Chapter Text
The constant noise of children laughing and playing filled Micheal’s ears, the bright lights burned into his eyes as he laughed at his brother’s misery. “I think he wants to give Fred bear a big kiss!” He laughed again. Then, him and his friends were lifting his brother up, and into Fred bear's mouth. Tears were streaming down his brother's face, slowly dripping down onto Fred bear. Its jaws widened and snapped onto his brother’s head with a crack. Blood was covering everything. Micheal was trying to get his brother out, but it wasn’t working. Warm, sticky blood coated his hands, and he found himself standing and staring at them, the same phrase repeating in his head: The animatronics malfunction due to moisture. It Was all his fault. He did this. The laughing around him turned to screaming, his father was shouting in his face, but he couldn’t hear it. Repeating his name over and over-
Micheal awoke to Arthur shaking him awake and calling his name. It took him a second to realise where he was.
“Hey, it’s alright, your here now. You were having a nightmare.”
“Yeah... Can I have some water?”
“Sure, I’ll get some for you.”
“Thanks.” Micheal watched Arthur walk away and contemplated his past. Whenever he had that nightmare the past was made fresh and painful on his mind, like a reopened, weeping, wound. He sighed and got up to look around. The room he was in was dusty and filled floor to ceiling with shelves full of boxes. He supposed this was the archives. Just then Arthur came back with his water.
“Here you go. Was it bad?”
“What do you mean?” Micheal said while sipping his water.
“The nightmare. I have nightmares like that a lot.”
“Yeah, it was bad. What are yours about?” Arthur sighed.
“My daughter. She... She died, a long time ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Mine... mine was about my brother.”
“Ah, you know, it wasn’t really your fault.”
“What-”
“Your father built the animatronics to malfunction. You were just a child.” They sat in silence for a while before Martin cam in and wanted Micheal to meet Basira and Daisy. Micheal fidgeted with his sleeves as they walked into the breakroom. The two women standing there were very imposing. One had short blonde hair, and an almost dog-like look to her. The other had a head scarf of some kind and was taller than the other and seemed to be kinder. They both stared at him with shock and then the taller woman’s expression softened. The other woman looked at him like he was some kind of monster, but Micheal was used to it.
“Basira, Daisy, this is Micheal, he’s from a different world, like Arthur. Micheal, this is Basira and Daisy.”
“Nice to meet you.” Micheal held his hand out to shake, and they both looked at it before the shorter woman, Daisy, shook it. She held it very tightly and seemed to be almost attempting to crush his hand. But Micheal had lost most feeling in his hands long ago, and just smiled at her, as much as he could. She looked a little taken aback and released his hand. Then, Basira shook his hand too, shooting at look at Daisy. Micheal looked round and saw that Jon had emerged from his office. Micheal snuck further away from him and closer to Arthur. Arthur’s left hand (John’s?) rested on his shoulder, and Micheal felt warmth rush through his body. how pathetic, you’ve barely known this man for a day and you already feeling warmth from any affection from him.
“So, how’d he become a literal corpse, then?” Basira was asking Jon, and Micheal braced himself to hear his trauma shared without his permission.
“He worked at a place his father owned, and a bunch of animatronics' wore him as a suit for a bit until his body rotted too much and they left and he survived, I'm not sure how. His body partially healed itself and here we are.” Micheal cringed slightly as the memories came back at him full- force. He was frozen as he remembered the scraping of metal on the inside of his skin, and he remembered the pain of being scooped- Arthur was rubbing his shoulder, and Micheal was brought back to reality. Jon was still speaking. “-He was working in all his father’s pizzerias trying to fine him and eventually got to the last one and him and a man called Henry burned the place down with all the animatronics and themselves inside, and Micheal was teleported here.”
“Hm. Well, sounds like he’ll fit right in here, right Daisy?” Daisy just grunted in response. “Anyhow, he can’t sleep in the archives forever and we’re not paying for a flat, so he’ll have to get a job somehow, though it sounds like he managed that before so should be quite easy!”
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It was not, in fact, ‘quite easy’. Micheal, Arthur, and Martin all went out job-hunting, Micheal wearing a mask that’ll be easily brushed off if it came up in conversation. They tried five different restaurants until one finally accepted Micheal, considering he fixed their broken machines incredibly well when that was used as a test. Micheal was to start as the on-site mechanic the next day, there to fix machines when they broke.
Arthur and Martin took Micheal to get some more clothes, and they picked out some casual clothing that wasn’t uncomfortable on Micheal’s sensitive skin. Martin gave him his number in case he needed help. And Micheal was ready for his new job the next day.
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Micheal was dropped off at his job five minutes early, wearing his new uniform with his prefered name displayed proudly on his shirt ‘Mike’. He walked in the staff door and was greeted by his manager.
“Hey Mike! My names Jake, and I’ll be your manager while you're working here.” Micheal followed Jake through the restaurant as he listed off each of his colleges until he got to the man Micheal would be working closer to than the others. “And this is Charley, Charley, this is Mike, he’ll be working beside you on the machines when they need fixing.”
“Hi. Do you want me to run through the training thing, Jake?”
“Nah, I’ve seen him at work he’ll get the hang of it.” Jake called back as he walked away.
“Alright. What’s the mask about?” Micheal had been dreading that question, but he knew it would only be a matter of time before it was asked.
“Uh, I’ve got some medical conditions that messed up my face, and it tends to make people uncomfortable.”
“Ok. You sound, like, really tired man.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Just then, the call of one of their colleges forced the conversation to a close and they went to the till.
“It’s one of the coffee machines. I’ll leave you two to fix it.” so they did, Micheal and Charley working alongside each other fixing each machine part. They’d just finished when Micheal turned around and saw a little girl that looked almost exactly like Elizabeth, and he froze as she asked for ice cream.
The world turned slow motion as memories flashed by, his sister’s voice grating and mechanical asking if he wanted ice cream. Her voice speaking to him as he was emptied for the second time, attempting to comfort him with the fact that he wouldn’t die. But it wasn’t a comfort to hear her voice. The pain of the scooper piercing his stomach spread through him and he curled up. He heard her voice as she melted. He remembered being told that she was missing. His breath was coming fast and wasn’t filling his lungs correctly. Micheal realised he was having a panic attack and tried to calm down his breathing, but it didn’t work, nothing worked, he couldn’t breathe, there was fabric in the way, he ripped it off but it didn’t help, he was going to die, he was going to die- He felt Charley’s hand on his arm as he realised he was curled up by the wall of the break room, and everyone was looking at him. He forcibly calmed himself down and got up.
“Hey dude, you ok?” Someone spoke up from near his right shoulder, and Micheal flinched at how close he was. The other man took that as a sign to move back a little.
“Y-yeah, I’m fine. I just need a second.” It was then he realised he’d ripped off his mask. Shit. He looked at the other’s faces, but they only looked worried, not disgusted or horrified. “Uh, sorry that you have to, er, look at me...”
“Don’t worry! Charley said you had some kind of medical condition so... we just assumed it was that.”
“Oh. Uhm. Yeah. Where... where is my mask now?”
“Oh... about that, you, er, you ripped it so much that it wouldn’t cover your face anyway.” Damn it.
“Ah, I just need to call someone to pick me up... I don’t think I should work the rest of today.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I’ll tell Jake.” Micheal tried to ignore the stares he got from the customers as he walked as calmly as he could towards the phone hanging on the wall and quickly dialled Martin’s number.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Martin, could you pick me up from work? I had a bit of a panic attack, and I don’t think I should work today...”
“Oh, yeah, we’ll come get you.”
“Thanks.” Micheal hung up the phone and sat in the break room until Charley said that Martin was there. He walked out to the car as fast as he could without running. When they got back to the archives, Arthur gave Micheal a hug. Micheal didn’t like the fact that he had started to see him almost as the father he never had, kind, loving, and understanding. He sighed and slept the rest of the day.