The Front Bottoms
••• Father •••

and i believe that yeah, dad, maybe no one is perfect

but i believe that you are pushing your luck

it just sucks it played out like this, a terrible movie

you can tell none of the actors even give a fuck

•••••

MMMFMMFFJCK??!!!,????!?

Artist: nebulaegem

Artist: mira<3

Artist: Rayne

Artist: paracosmicThaumaturgist

Artist: zekudoge

••• fifteen years ago •••

My heart fluttered when I spotted a familiar mop of brown hair waiting on the bench in the university courtyard.

  A giddy smile tugged at my lips as I distractedly said goodbye to my coursemates before making my way over to the young man with his knee tucked under his chin and book in hand. He sat in his usual spot, the picnic bench that sat in the shade of the old oak tree. It wasn't just a bench to me, anymore. It was his.
  He was drawing stares from milling students as he thumbed the page, wholly engrossed in his current novel.
  Honestly, I couldn't blame them.
  Grey tank, dark jeans, chucks lazily untied. His long hair, oh so playable and crowing his imperfect face, layered by a cap. Tanned skin that freckled along his cheeks, slight muscle from his mechanic apprenticeship. I had to bite my lip at the sight of him, and I was sure I wasn't the only one.
  He was the sheer epitome of rugged, nonchalant handsomeness.
"You're going to get caught for trespassing, you know."
Michael glanced up to find me standing before him with a smirk. He snapped his book shut and rose to his feet until he towered over me. His hazel eyes glowed in the sun, glinting with amusement as he tucked his book under his arm.
"I drive twenty minutes out of my way to pick you up from class and this is how you thank me?" he accused.
I rolled my eyes. "I have my own car, dingus."
"And who would I be to break tradition?" Michael countered with a tease. He held out a still-warm burrito from my favourite fast food joint across the road from the campus. "No beans, just the way you like."
"You're a god, thank you," I gushed before snatching my lunch and unpeeling the foil. He chuckled and slapped his cap onto my head.

"Let's get outta here, superstar," he said with a nod of his head and a twirl of his car keys around his finger. I stared up at him as I chewed, hat lopsided. "I gotta get back to the garage."
"You're gonna get fired," I mumbled through my full mouth as Michael lead the way back to his beaten-up old car that only worked if you kicked a specific spot above the pedals.
"Nah," Michael disagreed with cocksure shake of his head. His messy hair was even more wild now that he didn't have his cap to contain it. "Dave loves me."
"Dave hates you."
He playfully slapped the front of the cap down. I yelped.
"Have you done any more investigation?" I asked as Michael held the burrito while I clicked my seatbelt in. He stole a bite.
"Not much more than what we've done," he grunted and gave a well-aimed kick. The car spluttered to a start. He noticed my furrowed brow and pulled the cap from my head. "Hey."
My eyes drifted to him. His face glowed ochre-honey in the soft noon light and made his hazel eyes seem almost amber in colour. I wanted to kiss him.
"I want you to focus on your courses, okay?" Michael demanded. "You can't lose that scholarship. So don't worry about me, alright, superstar? You can help out during break."
I rolled my eyes.
"Alright, dad," I replied snarkily. "But I'm already two steps ahead of you. Take a look at this."

Michael watched as I bit into my burrito to hold it while my hands dug into my backpack. I dropped a file into his hands.
"William Afton's known criminal records," I said proudly. "Don't ask me how I got it. It's not my finest moment."
"Now I have to know."
"Very well." I heaved a dramatic sigh as I held my burrito on my lap. "I was on the library computers and forgot my printer pass, so I used Kaylee's."
The look Michael sent me from over the files had my pokerface crumbling into a snirk.
"Wow," he said dryly. "Aren't you just the rule breaker?"
"I'm falling off, Mikey," I said in woe as he flicked through the file. "You've been a bad influence on me."
Michael shook his head. "Dork." He glanced up at me just as I was finishing the last of my lunch. "He's got nothing in his record."
  "I know," I exclaimed. "It's squeaky clean, not even a speeding ticket. No one's record at that age is squeaky clean. He's laying low."
  Michael frowned in thought at my reasoning. He dropped the file to the floor.
  "I'll have a proper go through it when we get home," he decided before ruffling my hair. "You're stupidly good at this, y'know?"
"I know," I smugly replied. I'd rather not tell him that I bribed one of those ridiculously smart IT students into breaking through the police office's firewall and retrieving said Afton file. I couldn't imagine the concerned berating I'd get.

Michael pulled out of the student carpark and began the twenty minute drive back to our scrunky little two-bedroom flat.
  The flat wasn't much to look at. In fact, every other week it was causing problems and teaching us valuable life lessons, like how to unclog a tap sink, or how to reroute the electrical system because the lights kept blowing out (Michael was absurdly good at anything electrical). But hey, it was ours, and it was out of Hurricane, Utah.
  A big plus was the seperate garage we had access to. Michael had converted it into a little workshop of sorts for him to experiment with robotics. He wanted to be better at it than his dad was someday, just so he could rub it in William's awful face.
  While studying, I held a part-time job at a bookshop down the street from uni, of which Michael would drop me off at for my shift and then peruse the shelves for an hour. Our living room was half a library already, our combined books merging together into one massive haul.
  Michael, to pass the time and earn some money, was completing a paid apprenticeship as a mechanic. It wasn't his passion but it was the closest thing to it. Nobody outside Hurricane or L.A. were looking for animatronic maintenance at the time. Definitely not where we were living in Henderson so I could pursue my scholarship at Nevada State College.

  The wallphone was ringing when we entered our flat, blaring its loud and demanding call. Michael opted to answer so I could put away my books.
  "Oh, hey, Char!" he greeted, brightening upon hearing the girl's voice from the line. I smiled to myself as I made my way down the short hallway to the seperate bedrooms. "What's up, kiddo?"
  I hummed to myself as I pulled out my textbooks from my bag and organised them on my desk. I began to make plans for that evening in my head - maybe we'd do chicken pasta for dinner, it was both mine and Michael's favourite. We could drop by the blockbuster and grab some DVDs. Maybe Jaws? Indiana Jones? I'd knew that we'd just end up watching Star Wars, anyway, but I didn't mind.
Movie and pasta with my favourite person. A great way to decompress after a long day of classes.
  I was just flicking through my pages of assignments when a figure in the doorway made me jump in surprise.
  "Michael!" I chastised as I calmed my racing heart upon realising that it was him who had silently approached and hovered there like a ghost. "Jesus- what are you..?"
  I trailed off at the paleness of Michael's face. He looked sick - like, badly sick - and his forehead was beginning to go clammy. His breathing was sharp and shallow. I felt myself straighten with fear.
  "Hey." Discarding my assignments, I rushed to his side and held the back of my hand to his forehead. I flinched at how cold he felt. "Mike? Mikey, what's wrong?"

"He..." His eyes weren't focused on anything. He looked so, incredibly lost. I ached to find him. "I don't..."
"Michael?" I questioned softly. I gently grabbed his hands and guided him to my bed, where he dropped down like a rock. He planted his elbows on his knees and dipped his head. I tentatively took a seat next to him. "Mikey, honey, what's wrong?"
He shook his head. I offered my hand and he grasped it so suddenly, so tightly, that a gasp slipped from my lips.
"... he's dead."
I felt something cold settle like electricity over my shoulders. My fingers brushed back his hair from his face.
"Who is?"
"Dad."
A breath escaped me. It pulled forth my shock, my revulsion and horror. It planted in me my sorrow, my sympathy.
Immediately, I was struck by mixed emotions. How could I feel bad for William's death after what he did? But how could I not feel bad for the death of Michael's father, as retched as he was? He was all the blood he had left. Now he was alone, but this time... truly.

I didn't say anything. I really didn't know what to say, but I had a feeling that an apology was something Michael wouldn't really care for nor need. So, instead, I tucked my head into the crook of his shoulder and he slumped into me just as much, weight balancing between us like a perfect scale.
Michael didn't cry. I didn't think he would, whenever this day did come (it just came a lot sooner than either of us expected). The shock was real, though, and it shook the both of us to our bones.
Death just seemed so final.
He would never get retribution for what he did to those kids.
"Do you know how?" I asked after near-on an hour of silence. We'd moved back to rest against my headboard, but his head never left my shoulder. My fingers curled through his hair.
"No," he murmured. He was still staring off into the near distance but he was more grounded than he was before. His fingers were threaded tightly through my own, the ones not twirling his locks in the way I knew he liked. "Henry wanted to talk to me in person."
I let that sink in and exhaled heavily. Hurricane was a solid three hour drive away.
"When?"
"This weekend," he murmured.

  This weekend. This weekend. Henry wanted to talk to Michael about his father's death that weekend. It felt surreal.
Michael cleared his throat and gently untangled himself from me. He stood, avoiding my eyes, as I stared at him from my spot on the messed-up bed.
"I'm gonna go see Maggie." His voice was quiet, reluctant, meek. Maggie was his then on-again, off-again girlfriend. She could comfort him in ways I wasn't allowed to, but wanted to. Oh, so dearly did I want to.
"Okay," I whispered.
Michael left. I heard the car rumble with a worrisome growl before slowly fading out of hearing. I dropped back against my pillow and held my face.
Holy fuck. Holy fuck. William Afton was dead. Michael's shithole of a father was no longer. He was gone. He was gone.
And I could imagine what Michael was doing with this revelation. Using Maggie as an escape, losing his heavy thoughts to carnal pleasure, flesh upon flesh in brief rhapsody. Forgetting his father's death by chasing blissful dumbification.
I couldn't blame him. I just wished that he found that relief with me instead.

Michael returned late that night, long after the sun had set and night took over. The flat was quiet and dark when I heard the front door open and feet shuffling inside.
My evening plans were never to be, it seemed. At least it wasn't for going to the local blockbuster and grabbing a copy of Star Wars. The chicken pasta was still on an extra plate in the microwave to keep warm, waiting for his return.
I heard him enter the buttons for his dinner to heat up. And then his footsteps hesitantly made their way down the hall.
"Y/n..." His voice was nothing but a whisper as he stopped at my bedroom door. He knew I'd still be awake, even if it looked like I was asleep.
  I hummed, under the covers of my bed, eyes wide as I feigned nonchalance at his presence.
  "... thank you."
I risked a peek at the shadowy figure at my doorway and instantly regretted it. His hair was more tangled than usual, his posture more relaxed than it was before, and he just seemed to ooze pure sin.
  I resented Maggie for being the one able to put him in such a state, but welcomed her efforts, still. Because if it wasn't her, then it was going to be anyone but me, anyway. At least he got that brief reprieve.
"Are... you okay?"
Michael sighed and ran a hand through his hair (god, don't do that to me, please. Don't do that to me) and leant against the doorframe.
"I don't know what to do," he quietly confessed. "I don't... I don't know how to feel."

I sat up and hugged my knees, watching Michael as he rested against the entrance to my darkened room. His eyes, glinting in the sliver of moonlight that peeked through my curtains, found mine.
"Can I... stay in your room, tonight?"
"Yeah," I replied, because I never could say no to him, could I? "Yeah, of course."
He gave a grateful nod. Pulled away from the door to quietly retreat to the kitchen and eat. And then, nearly twenty minutes on when his teeth were brushed and the dishes were cleaned away, he returned.
I was staring at the ceiling when he crawled onto the bed beside me. We didn't have a spare mattress for him to sleep on the floor with anymore.
"Sorry," he whispered into the silence when he settled atop the covers. I turned to send him a stern look.
"Mikey, you don't have to apologise for needing comfort," I said. He stared at me.
  "I asked Maggie if she could come to Hurricane with me," Michael blurted.
  I blinked at him as his words settled in and digested in my head. And then a crushed feeling immediately had my chest concaving and curling in on itself like warped metal. He asked Maggie to go with him to talk to Henry.
  I shouldn't have been surprised, and yet I was. I shouldn't be hurt by him asking his girlfriend before me, and yet it felt as if my entire body was dipped in straight agony.
  I wanted to go with him for support. But I didn't want to go if I was forced to watch the man I was so irrevocably, vehemently, impossibly in love with be with another woman for the entire trip.

  "Oh," I said.
  "She said no."
  "Oh," I said again. Relief settled over me - at least I wouldn't have to witness them be all lovey-dovey or however Michael got with his girlfriends. I couldn't think of anything worse, quite frankly. My own imagination was enough ammunition as is.
  "She had too many essays due but... I'm glad she said no," Michael murmured as he fiddled with the duvet fencing us apart. "I don't know why I asked in the first place. I'd rather it just be you and I."
  When I left Hurricane to attend University in Nevada, Michael had all but begged me to take him with. I said yes before he could even finish speaking. Now, it was him leaving, it was him returning to Hurricane. And again, he was asking for us to stick together.
  I had essays due. A bunch of them. It was nearing the end of the semester and it was the busiest I would be for the year and truthfully, I was in the same boat as Maggie. But;
  "Yeah," I nodded. "Me, too."
  But I couldn't let him go and learn about his dad's death alone. Visit his dad's gravestone alone. Return to his empty house alone. I'd already made up my mind as soon as the words that Henry wanted to meet slipped from his lips.

  Michael smiled sombrely. It held all of the hurt that he wasn't willing to voice, but I could see it. His gratefulness barely concealed it.
  "I can always count on you, superstar."
  He fell asleep while I remained torturously awake, listening to his breathing and existing in his close proximity. My best friend, my love, my life.
  How could someone so lovely cause such pain?

  I rolled over so I didn't have to see his face.

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

  I was writing one of my many essays due on my knees that were propped up on the dashboard. The window was down. The paper and my hair were fluttering in tandem.

  "What's a better word for 'prepare'?" I asked.
  "Assemble?" Michael answered as he drove my car down the sunny interstate. Destination; Hurricane, Utah. "Construct?"
  "Construct," I echoed in satisfaction and quickly scratched it down with my pencil. He glanced at me, I could feel his gaze, as I rushed to write my thoughts down on the pad of refill that was being supported by a thick textbook. He shifted gears as we began to descend a hill.
  "If you're too busy-"
  "I'm not letting you do this alone."
  Michael silenced at my finalising tone, but still met my determined glare. He broke into a sigh and smiled just ever so.
  "I should know better by now than to argue with you."
  "You should," I agreed as I returned back to my essay. We drove in comfortable companionship with nothing but the radio blaring the hits to fill the silence.
  The three hour drive rolled past like a hill in the distance, and before we knew it, we were snaking our way through familiar streets.
  Michael pulled the car into a house I'd never been to before and sat in contemplative, heavy silence. I stared at the front of the estate with him. Just letting him take his time.
  "Okay," he breathed, so we stepped out of the car.

  A girl just barely younger than us with long, brown hair jogged down the wooden steps of the farmhouse's porch. Her youthful face was pulled into a sympathetic, kind smile as she approached.
  "Hey, Mike," she greeted as she pulled Michael into a tight hug. He stiffened before forcing himself to relax in her arms. "How are you doing?"
  Michael shrugged as he pulled back from the hug with an uncomfortable clench of his hand.
  "I'm okay, Charlie," he said with a barely convincing half-smile. "How's Henry?"
  Charlie Emily's smile faded into something a little more worried. Aside from Michael and I, Henry and Charlie were the only others who knew what William did to those kids. But still, that didn't make Henry hate his former co-founder.
  Disappointed, enraged, confused? Absolutely. But not hate. At least, not totally.
  "He's handling it," Charlie replied decisively. It was code for 'he's really going through it,' but none of us acknowledged it. "He's been waiting for you."
  Michael nodded and, after uncomfortably shoving his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket, made his way up the porch stairs. Charlie turned to me with a somber smile.

  "Hey, Y/n," she greeted as she opened her arms for a hug, one that I immediately accepted. I hadn't met up Charlie often, but when I did, she was always so sweet. "I'm sorry we have to meet again under such circumstances."
  I shrugged with a demure smile. "It can't be helped."
  "I'm just so glad he has you," Charlie said as she crossed her arms tightly across her body with sincerity. We slowly made our way up the steps of the porch. They creaked with age. "Mike's like a brother to me, but you're something even more to him. I don't know how he'd cope with this if he didn't have you."
  I shook my head in disagreement. "I'm just his friend. You've known each other since diapers."
  Charlie squinted her eyes at me when we entered the front door, assessing my face to see how genuine I was being. When she realised I was telling the truth, her brown eyes widened.
  "You guys aren't dating?"
  My cheeks brushed red. "No." I wish.
  Charlie floundered as she jolted to a stop in the entrance hall. She shook her head, as if being genuinely dumbstruck that we weren't an item.
  "But... I thought... what the fuck?" she stammered as she stared at me oddly. "But he's so... and you're... know what? Nevermind."
  She pulled ahead to the living room, where two murmuring male voices were floating from. I raised my eyes to the ceiling.
Please, lord, let me survive this trip.

  My chances were looking slimmer by the second.

  Henry Emily, one half of the mastermind behind Fredbear's, was probably one of the nicest middle-aged men I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting. His weary old cheeks pulled into a weak smile when he noticed Charlie and I in the doorway.
  "Y/n." He pulled me into a hug, just as his daughter did before. "It's been years. You're all grown up."
  "And you haven't aged a day," I countered with a warm grin as I returned the hug. "Hi, Henry."
  I pulled back and noticed Michael stood to the side, staring at an old photo of Henry and William when they were still building the yellow Fredbear suit before the launch of their first diner. Fredbear's would later get rebranded to Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria after Evan's accident.
  That yellow Fredbear suit was scrapped and never to be seen again.
"I can imagine that you must have many questions," Henry began as he eased himself into a sofa chair. He looked far older than I remembered him last being, but I suppose grief just did that to people.
  Michael tore his eyes away from the photo. He didn't sit.
  "I apologise for the secrecy," Henry grunted. He looked exhausted in a way that no one ever should. Charlie entered the room with four mugs of tea on a tray. "I just feel that this is something that should not be... discussed over the phone."

  Charlie handed her father a mug. He thanked her tiredly. Michael and I grabbed our own mugs, but I had a feeling that neither of us were in the mood for drinking tea.
  "He was caught, your father," Henry said in a voice that sounded ancient. "In the springlocks of the original Bonnie suit."
My hands gripped tighter around the warm mug. Charlie leant against the wall and eyed Michael's quiet reaction. He pulled in a breath, deep in thought and revelation, before shaking his head in confusion.
"But that was decommissioned years ago," Michael said as he anxiously thumbed the rim of the mug. "It was locked away in storage."
"I know," Henry said heavily. "But I believe... I believe that William was using that suit to lure children away from the crowd before killing them."
I felt my stomach twist horrifically at the mental image that produced. I was lucky enough to not be around during the days of yellow Fredbear and Bonnie, but I'd seen enough grainy photos of the springlock suits to get a pretty good idea.
We'd never considered something like that. But oh, how fitting. A murderer killed in his own suit that he used as bait.
"... holy shit," Michael breathed. His face went pale and I bet he was watching the same visualisation that I was forced to, myself. He glanced up at Henry. "Where's his body?"

Henry and Charlie shared an emphasised look - a silent conversation only a father and daughter could have. She eventually sighed and looked down at her tea.
"It... got merged with the suit," Charlie murmured. "We couldn't move it. So we had to... board the room up. But there's a headstone. People know he's dead, they just don't know... how."
"I'm going to be sick," I whispered and dropped onto the couch. The tea in my hand sloshed and burned upon contact, but I couldn't spare my burning fingers a thought.
The entire situation was fucking morbid.
"He didn't deserve a burial, anyway," Michael spat under his breath. I gave a worried glance his way and noticed his white knuckles.
Charlie dropped her eyes to her feet. An uncomfortable, dense silence settled over the room like cough syrup.
"I suppose we should show you the headstone," Henry mumbled. So, blankly, Michael and I followed the Emily's out to their car and clambered in the back seat.
Michael was still enraged from learning how William murdered those kids. His teeth were gritted, brows pulled tightly over his dark eyes. He looked like he wanted to bring his father back from the dead just so he could kill him instead.
He caught my eyes and forced his jaw to unclench, softening under my concern. Michael placed his head on my shoulder and wove his fingers through mine and my heart sporadically clenched in response.

I noticed Charlie staring through the rearview mirror. She raised a brow. I turned my eyes to the scenery to avoid her knowing gaze.

William Afton's gravestone was tucked into the far corner of the cemetery. It was shiny and new and engraved with a sweet-tasting lie beneath his birth and death date.
Loving father, my ass.
Michael was silent as he stared at the headstone, hands tucked deep into his pockets and head bowed. I stood beside him, gazing at the engraved name in astonishment. It only felt real now that I was in front of his little memorial.
No words were spoken. When I went to move away to give Michael some time alone, he simply caught my arm and pulled me back to his side. I understood his unspoken request.
He didn't speak on the drive back to the Emily's. He didn't speak when we drove to the Afton household. He didn't speak when we entered the home, so empty, so quiet. No William to burst in screaming.
Michael toured the house, visiting each room as if he hadn't lived in the place his entire life. He lingered longer in Evan and Lizzy's rooms, left exactly as they were the day each kid died. I followed him, a shadow.
When he sat down on his old bed, I finally mustered the courage to break the silence.
"What are you going to do with this place?" I asked. My voice sounded loud despite the whisper, bouncing around the near-stripped bedroom. Only snippets of Michael's childhood remained.

"... I don't know," he murmured. His hazel eyes roved his old room with a conflicted frown. "I hate this place, but... it's where Lizzy and Evan grew up. I don't think I can let it go."
I nodded in understanding. The house served as a memory for Lizzy and Evan just as much as it did for William.
"You could always find some people to live in it?" I suggested as I picked up an old baseball on the unused dresser. The remnants of a sporting phase that was never followed through. I placed it back into the mitt. "Rent it out."
"Yeah," Michael murmured. A hiccup had me turning. His head was buried in his hands as he, finally, shattered to tears. His sobs filled the empty house. "Why am I-? I hate him, why am I crying?"
"Mikey-" I breathed in hurt. I hated seeing him in pain. I wanted to strangle it, beat it, keep every bad thing away from him. He deserved all the happiness the world had to give and even more.
"I'm happy he's gone," Michael grounded out with a forced growl, as if trying to convince himself. "I am."
"Mike," I said softly as I pulled him into a tight hug. I felt my own tears building - my own shock beginning to rattle me thoroughly. "It's... it's okay to cry. You're allowed to grieve."

"He doesn't deserve it," Michael hissed. His body shook with desperate rage. "He doesn't deserve my grief."
I sighed through my nose and rested my cheek on his trembling shoulder. He soaked into my hold like a child. A small, lost child who'd lost everything. I could feel his tears soak through my shirt.
"He doesn't," I agreed in a murmur. He pushed his head into my arms and laid his ear against my chest, listening to my heart. "But you deserve to let yourself mourn. You're in shock, Mikey. It's only natural to cry."
  He inhaled with a shudder. It travelled through his body and against mine and I hugged him tighter, as if I could embrace the sorrow right out of him.
"Don't- please-" he choked as his hold on me turned vice grip. "I need you, Y/n, please, I need you. Don't leave me. Don't leave me."
"I'll never leave you," I promised as I began to cry with him. "Never. You'll always have me."
  "You're all I have left," Michael wept, sobbing into my forlorn hold. I pressed a kiss into his curls as he held each other in his old childhood bedroom.

  "You'll always have me," I whispered.