Kate Bush
••• Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)  •••

and if i only could

i'd make a deal with god

and i'd get him to swap our places

•••••

Artist: Blue_Palagirl_

Artist: zekudoge

Artist: Salix

Artist: BoyMarcel98

Artist: 「迷える羊」

Artist: mittensketchycotte

Artist: ta goes wamwam

  "Where do you want to go?"

Michael sent Y/n a confused look from the driver's seat. Utah's desert stretched out before them, an open plane of sand and sky. Y/n had their legs on the dashboard. His and her hands were linked over the gear stick. The Clash was playing from the radio.

"What do you mean?" Michael asked. Y/n lifted their entwined hand through his and tapped their fingertips against his scarred knuckles. A curious smile shone in the reflection of the sun and gilded the edge of her sunglasses.

"Anywhere," she said. "Anywhere you wanna go. France. Hawai'i. Michigan."
 
"Michigan?" Michael echoed with a smirk.

"Michigan can be nice," Y/n defended before frowning. "Maybe." They leant toward him, insistent for his answer. "Tell me."

Michael relaxed back in his seat and watched the road. His world was a small place - he hadn't gone beyond Utah, and moving from England when he was five didn't really count. His memories from there were all blurry and near nonexistent.

His grip tightened around Y/n's hand. The smile he sent her was sweet saccharine.

"Anywhere you go," he answered. Y/n's head fell back against her seat with a groan.

"That's such a cheap answer," she grumbled. Michael laughed, amused by her ire and the dramatic pout on her lips. Y/n stuck their face close to Michael, determined. "Tell me where you want to go. I'll be with you, anyway."

Michael's smile softened at the sureness of their statement. The future was a solid thing to Y/n, never changing, set on its course. Their picket-fenced home and nuclear family was all but guaranteed in her eyes, and if she willed for it, then the universe would bend to accommodate.

At least, that's how Michael saw her. She could walk across the cosmos and the very stars would scramble to be her stepping stones. He knew he would, if he was a star.

"Iceland," Michael said.

"Iceland?" Y/n echoed in surprise.

"It's beautiful there," Michael explained. "It's so green and there's water everywhere. And it looks so quiet. At least, a nicer quiet than here."

Y/n stared at the side of his face as he drove. They had no destination in mind, nothing more than a simple desire to leave the township that suffocated them daily. Their will was as free as their weekend was.

"Okay." Y/n squeezed Michael's hand with a smile. "Let's go to Iceland."

Freddy's eyes slowly opened as his systems rebooted, caged within the charging unit of his green room.

He could feel his soul aching, clamouring for the memory that he was so cruelly pulled from. He could almost smell the dryness of the air, almost taste the sun on his skin. He could almost feel Y/n's hand, fingers curled through his, blinded by her smile.

Freddy stared out at his red-coloured, cushy prison with a bleary, unfocused gaze as code and checklists corroded his vision. Y/n's bright smile was pulled further and further away. He was cold in its absence, as if his sun had disappeared from his orbit around her.

She did, though. He watched her run, tear-laden, grief-ridden, from his powered-down body. And he was able to twitch not a finger in turn.

The charging unit slid open with a ping and Freddy stepped out. He almost panicked at the person sitting on the couch, but the familiar twist of certain blonde hair through a bun made his sharp hope sour.

"Hey, Freddy," Amanda greeted with a sad smile. Her blue eyes lingered as Freddy turned his head away from her. He didn't want to see the sympathy in her gaze. "How are you holding up?"

How are you holding up? It was a joke of a question, really. She should've asked him how it felt to be a total fucking screw up. She should've asked him how it felt to ruin the one good thing the universe graced his miserable soul with.

How are you holding up? He wished he didn't wake up. He wished he was dead.

"She's gone."

It wasn't Freddy speaking. It was Michael, and if Mandy was surprised by the British twist and the static cadence of his words, she didn't react.

He could hear the brush of her skin as her nervous hands fiddled in her lap - she was anxious, a sign he knew all too well after their days stuck together as animatronic and handler. Her gaze was piercing, though, in a way that it hadn't before. It was piercing with more than just sadness.

"How much do you know?" Freddy asked. He felt as though he already knew the answer, but he listened for it anyway.

"... all of it," Mandy replied quietly. "Bonnie told Joey and I everything. About you. About... your life... how you died."

Freddy planted his hands on the vanity. He wished it was that easy for him. He wished that he could've told Y/n that first day they walked in. Hell, he wished he could've told Y/n about what happened after Elizabeth all those years back, but he was so scared, so fucking scared, and this was what his cowardice had cost him.

He never learnt.

"Freddy..." Amanda thinned her lips in hesitance and sighed. "Michael. She sent Bonnie after you. She won't be gone forever."

He had to laugh, vision growing glitchy as he glared at his robotic hands. It sounded bitter and hurt. He felt as though his insides had been torn out again, left to bleed with nothing but his broken heart.

"Then why did Dennis send you?" he said through a sour smile.

"He didn't," Amanda said cleanly. He peeked a look back at her from around his arm. She stared him dead in the eyes. "Bonnie did. Because you need a friend."

"What I need-" He huffed sharply. If he was capable of it, he'd be in tears. His eyes returned to his hands. "What I need doesn't matter anymore. I'm not human."

He heard Mandy approach. He felt her hand on his arm. He was there, but he was so disconnected, like his sentience was floating above his body. He hadn't been this out of sorts since his soul first settled in Freddy and it was just as discombobulating and painful.

He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to be human again. He could see why Ennard craved it so desperately.

"What you need has always mattered, Fred," Mandy insisted. "Just because..." She swallowed. "Just because you're like this doesn't take that away from you."

An exhale left Freddy's maw.

"Please, Mandy... I just want to be alone for a while."

Her hand slipped from his arm in understanding. They knew the dance, but this time it had been reversed. The routine was imprinted into the backs of their heads. Mandy nodded.

"Okay." She pressed something into his palm and patted his knuckles. "I'm taking Y/n's night shift, I'll be with the others. Give me a call if you need."

Freddy nodded. When the door slid shut behind her, he opened his hand.

Cupped in his palm was Y/n's locket.

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

Y/n didn't come to work the next day. Michael didn't see her clock-in show up on the system as it usually did.

He got a message from Dennis ten minutes after informing him that Y/n was taking a sick day and Mandy would be covering. But he was expecting this. He would be a fool, and one that didn't know Y/n as well as he did, if he didn't think to expect their disappearance.

The day dragged.

Michael's soul retreated while Freddy's base programming ran through the day. He sat in the darkness of limbo with his intangible body pressed close together, with his chin buried between his knees. And as he stared into the murky, uncrossable darkness that had become his unwilling home, he kicked himself for many things.

He should've waited a little bit more to tell Y/n - hilarious, considering that waiting this long was part of the issue in the first place, but it was still true. He should've waited for Y/n to settle their nerves after losing her locket before dropping the bomb.

And he should've been more coherent. He should've explained himself better. He should've been better, she deserved better, why couldn't he ever be better?

He missed her. Desperately. Inconsolably. He craved her presence so much that it clawed at the back of his incorporeal soul, dragging sharp lines of agony through the essence of his being. Every flash of a similar-looking person from the corner of his vision had him doing a double-take and the disappointment was crushing. Every piston, every bolt, every wire of his singed a wallowing ballad for her.

He yearned for Y/n so vividly that it caused the impossible;

Freddy Fazbear, the multi-million dollar, golden-boy, perfectly-working robot, began to cry.

And he began to cry in the middle of a photo session with a toddler and a stuffy, upper-class father who had already given Mandy a hard time for the long wait. Her hair had gone messy and frizzy with agitation and her pale skin paled further after the sharp-tongued lashing she got.

Freddy was crying. A mess of mechanic lubrication and oil slick began to leak from his eyes, congealing in dark lumps above his obliviously grinning muzzle. The child began to wail in fear at the scene. The two adults looked on in horror.

The father turned to Mandy with another verbal assault already sitting behind his teeth.

"Freddy!" Mandy exclaimed after ushering the blubbering kid and angry parent out of the room with a refund and free tickets for Fazerblast. When he didn't respond, she clicked her fingers in front of his face. "Hey, Freddy? Are you even- Michael!"

He was pulled from his comfortable desolation in limbo. Freddy glanced down at Mandy's worried face in confusion. He hadn't been present since that morning, preferring to sit in the darkness.

"Yes?"

"You're- you're crying," Mandy said with a knot between her brow. "That shouldn't be possible. Are you-?"

She cut herself off. Are you okay? It was an unneeded question, for the answer was obvious for any passerby to see. Freddy lifted his fingers to his face and stared at the murky-brown liquid that stretched from his claws with tired bewilderment.

"Ah," he said.

Mandy dragged a hand through her hair. "I don't- I don't know what to do. Do I call parts and services? Do you need tissues?"

"I'm fine, Mandy."

"You're crying, Michael," she insisted. "And you're not fine. Even if you weren't defying physics right now, you're not fine." Mandy released a breath and forced the tension in her shoulders to loosen. "You don't have to pretend to be okay, you know. We're here for you."

"Mandy," Michael began wearily, "the last time I played up, Monty and Roxy were almost taken apart."

Mandy's throat closed up as she stared at Freddy's face. Now that Michael's soul had taken full control of the body again, his programmed expression had fallen away into a crumpled, mournful frown, and it ached to see.

What an existence. He wasn't even allowed to grieve properly.

Mandy retreated to the back room and returned with a rag. She nodded to the couch.

"Sit down."

He wordlessly sat. His dull eyes followed the woman as she perched beside him and began wiping the gunk from his muzzle.

"I can't begin to comprehend this situation in the first place," Mandy began, brushing the rag over his cheek, "so I'll spare the whole 'I understand how you feel' crap. This sucks."

Freddy released a huff through his nose in agreement.

"But-" Mandy tapped the bottom of Freddy's chin with the rag "-you have family here, Michael. Family who love and care for you. Do you know that Monty stayed while you were charging?"

Michael's gaze found Mandy's. "He did?"

"He cares a lot more about you guys than he lets on. He was worried about you," Mandy said with a small smile. It slowly faded. "I know that... this isn't the same as what your old family must've been like. But we're here for you, too."

Freddy shook his head. "My old family makes this here look like a fairytale."

Mandy's frown deepened. She didn't press, to which he was grateful for. He didn't know if he could handle this agony and relive his old haunts at the same time. He wasn't even sure of how much she knew - about William, about Lizzy and Evan. About the mother who escaped and couldn't be bothered to take her children with her.

"When I woke up in this body, I thought that I would never see her again," he murmured. Mandy began wiping at Freddy's muzzle again, slower as she listened. "I was content that I had left her in a life where she would move on from me. But-" his fists clenched with a shriek of metal. Mandy barely flinched. "But I just left her in suffering. Eight years of it, Mandy. Eight years."

Mandy's eyes widened when more gunk began to slide from the crevice around Freddy's optics. She hurried to catch it with the rag before it could drop and stain the couch.

"Did you do what you thought was best?" Mandy asked.

Michael faltered. "Well, yes - but I'm an idiot, Mandy. I cannot fully comprehend to you how idiotic I can be in my cowardice. What I thought was right wasn't right at all."

"You thought that letting her think you were alive would've been better than letting her think you were dead."

"Yes," Freddy replied forlornly. "It was a fool's move. I was dead in her eyes, anyway. I should've just stayed dead."

Mandy slowly wiped at Freddy's cheeks while his self-loathing words settled in the air between them. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then finally voiced her question;

"How'd you do it?" Mandy asked. "The same thing, day-in day-out? For seven years..."

He couldn't blame Mandy for being curious. If Michael could step back from all this woeful disbelief, he would've been impressed with her cool composure. Mandy hadn't freaked out on him once. He briefly wondered how she took it when Bonnie told her the news.

"It was easy," Michael answered, "until recently."

"Until Y/n," Mandy figured. Freddy's eyes lifted to her and she swallowed at his pained look. "That must've been difficult."

  "I have never known a want as painful as I felt watching her leave that first day," he said harrowedly. "I would kill myself a million times over if it meant that I would get to go with Y/n."

And he would do it a million times more if it meant that Y/n would forgive him. He would take the world off its axis, he would rearrange the galaxies into poetry. He would do anything they asked of him.

"God..." Mandy whispered. She swallowed sharply, throat thick. More of the liquid leaked from Freddy's eyes, but she had given up. It was a lost cause. "I'm so sorry. I wish there was more I could do."

Michael watched the blue eyes of the girl before him well with tears. They had spent nearly two years together, and his value of her wasn't at all empty. Mandy had been a good friend. He was lucky to have her support, even after finding out the truth.

Freddy rested his hand against Mandy's arm. Her watery eyes looked up at him.

"Your friendship is enough," he said. "Thank you for remaining by my side. It means more to me than you can imagine."

She sniffled. "I'll always have your back, big guy. No matter what."

Freddy smiled, small and weak as it was. He wished Y/n was there to share this moment with him. He wished Y/n was there so he could properly introduce her to his new family, not as Freddy, but as Michael;

To Bonnie, steadfast and unflinching in the face of Michael's flaws. To Roxy and Monty, for keeping him in check and his spirits high. To Chica, for always keeping him distracted when he needed to be, for lighting his world with a smile. To Mandy. To the handlers before her.

They had each helped and shaped him. They kept him from going insane. He needed Y/n to see just how much they really meant to him... if she would ever let him.

"You have taken this well," Michael said. "About me being... not just Freddy."

Mandy shrugged before wiping at her eyes with her sleeves. "I've believed in ghosts for a while. Besides, someone has to be the level-headed one."

Mandy and level-headed weren't usually a common combination given her fickle confidence. He decided not to bring that up.

"I'm guessing Joey didn't take it well?" Michael deduced. Mandy smirked.

"Talk about an existential breakdown of the century," she said. "Don't be surprised if he bursts into tears when he sees you next. I think the tragedy of it all is getting to him, too."

Michael's amusement simmered. That's what this was, wasn't it? Just another one of life's Greek Tragedies. He was destined for this end and was a fool for thinking otherwise. He just wished he didn't have to drag Y/n into his tragedy, too.

"I think the others want to bowl tonight," Mandy said. "Even Monty's going. Will you join them?"

He could see the reasoning behind her innocent question; they were all worried about him, and who was Freddy to worry others? Before Y/n, he was always the rock to be leant upon for both animatronic and human alike. He was always the big brother. Worrying others was unheard of - he simply didn't let them.

"Of course," Freddy replied, even though he really, really didn't want to.

The relief on Mandy's face did little to console him.

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

••• The Night Before •••

I sat in shock as the streetlights burnt my eyes. Joey was silent as he drove down the darkened streets of Hurricane, and I scarcely had it in me to appreciate his quiet.

My mind was racing. Too many things tumbled and turned in my head, making it ache as I inaudibly wept. The headache hurt, but the confusion was far, far worse. It was a pain I had never known.

Joey offered to stay with me, but I declined his tentative words. I felt his concerned, baffled gaze on my back as I staggered up to my house's entrance on weak legs. I opened the door.

The house was full of ghosts.

I could see him everywhere, memories melting into reality; Michael lounging on the couch, Michael making dinner. Michael vacuuming the floor after spilling popcorn. Hanging holiday decor, pulling movie marathons, breakfast on the dining table while doing sudoku and pretending we were functional adults.

Shock carried me through my evening; it made my hands move listlessly as I washed my hair and scrubbed my skin sudsy raw. It made me stare apathetically into my reflection as I brushed my teeth. I didn't have dinner. I didn't have an appetite.

Around me, the memories flittered; showers together when it was cold out and we wanted to 'save on a water bill.' That one time when I got food poisoning and Michael cracked a joke, making me laugh so much that I threw up in the sink. Painting our toenails together for Matt and Alice's wedding even though no one would've been able to see the deep purple he picked through his oxfords, and panicking because we were running late.

My breath shortened as I stared at my blurry outline in the fogged-up mirror. He had died. Michael had died, but he didn't, but he did? He left that locket, but he died, and now he's in Freddy.

  He's in Freddy.

I clenched my fingers over the sharp edge of the sink's plastic as realisations flooded me like the aftereffects of a wave's precipice; it was him. It had been him the whole time. The gentle touches, the soft looks, the flirting, the morning coffees, the beanless burritos, his 'I love you.' It was just Michael. It was Michael the entire fucking time.

I was a blind fool for not seeing it sooner. Who else had known me as intimately as Freddy did? Who else knew that I liked my head scratched in that one specific spot? Who else could ease me or say exactly what I needed to hear? Who else loved to tease the living daylights out of me, Matt not included?

I had just fallen in love with Michael all over again.

And, god, he died. Michael died. He became one of the souls possessing the robots - the worst possible outcome from all of this, falling to the Afton curse that had weighed heavily on his shoulders for the eternity of his life. I preferred my nightmare of him having left without reason, living a life far away from me but alive all the same.

Entertaining the idea of him gracing other people's sheets, though gut wrenching, was still more desirable than however it was that had ended his life. He must've been so scared. I should've been there for him. I should've gone into that stupid fucking burning building.

My grip on the sink tightened as a sickening sense of retrospection and nausea rolled through me like the crack of a whip. For the past eight years, he was not thirty minutes down the street.

This had to be a joke. It had to be a sick fucking joke, a cruel, divine punishment, because the agony of the past eight years shouldn't be centred on a man who never even left the town's boundaries. How long had I ignored the billboards of the Pizzaplex? How many years had I forced myself to stay as far away from the Fazbear company as I could?

He was there. He'd been there the whole time, suffering the same fate as the countless of souls we'd tried fruitlessly to relieve. I wished I did something. I wished I made him stay that last day I saw him - fuck, I wished I stood a little stronger against his decision to work with Henry in the first place. I knew it was a terrible idea, but I let him do it anyway. And look where we were.

And I wished, though delirious, that I took his spot instead. I wished it was me that died in place of him. I would've given anything.

I was shaking. I reached up to clasp at my locket, my familiar grounding tool, but my fingers brushed only against the bare skin of my collar. I remembered where it was then, cord tangled in the fingers of Freddy as he stood slumped, powerless, in the middle of the maintenance hallway that I left him in.

I rested my forehead against the sink while foggy iterations of Michael milled around me. His smile haunted me, but instead of invoking the usual pain of the unknown, I now knew how it had all ended, and that made it so much fucking worse.

I was sobbing before I knew that I was beginning to tear up. I craved the death that life had handed him.

"You should've taken me instead," I cried to Death, as though he could hear and was listening to me cry. I slid to the floor, weak, boneless in my grief. "Why didn't you take me?"

Cat-Mike entered the bathroom then, yellow eyes wide and ears pricked in curiosity. He approached and I picked him up so I had something to hug and ground myself to, because my locket was with the ghost who'd haunted me without meaning to. I buried my tears into his soft coat.

For once, he let me. 

  ⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

I couldn't even remember what I did for the next week that I stayed home. It was as long as my sick leave would let me stay away.

It had all just been a blur of blunt shock and time that passed too quickly for my liking as I meandered sluggishly through my days, head rushing and sore. I'd been staying up at night to read the books I had neglected for years just to spare myself the fitful sleep and unavoidable nightmares.

My phone was heavy with unread texts from Joey and Amanda asking if I was okay and for me to call them if I was feeling up for it, but I couldn't bring myself to. I didn't want to relive that evening where my world had truly, finally, crashed down around me.

I was almost amused to think that I had considered it crashed and burning already. It held not a flame to the disastrous conclusion I had been oblivious to. The shed mocked me from the lawn. The boxes of Michael's things jeered from the attic.

If it was up to my procrastination and the unfounded fears that my whiplashed brain had began to concoct, I would've stayed away from the Pizzaplex entirely. But bills had to be paid. The world wouldn't stop for my grief, as much as returning to work and seeing Freddy-Michael (what the fuck) terrified me.

And I'd come to realise after I calmed down somewhat that I had questions. A lot of them. I just prayed that I see his face without bursting into tears again, let alone talk to him. Surely a week was a long enough time to mourn my simplistic naivety?

But as I sat in my car and stared at the Pizzaplex's building glowing in the early spring morning, I realised that no, no a week was not fucking long enough at all. Not a chance of it. My good old friend Panic had stolen me once again.

I considered calling Dennis and putting on a show of being 'really, truly sick,' and that I 'really can't come into work today, I'm so sorry,' but I knew that if I didn't pull up my big girl panties, there was a massive chance that I would never step foot into the place at all.

That wouldn't be fair on Michael, who'd had dog fight after dog fight with fate for his entire life, like he was Life's little amusement. And, ultimately, it wouldn't be fair to me. One thing that was a constant beside my grief for all those years was my desperation for closure. Now, it was at my fingertips. All I had to do was steel myself and walk inside.

I did just that. I locked my car and forced myself to be numb, to push my anxieties and indignations and mourning to the very pit of my being and shoved a lid on top of it. I swiped my card at the employee entrance, briefly came to terms with the fact that he knew I was here as soon as my I.D touched the scanner, and let myself in.

The lobby seemed a lot bigger than usual. And daunting. It stretched on and on, the ceiling, the walls. Staff bots swept the floor. The occasional human employee entered a door. Nothing had changed, but also, absolutely nothing was the same.

I felt frozen as I stood there. I was Freddy's handler, how was I supposed to handle anything when my entire day was to be stuck by his side? I'd have zero reprieves. I'd have a breakdown. I was already beginning to have a breakdown.

I turned to flee, only for my escape to be blocked by a chest and curly, dark hair.

"Y/n, holy shit," Joey greeted, clearly shocked. "You're alive."

"Unwilling and wishing otherwise." My voice was thin and tinny and did not pair well with my attempted joke. Because it wasn't really a joke, was it?

Joey glanced around the lobby. Whether he was trying to figure out if I was, in fact, about to bolt from the premises with my tail between my legs or was simply looking for Freddy, I couldn't tell. Either way, he set me with a gentle smile worthy of being a big bother to his seven younger siblings he'd once told me about and held out a hand.

"You wanna grab a coffee?" he asked. I quietly nodded my reply, before placing my hand in his and letting him lead me up the stairs for Faz-Pad.

I kept glancing at the elevator doors, anticipating the 'ding,' followed by Freddy's large body slipping out with a frantic look over the lobby. I couldn't tell if I craved it happening or if I was terrified.

Joey and I ordered our coffees. I took a seat that faced the cafe's entrance, just in case. I didn't want to be taken by surprise. My nerves wouldn't be able to handle it and I'd probably melt into a goo of human remains on the floor.

Joey took the seat across from me. I pushed my chair across the hardwood floor just so his head wasn't blocking my view of the door. He glanced over his shoulder and then back at me, understanding immediately.

"Full transparency," Joey began, "because transparency is probably something that you need right now. I know. Still freaking out, but I know."

My eyes drifted to Joey's chocolate gaze. "Know..?"

"About..." Joey barely winced, eyeing me as though I was about to break. "About Michael being Freddy."

Maybe he was right. I felt my composure shatter, and maybe it was just hearing someone else say it, put it out into the world, that had me crumbling. This was real, wasn't it? It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a nightmare I'd confused with my waking days.

"Oh," I said, when I felt my cheeks grow wet and I wiped them with my sleeves to find tears. That pit with the lid containing all of my emotions was beginning to leak.

"Oh, conejito." His sympathy was like scratching nails on concrete followed by a salve for the burn it left behind. Joey reached out to clasp my hand with his, and when our to-go cups arrived, we didn't move to leave from the table.

"I thought I'd run out of tears," I said with a weepy chuckle. He tilted his head with a worried frown and I turned my eyes down to my drink. I suddenly didn't feel like it. "Please stop looking at me like that. I just want to go back to normal."

Joey hesitated. His grip over my hand squeezed and his thumb stroked over a knuckle. He gave a defeated sigh.

"I don't... I don't think things can go back to normal," he said slowly. And of course he was right, but still, denial ran a length solid and hot through me. "At least, not the normal it had been before."

I stared holes at my cup. I wanted to be defiant and steadfast, that I could ignore what Freddy told me that evening a week prior, but even I wasn't that stupid. I could never forget the bombshell of bombshells that had my life set as ground zero.

"I know," I said miserably.

"Hey." Joey's fingers linked through mine, and he suddenly felt a lot like Matt, and I suddenly had the urge to cry for a different reason. "At least we know why it was so easy for you to get the fazussy."

It was so out of the blue that I snort-laughed, and then Joey laughed at my snort, and then I was laughing at Joey laughing at my snort. This was what he was good at, listening to the grief, understanding it, and then cracking a joke to lighten the load.

My head felt dizzy, but for once during the past week of it spinning, it didn't necessarily feel all that bad.

I closed my eyes with a shuddering exhale as my laughter died. The memories came forward easily, though not entirely by choice. Of Freddy's falling-flat-on-his-face fiasco when he first saw me, of the claw gouges in the wall when Monty dug just a little too deep, of my 'does Freddy ever get mad?' and Sundrop's denying reply and the volumes that it spoke.

And then his shock after the thing with the endoskeletons. No wonder he was fucking shocked. It probably set him back into terrible memories of running from murderous robots while he was still alive, but I was there, too.

"Are you going to be okay to work today?" Joey asked. More tears spilled when I opened my eyes.

"No," I replied, because if he was being transparent, then I should, too. "Not really. But I have to."

"Money?" Joey asked. I shook my head because while, yeah, I did need to get paid now that my sick leave had run out, it wasn't just that.

"If I don't, then I'll never return," I murmured. "And..." My fingernails dug sharp crescents into my palm. "And Michael- he's here. And as much as I'm scared and hate that he didn't tell me sooner, I..."

Joey gave a warm, sad smile. "You love him."

"Am I an idiot?" I whispered, yearning for an answer I couldn't give myself. "That I- that I still love him, even after he lied to me since I arrived here? Even after I couldn't move on?"

"No." Joey was resolute. "No, I just think that makes you strong."

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

I tried to hold onto Joey's words as we took the elevator up to Rockstar Row. I tried to soak them into myself, to imbue them into my body. I'm strong. I'm strong.

"Bonnie's missed you," Joey said. "Well, they all have, but I'm biased."

I managed a smile over my anxieties. "I've missed him, too."

"You wanna visit him before you go do your thing?" Go do your thing, as in; have to spend time alone with Freddy. I nodded. It would be nice to meet up with Bonnie before the inevitable crash and burn, and I almost convinced myself that I wasn't taking this as an opportunity to stall.

The Row was empty when we arrived. I forced myself to look straight ahead at Bonnie's door, and not let my gaze drift to the photo of Michael on the wall or Freddy's green room. Joey swiped his card at Bonnie's green room and the door slid open to accommodate.

He stepped to go in, paled, then immediately shoved me aside and out of the view of the door. I stumbled in surprise before sending him a pissy look. What was that for?

It was then that I noticed the flash of dark orange within the room and my throat closed up. He was with Bonnie. Of course he was. Joey was to me what Bonnie was to him.

"I'm so sorry," Joey mouthed. My gaze flickered to the empty entrance. But I'm strong. I am strong, right? But Joey was looking at me like maybe I wasn't strong and maybe he was right, but I really wanted to be strong. It would be nice to be strong for once in my life.

I sidestepped Joey and entered the room.

The silence was palpable as two robots stared at me with dead-fucking shock plastered on their fibreglass faces. My eyes, against my better judgment, drifted right towards Freddy.

He was frozen, leaning against Bonnie's vanity with crossed arms. I felt myself freeze in tandem with him, and, fuck, I was immediately and insanely wrong, because I wasn't strong at all. I could feel myself on the verge of either bursting into tears or passing out, and I really didn't want either to come into fruition.

Bonnie, blessed Bonnie, broke the silence and my stillness by sweeping me into a hug. My eyes finally tore from Freddy's and I let my arms hug the bunny back.

"Ah, Champ!" My feet had been lifted from the ground with ease and he hugged me like I was a rag doll. "I've missed you!"

My smile was weak in return. "I've missed you, too, Bon."

Bonnie set me down on my feet with a brilliant smile. Joey had entered and I caught the rabbit's eyes glance at his handler from over my shoulder, and the silent conversation that ensued. Quiet fell again. Words were bubbling behind closed lips, I could feel it, but nobody said a single syllable.

"I should get going," I said with a thumb over my shoulder. "Time stops for no one, n' all that."

"'Course, 'course," Bonnie nodded. I didn't miss the concerned glance he gave Freddy but I ignored it. I had to ignore it. "See you two later then, right? Maybe we can meet up for Fazerblast if it's quiet enough?"

Fazerblast. Oh, Fazerblast, with its tight corners that cameras missed and Freddy with an insatiable hunger that now made a lot more sense in retrospect. Fazerblast, where I could deny my attraction no longer. To him. To Michael. Where it all went downhill.

"Sure," I replied with a voice pitched to the heavens. "Sounds great."

Joey sent me a look, one that asked 'are you sure you're okay?' I offered a smile in response but couldn't bring myself to say yes, because that would be a lie, or no, because that would only make him worry even more.

I gave my 'see you later' and left the room. It took a few seconds for the heavy thud of Freddy's footsteps to follow, but they eventually did, and we were walking across the empty Row. I could feel his silent stare burning a hole through the back of my head. It sent prickles up my spine.

It was Michael. Michael was right there, within touching distance. And I felt a surprising, heated feeling begin to spiral within my gut. I realised that I missed one vital emotion that could've possibly come to light when I saw him again; the fact that I was absolutely fucking livid.

He didn't tell me. For months. For almost a year. He let me fall in love with a facade, a parody of himself, and I let him fool me. The signs were all there; was I just oblivious? Or did I choose to turn my head and ignore them? 

And then I remembered that he died, and I got overwhelmed with how I was supposed to be feeling. Should I have been angry? Should I feel sad? Where did the locket and the note fall into this? I was so confused.

I finally resolved to the fact that I was simply feeling everything, all of it, at once. And that, paired with my fuzzy, figure-filled nightmares of hazel eyes and blue claws and my lack of sleep, had driven me to near insanity.

I still loved him. But that didn't mean that I also didn't want to punch his new face in, despite how much stronger fibreglass was than a human fist.

The silence was worse now that it was just the two of us. I came to an understanding that he was letting me say the first word instead of breaking my fragile state-of-mind by speaking himself. But I didn't have anything to say to him. Not yet. I didn't trust myself to.

I got my report from Mandy about the past week she covered. Freddy had an awful week, apparently. That made two of us.

His eyes never left me when I was with him, not once. He only pulled them away when he was forced to for a photo and it should've been unnerving, the way he was staring at me with those sad eyes of his, but it was just slowly tearing my heart apart, chamber by chamber, vein by vein. He waited painfully, patiently, for me to break our silence. He was waiting in vain.

Not a word was spoken throughout the day. By the end of it, I was hiding in the catwalks above Monty Golf.

"'Ey. This 's my hidin' spot."

I lifted my gaze from where I had been listlessly watching my shoes dangle over the edge. My cheek rested along my arms that were slumped over the railing in front of me as I watched the big, bad gator approach.

Last time we were here, it was me finding him in the middle of hiding. Now it was his turn to find me for the exact same reason.

"Hey, Mont,'" I greeted. The gator took a seat beside me with a grunt and a shudder of the metal catwalk. His tail swung out to join my shoes, swaying over the heads of guests miles below. Monty lifted his glasses and stared at me with a disinterested frown.

"You've been cryin'," he said, ever blunt.

"That I have," I said. My cheeks had long gone raw and it hurt to touch, so I tucked my hands between my knees. "'S why I'm here, if you couldn't tell."

"You want me to leave?"

"Nah." I shook my head as I watched a family play golf. They looked happy, and my chest ached. That could've been me down there, with Michael and the three kids we'd wanted. I smiled bittersweetly. "You can stay."

"Good, 'cause I wasn't gonna, anyway."

I grinned something dry his way. His lack of comfort was, ironically, comforting. It balanced well with Joey's earlier consoling.

Monty copied my position - arms crossed over the railing before him, legs and tail dangling. He watched people mill about below, just as I was doing.

"He's beside himself, y'know."

"Michael," I said quietly, figuring I knew exactly who he was talking about. His huff told me that I was correct. "I thought you hated him."

"I hate everyone, equally," he defended. When I raised my brow at him, Monty dug his elbow into my shoulder just this side of painful. I laughed. "Shu' the fuck up, bug."

"I came up here to cry and you're calling me a bug," I said with halfhearted incredulity.

"Yer fault for thinkin' I'd do otherwise."

Ah, well. He had me on that one.

"There a reason why ya givin' him the silent treatment?" Monty asked. "And don' say somethin' like 'I'm angry at him.' What's yer real reason? I know you have one. You're not the type to make people suffer to be petty."

Since when could Monty read me like an open book? I dug my chin into my arms and sighed.

"I'm scared that if I'll talk to him, I'll snap," I murmured. "I'll either break down or I'll get so angry that I'll yell at him and I don't have it in me to control myself. I don't want either to happen. He doesn't deserve that."

"Are ya shittin' me?" Monty asked, genuinely baffled. I met his gaze, eyes wide and taken aback by his outburst. "Are ya seriously only concerned about him? After what he did t'ya?"

I sent him a sad smile. "It's not that easy, Mont. Michael wasn't just my boyfriend. He was my best friend. He was my entire life." The smile faded. "Though, now that I think about it, that may have been the problem."

"I still don' get it," Monty said. "If someone did that to me, I'd never forgive 'em."

"It is a bit ridiculous, isn't it?" I said with a weepy-eyed smile. "You'll understand one day, maybe. When you fall in love."

He snorted, as if I'd told him something impossible. "Right." His eyes fell to my neck, where the locket was missing from. "I found it, y'know. Yer necklace. Freddy has it."

"Oh," I said, dully.

"He really is obsessed with ya, ain't he?" Monty said with a grumble as he stared out at the crowd beneath our feet. "Fuckin' weird."

"I don't know if I can talk to him," I said quietly. "I don't know if I can forgive him."

"Ya can."

Monty said it in such a matter-of-fact tone that it made me do a double take. My eyes jumped to the side of his face in confusion.

"How do you know?"

Monty grunted, like something had humoured him. His red eyes slid to mine, piercing, surprisingly wise. It was as though I was seeing an entirely new side of the gator altogether.

"'Cause you two are made for each other, or some other fairytale bullshit like that," he said. "N' th' entire thing was just unfortunate circumstances happenin' ta' good people. Least, thas' what I got from it."

My surprise deepened. That was bafflingly profound from a gator that liked to punch walls for 'getting in his way.' Tells me for assuming through stereotypes.

"Now, why doncha tell me somethin' good 'bout yer time with Michael?" Monty suggested. "Thas' what Arty says ta' do - focus on th' positives, n' all that shit."

I let out a wet laugh. "You're going soft."

"Take th' back, ya fuck."

I giggled and wiped at my cheeks. I reached into the recesses of my head, filing through every good memory I had of Michael. They were each tainted by the faint taste of bittersweet, but I pushed on. Monty wanted to know.

  "I guess... god, there was this one time he got in a fight with some kids for bullying me."

Monty's brow raised. "Ya sure we're talking 'bout th' same guy?"

I sent him a bemused look. "Oh, yeah. This golden boy image is totally new. May be why it took so bloody long for me to figure it out." A wry smile pulled at my lips. "Hell, I'd even say he used to act a lot more like you."

"I don' believe ya."

"It's true," I grinned. "He used to be a token bad boy, Mont, just like you. Must be why we get along so well."

He snorted. "Bet he scared everyone away, too."

"Only the lame ones." I nudged my elbow into his side and he rolled his eyes. "He used to have this group of friends that did everything they weren't allowed to do. Skip class, smoke, steal alcohol - all those cliché bad boy things. They hated me, and I hated them, but they didn't let Michael know. Then, one day, he overheard them talking shit about me and, well, he beat them all up."

"Really?"

"Yeah." I smiled down at my crossed ankles. I could remember it perfectly now, like the scene was imprinted in the back of my mind. Groaning bodies of teen boys on the ground, grimacing in pain and bloody noses. Their scathing insults had hurt me, but I was sure that their injuries hurt more.

And Michael, scrawny in his fifteen years of age, standing before them, sporting his own bruises and blood dripping from his knuckles. He had told me to look away after what was supposed to be an amicable conversion quickly turned into a brawl in the parking lot of a 7/11, but I couldn't. Not when he moved with such sureness, such grace, and all for me.

I remembered him standing in front of me after it all went down, a worried look on his face, as he promised me that he had never hurt someone like that before and he would never do it again. That this was an exception, because they were them and because I was me. I remembered feeling cherished as he held my face after wiping his bloody hands on his shirt and made sure I wasn't frightened. I remembered feeling worthy of being protected for the first time in my life.

After word got out, the town turned. People called it the Afton in him, the devil, just like his father. I called him my hero. The only other people who believed me and still loved Michael just as much was Matt and my mother.

I'd forgotten that happened. It was buried deep within the recesses of my mind, growing dusty and gaining cobwebs. It was such an important memory of mine, too; it was when we began to grow inseparable, where we went from good friends to great ones, to best friends, joined at the hip and all that. And it was probably when I, oblivious for years, first began to fall in love with him.

He really was a lot like Monty when he was younger; broody, snappy, a hard shell to crack. But once you did crack it, he was soft, so soft, and caring and loving. He'd always protected me.

"Y/n."

I turned at Monty's voice. The memory called for me to return to its tender hold.

"Don' feel like ya need t' forgive him," he said gravely. "He don' entirely deserve it. You should forgive him because ya want to, not because of what he went through or because of ya past with him."

I smiled at him. Surprise, surprise, I'd began crying again. This time it was for the memory, the nostalgia of it, of when times were simple and happy and I could taste our friendship with each freckled-cheek grin he gave me.

"Thanks, Mont," I said. "You're a good friend. And before I even think to forgive him, I have a lot of questions that need answers."

"I bet," he huffed. "When d'ya think you'll talk to 'im?"

My chin settled back against my arms with a sigh. My eyes found that family again, and the bittersweet feeling returned with vengeance; brighter, stronger, more debilitating.

"I don't know," I answered. I wiped my tears away and my sore cheeks stung in protest. "Soon, I think. Yeah. Soon."