Chapter Text
Oh, to be at the end of your rope! You hold onto the fraying edges calculating whether or not to let go.
Michael found himself clambering in any way possible to escape the rope he was tied up in.
Mike, however, found himself standing over Michael holding the rope.
“I’ll end you, Schmidt.” Michael spat out at his foe.
Mike, instead of paying that threat any mind, looked around the pizzeria. His flashlight waved across banners of the band of animatronics.
The main room was plastered with their likeness. On the off chance you forgot what the animatronics that tried to kill multiple people looked like, you were in luck.
“Vanessa!” Mike called out into the darkness.
“She left you, did she?” Michael laughed, and for a moment things seemed up for Michael, he was finally able to sit instead of being restricted to writhing uselessly.
Having seen this freak get a small shred of joy, Mike decided to take it away. He flipped Michael over with his foot and held him there with his heel. “Talk! Where is she?”
Joy seemed to be in short supply, it must not have been ordered since the business went under.
Michael grimaced and turned his head away from the linoleum it was being shoved into. He looked up at Mike.
“Why would I know? She’s been gone ever since she chose your little normal life.” Michael made a struggling, wheezing noise as Mike pressed his foot down and made Michael lose the air he had, with his own lungs, breathed.
To Michael the mere idea that Mike had hurt his sister after her whole heroic speech about being normal was an insult. He hated Mike with all of the hate he had to muster. Michael’s sister gave everything to be Mike’s little broken friend to fix and Mike couldn’t even try to fix her.
Mike stammered a moment before finding the words. “Well she- it's too dangerous to have her around, she didn’t tell me about you or Charlotte and I was scared for Abby- It doesn’t matter! I just wanted to find her and apologize. Now tell me where she is!”
Michael’s ribs yelled a clear message to Michael to give the man what he wanted or they would start bruising and cracking in protest. “I don’t know! I wouldn’t know! She hasn’t been around at all!”
Mike relented.
Michael wiggled, he got back up to his sitting position before daring to glance up at Mike. Mike had a grim expression. If anyone had to guess the joy that was no longer being ordered was being replaced by the invasive ‘grim dread’.
Mike steadied his resolve and started walking around the pizzeria. He checked everywhere Vanessa might be and several places that it was impossible for her to be in. After thirty minutes of rummaging he made it back to the main room and looked down at Michael who in all the time Mike was gone, had just situated himself in one of the plastic chairs to sit and wait.
“Tire yourself out?” Michael glanced uninterested as if he had nothing better to do than sit tied up in a broken down pizzeria, which was true, but he had no reason to say that to Mike.
“Where is she?” Mike was reluctant to accept any word that came out of Michael’s mouth. Which he was more than right to, in this one case, Michael had been truthful.
“I. Do. Not. Know. Do you understand those words? Should I pull out a dictionary or would that be too advanced for you?”
The insult had its intended effect. Mike huffed and pulled a plastic chair up to sit himself down in.
Michael smirked realizing that maybe he could manipulate his way out of this one, just like father would do. Vanessa was out there somewhere and Mike had no idea how to find her. Vanessa hadn’t just left Michael but when Mike hurt her she left him too. Perhaps there was a way to get his sister back, but the first step in this was getting out of his bindings. “I might know of a way to find her…”
Mike looked up from the sad Chica plush he had been solidarity for with them both being at this terrible pizzeria.
“When was the last time you saw my sister?”
“FazFest, I- I left her there. Having her around is a threat to Abby. She is too tied up in your dad’s… mess.”
The realization of her being left along with Charlotte hit Michael. That is why Mike was looking here at the pizzeria.
“But you wanted to apologize? For abandoning her all alone when she abandoned what she was made for, for you?”
Mike looked away. He had the social skills that you develop only by having the guilt of your brother’s disappearance and murder on your mind since you were a young teen.
Michael laughed. “You’re guilty! For what? Leaving her to her own death?”
Mike scowled at Michael, thinking of him more like a hyena than a human with his laugh having one of those unsettling properties that makes you brace for a bite.
“You could never fix Vanessa! You cannot even fix yourself! You’re coming here because putting your tail between your legs and running away made you ‘feel bad’.” Michael rolled his eyes before fixing them onto Mike. “I might have a way of finding her and making sure your foolishness hasn’t killed my sister. Now, if you would be so kind as to untie me.”
Mike turned this over in his head for a while.
If you were to ask Michael what was happening, he would tell you that the cogs were being dusted off and oiled before they could start turning. After a moment there seemed to be some movement behind his eyes.
“Alright, I’ll let you go, but I’ll flatten you on the ground and toss you into the river before you can even try any of your schemes.”
Michael liked that word, schemes, it sounded downright devious and to hear Mike say it in reference to him had him beaming!
Mike pushed himself up out of his chair and pulled out a pocket knife that he started carrying around with him when he first started doing the renovation of the new house. It wouldn’t do anything against a killer robot, but against some rope it was a dangerous foe.
Michael brought his hands to the front of his body and massaged his wrists that were starting to grow sore. After a breath that had a wince of pain to it, he stood up walking past Mike. Michael took a moment to look around at the dark pizzeria. It was his domain, Charlotte has not been back since Fazfest and Vanessa had renounced her history. Michael was all that stood between the world of fools and the greatness of William Afton being forgotten.
“Hey! Don’t walk off, how do we find Vanessa?” Mike held his flashlight at Michael.
Something that Mike did not like about the man across from him in the darkness was his smile. It was distant and his expression seemed to lack any genuine heart. Mike felt his hair on his arms stand on its ends. Mike felt like prey looking into the hungry eyes of Michael barring his teeth to show what a threat looked like. This was a man who would discard Mike and not think anything of it. He would tear Mike apart just for entertainment. Mike shivered under Michael’s gaze.
“We will have to go to Mr. Emily’s home. He should have the knowledge needed to get us a step further in this process.” Michael adjusted the cuffs of his navy blue jacket. He seemed to be back to his flat tone, every sentence said as if it was practiced in the morning, like life was an act and Michael had been bored of the script for a long time.
The pair headed out and after a brief argument they got into Mike’s car over the gaudy thing that Michael drove.
Michael crammed himself into the passenger seat. The tension was so dense, Michael was sure it would rival Mike’s intelligence.
Neither man wanted to address the other. To talk with someone who had, in your eyes, ruined your life, was something neither of them were jumping to do.
Mike stopped the car at a light, his fingers rapt against the steering wheel. In the corner of his eye Mike started to notice a few things about Michael, bags under his eyes that were sure to be too heavy to get through TSA, the way his shirt was crimped at this point, wrinkled was not a strong enough word. Michael was a mess. Mike tried not to let his brain start coming up with excuses like it constantly did for Vanessa.
Mike wanted to hold onto the idea from his childhood that everyone wanted to be a good person deep down. He was trying hard to raise Abby to be optimistic, to see the good in others and have hope for a future that they would love. Despite all of the tragedy he wanted Abby to make friends and see the world as something that could be good. As he looked at Michael, he wanted to believe that for himself, not just for Abby. Mike knew he was cynical, he tried, he tried so hard to be happier, to be normal. Some of the last words Vanessa had said to them was pleading to Michael that it was alright for the Afton siblings to be normal. Mike knew how things from childhood can affect you. Mike had read all of the books he could on childhood development and dreams and sleep theories. He wondered about the Afton siblings, he knew their dad had really messed both of them up. Michael said something at FazFest about how he and Vanessa were his. They both belonged to their father and Mike didn’t like the sound of that.
A car behind them honked and Mike jumped before focusing back on the road.
Michael had far less introspective thoughts during the ride, he spent the short few minutes wondering what state the Emily house must be in after all this time.
It was not long before Michael got his answers.
The Emily house was more or less how Michael had last seen it, the main exception being two shutters that had fallen off the front windows and never repaired as well as three more inches of foliage covering the lawn.
Mike got out of the car first and looked at the house. It was a small home covered in the stench of neglect tucked between the white picket fence dreams of couples who were debating starting a home owners association.
Michael was the one who went to the door. He hesitated as he reached towards it, it took a moment longer for him to commit and knock.