your co-worker, Michael.
About two or three hours ago the two of you had arrived to do your job at Freddy's as normal, but once you entered the pizzeria it felt like the temperature skyrocketed by 50 degrees. How it managed to due that 12am is beyond you. Freddy's did always seem to have this unusual sense to it, but this was just weird. Felt as if a part of the pizzeria was on fire. However, since there was no smoke that had been out of the question.
Eventually through some trial and error, along with Michael somehow knowing everything about this place, the two of you had wired it down to a ventilation problem. But after staring down the security office's vent for a solid 10 minutes it became very clear to you that there was no way of fixing this without climbing inside.
Michael, who appeared to have been watching you the whole time, gave one of his common somewhat eerie smiles. "I'm sure what you're looking for isn't too deep in. You'll be able to find it easily." He said, his grin a tad bigger now. "And if there is any trouble, just yell out for me and I'll climb in and...give you a hand."
Your mind couldn't figure out if you were more annoyed or flustered by his comment. You turned back to the vent, rolling your eyes and hoping that the heat on your face was only being caused by the stuffy pizzeria. "Fine, but next time we have to clean the animatronics I am not helping you." You grumbled, beginning to crawl into the vent.
From behind you a low chuckle came from him. You could just hear a faint "Good luck." Come from him before you had pulled your whole body inside the vent.
The inside was cramped. Very cramped. You could just barely fit while being on your hands and knees. The best way would probably be to army crawl through, but you didn't feel like getting decades old dust all over your body so you would leave that as a last case scenario. It was dark even after your eyes adjusted you could only see about 3 feet in front of you at a time.
Thankfully for you the first section of the vent was a straight shot down, so you didn't have to deal with any turns. At the end of the vent you came to a right turn and a fan blocking your path. It was clearly starting to rust, but it was still trying to move.
Reaching into your pocket you pulled out a small flashlight, flipping it on. You shone your flashlight over the fan, scanning to figure out if it was the problem. The light landed on the lower half of it, you could just make out something wrapped around the fan's blades and motor, which appeared to be preventing it from working.
Before you could even try to get what was blocking the fan off you were going to have to remove the shutter screen blocking it. Putting the flashlight into your mouth, you grabbed the screen and started to pull. This fan had to have been as old as the building itself, so in theory the screen should be rusted enough that one could pull it off easily. In theory. However this screen refused to budge one bit. It felt almost as something was holding it in place. You tugged and tugged. Nothing. Your annoyance was growing with each failed try to get it moving.
After a few solid minutes of no luck you decided to try a different strategy. Maneuvering yourself onto your back you grabbed the screen from that angle and tried pulling. Same result as the other position. Sounds of light rattling at most, but no movement visible.
You let out a small sigh, staring at the screen. Well as best as you could while on your back. Your eyes roamed over the screen, there had to be something, anything to loosen it. To your dismay there was so spot for screws or anything, which means a wrench or screwdriver would be useless. A crowbar might work to pry it open, but there was definitely not enough room to work with it, not to mention you weren't certain if you were even strong enough to pry it open.
The smart thing to do would be to call Michael. Since he seemed to be a magician at mechanics he could probably get it fixed in a matter of minutes. But your pettiness currently outweighed your logic. You had no interest in admitting you needed his help.
Your eyes looked for some other way to get it open, ANYTHING. Suddenly your eyes landed on a part of the screen which had a gap just slightly bigger than the rest of it. You tilted your head to confirm your estimation. It was definitely bigger than the rest of the screen openings and looked like it was just big enough to fit your hand.
You scooted closer, slowly moving your hand through the opening. It got through. You grinned, finally you could get this thing off. Moving your hand around you felt along the back of the screen. There had to be some way to release it a latch or a button, just something. You began to move your hand upwards, feeling around. Suddenly you felt something almost rubbery. It reminded you of wires, but also at the same time it seemed like hair. You tried to pull your hand back, not wanting to touch whatever it was anymore, but as you were moving your hand back a party of the thing locked around your wrist, tightly.
Letting out a small grunt you pulled again, but what was clinging to your arm resisted, pulling tighter against your skin. You tried again, this time it wrapped your arm so tight it felt like it was going to cut your circulation off. A groan left you as you let your arm go limp. No going back now. You either were going have to die in a vent or let Michael save you. This time your interest to live won.
You leaned your head back against the metal and pressed your eyes shut, mentally bracing yourself for either getting a lecture or getting laughed at. "Michael?" You called out, your voice echoing slightly down the shaft.
"Yes? What is it?" You heard his voice call back. You didn't miss the slight glee that was in his tone; he had definitely been waiting for you to call him.
"I'm going to need some help in here." You replied, trying not to sound too annoyed.
"Oh? What might be the matter?" He asked. You didn't have to see him to know he was grinning.
You grumbled a small curse under your breath. You hated yourself for getting into this situation to begin with. Why hadn't you just insisted he go in the vent? Then you wouldn't have to explain this. "My hand is stuck in a fan." You mumbled out.
For a moment you weren't sure if he had heard you, then his voice echoed down the vent shaft. "Your hand is stuck in a fan?" He repeated your words, his voice seemed like it couldn't decide whether it was shocked, worried, or just plain amused.
A bit ticked off you banged your free hand against the vent shaft. "Yes! Now will you get in here and help me before I chew my arm off!" You yelled back.
Some scuffling around came from the vent opening for a moment before his voice called back down. "I'm on my way."
You laid still, staring blankly at the metal above your head. In the background you could hear Michael climbing through the vent towards you, but you tried not to focus on it or the position in for the sake of your pride.
Michael's voice brought you back to reality. "I'm going to have to climb on top of you to get your hand out."
Your head whipped up. He was already at the edge of your feet, he had gotten to you fast. You debated for a moment trying to roll to the side so he can get by you that way, but looking at how small the vent is it was clear that would not work. Letting out a sigh of defeat you nodded, laying your head back down.
Ever so slowly you felt him start to climb over you. His arms lightly brushing your legs as his hands land on each side of your torso. You couldn't tell if he was doing this to tease you or be respectful, either way you wished he would hurry up and get this over with.
Suddenly he stopped moving entirely, causing you to furrow your brow in confusion.
You heard him mumble something under his breath quickly before clearing his throat. "You're going to have to squeeze your legs together to make room for me, otherwise my legs will be in between your thighs." He said, seemingly trying to hide the embarrassment in his voice with amusement and failing miserably.
Your brain froze. Why did this have to happen? And when you were heated up by the temperature. You wish you could say your brain had went to a better place than it actually did. Other people would find Michael weird and a bit off putting, but to you their was something attractive in how he was. His creepy smile, his weird habits, you loved them all. Others are too judgmental of people they don't know. Or maybe you are just as weird as he is. You couldn't decide.
"Are you still with me?" His voice roused you from your thoughts.
"Oh yeah, sorry." You mumbled. Quickly you pressed your legs together. "There you go."
Michael began to move again. His legs coming to rest on each side of you as his head came into your field of vision. He stopped for a moment and his eyes met yours. A small smirk played at his lips.
"You know for a moment there I thought you wanted me in between your legs." He teased, watching you gleefully.
You let out a scoff, ignoring the heat climbing up your face. "Just hurry up and get me out of here." You ordered.
His gaze shifted off you and followed your arm up to where it was caught in the fan screen. Reaching beside you he picked up the flashlight you had set down earlier and shone it towards the fan.
You tried to tilt your head back to look too, but your body made contact with his causing you both to stop suddenly. Quickly you moved back to your original position, muttering some sort of apology as you did so.
Michael didn't react, he simply blinked before going back to examining your arm. After a moment he set the flashlight back down, his eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"I'm going to have to reach in and free your arm. Try not to squirm." Michael instructed.
You simply nodded. There wasn't anything else you could do right now anyway. Slowly you felt his hand trace up your arm, close just barely not touching it. However, it didn't stop goosebumps from creeping up your arms.
His hand came to the opening, carefully his slim fingers maneuvered their way up your arm, squeezing their way through the opening.
While you couldn't see what was happening, you could feel every bit of it. Michael's cool fingers slowly made their way up your arm, gently brushing against you as they made their way upwards.
It felt so intimate. You knew it wasn't supposed to be, but the way his fingers traced your skin almost as if they were mapping each part of your arm, it had felt so deliberate.
You snapped out of your thoughts when you felt him tug on the thing, whatever it might be, around your wrist.
A small grin stretched onto his face. "Found it."
Before you could ask what he would do, his fingers gripped around the wire-hair-like thing and yanked. Hard.
It caused part of the thing to dig into the back of your wrist. While it wasn't excruciating pain, it was enough of an irritation to cause you to squeeze your eyes shut and to let out a grunt.
You heard Michael blow some air out of his mouth. "Hold on. I've almost got it." He said.
He yanked again. This time you bit down on your tongue to hide any noise. After this you were never going to want to climb in a vent again. Not that you did a ton of vent exploring before, but you certainly weren't going to further the expeditions anymore.
Without warning he pulled once more. Somehow even harder than before. You felt like just chopping your arm off to avoid anymore at this rate.
Suddenly you heard a snap, causing your eyes to shoot open. You felt the thing around your wrist loosen, then it slid down your arm, falling off completely after a moment and landing who knows where.
You flicked your hand and wrist back and forth rapidly, almost not believing it was freed.
Michael chuckled. "Slow down a bit." His fingers curled around your wrist. "We wouldn't want you to get stuck again." He commented with something akin to glee in his voice.
"Right." You sighed, allowing your body to go slack against the vent.
Michael turned his head from the vent and looked down at you, his eyes meeting yours as he grinned.
You stared back with the best neutral face you could muster. Now that you were free from the concern of chopping off your arm, the rest of the situation was hitting you all at once. The way his legs were squeezed against your torso, how his other hand was just barely avoiding touching your arm, the heat from the lack of a working fan causing sweat to run down your face and neck. All of it was very, well precarious situation.
He continued to stare down out you, unblinking. At the same time you could feel his fingers gradually make their way up the palm of your hand.
A bead of sweat on the side of his face suddenly caught your attention. It started at his jawline and slid ever so slowly down his neck where it eventually disappeared under his shirt.
Is it bad that a small voice in the back of your head wished that shirt wasn't there? Or maybe you were just getting heat stroke.
Your mind resurfaced to reality when his fingers met your own. As if it were the most natural thing in the world they slid between yours, interlocking.
You released a breath you didn't realize you were holding, something in you giving in. Giving in to what? You weren't quite sure, but you knew Michael noticed.
Something in Michael's eyes darkened as he continued to stare down at you. With the upmost precision, he maneuvered his and your hand, still clasped, backwards out of the fan's screen. Even when both of your and his hands were safely out he didn't release his grasp. Instead he brought them up behind your head, keeping his grip just firm enough that you couldn't break free, but not tight enough to hurt you outright.
Part of you had wanted to say something, but at that moment you couldn't seem to get any noise to leave your throat. You parted your mouth slightly, trying to force some words out.
Michael was done waiting.
Using his free hand, Michael grabbed the front of your shirt and closed the, very small distance, between you two. His lips slammed into yours in a fury, pushing his tongue into your mouth.
Caught off guard a small squeak left your throat at the impact before began kissing him back, doing your best to match his vicious pace. You could taste what seemed to be some weird mix of mints and pizza along his tongue, but you were too caught up in the wonderful sensation that flooded your body to care about what he tasted like.
The kiss was a bit sloppy, but hey you two were stuck in a tight vent together, not exactly the ideal place for making out with your coworker. At least you didn't have to worry about being caught and fired while in there. Not that there was really anyone to catch you anyways.
After a minute or two you pulled back for air, panting heavily. A string of saliva still connected your mouth to his.
Michael looked down at you, panting a little. He licked his lips, not breaking eye contact as he gently moved his free hand from your shirt to the back of your head.
Settling his himself down closer to you, he caught your lips up in another kiss. This one slightly less mess than the first.
Your grip on his hand tightened as he pushed the two of you even closer, as if he wanted to savor every part of your mouth.
Suddenly he pulled away from your mouth, making you let out a groan in annoyance as you tried to chase his mouth.
He pushed you down, his lips finding their way to your jawline. Slowly he started kissing down your neck, nipping at your skin with each kiss.
You brought your free hand up to his hair, raking it through his brown locks. "Michael." You managed to mumble out.
"Hmmm?" You heard him hum as he briefly slowed his assault on your neck.
"Maybe we should-we should-" You stopped yourself for a moment to bite your tongue as he bit lightly below your earlobe. Regaining yourself, you continued. "We should fix the fan that way we can go to a place with more room."
Michael pulled back enough so he could look you in the eyes. "The fan can wait. I can fix that whenever I want" He said, his voice a little husky and large grin on his face. "However, I'm not against moving to somewhere with more room if that means it's easier for us to continue this."
You nodded, a little dazed still from everything. Michael's grin widened, he leaned forward giving you one last brief kiss before climbing off you and starting to move backwards down the vent.
After a moment of catching your breath you begin moving in the direction back down the vent, following Michael.
It was going to be long rest of the night.