Rating: T for graphic violence and gore, perilous situations, psychological trauma, depressive themes, scenes of injury involving a young child

Setting: Fredbear's Family Diner, during the events of the fourth game

Summary: Though he practically grew up at his father's arcade and indoor playground, young Rusty's childhood has been anything but fun lately. He fears his antagonistic older brother most, but soon comes to realize something far more frightening may be lurking in the shadows at the restaurant.

Author's Note: The Five Nights at Freddy's games and all canon characters, settings, etc. are the property of Scott Cawthon. This is a non-commercial fan tribute and was not written for profit. Views expressed in this fanfiction do not necessarily match the writer's.

You are free to use any original concepts, headcanons and characters from this fanfiction in your own non-commercial work (fanfiction, art, etc.) if you'd like.

"Please let me out!" pleaded the terrified child, pounding at the steel door ineffectively with his fists. Rusty already knew his efforts would be futile; the deep bass of the music pulsing through the speakers in the party room outside was certain to muffle any sounds he could make. Outside, it was a sun-drenched day at the height of summer and by all means he should have been home watching cartoons or tearing across his backyard like any other kid his age, but his brother, considerably older and charged with watching him, had soon commandeered the household's only television set, a large console in the living room, for his video games. When those had lost their fun, Rusty had found himself dragged along to their father's workplace where the better arcade games awaited.

Dropping his hands to his sides in the gloom of his makeshift prison, the child gave one last whine. "Please..." Tightly closing his eyes, he was determined not to turn around and face the monstrosities in the dim light behind him, but he already knew they were there: the unnerving collection of skeletal steel components, facemasks locked in terminal stares and dismembered costume parts that made up the animatronics that entertained children at Fredbear's Family Diner.

Why couldn't Rodney have set him loose in the jungle gym with the other kids his age, or at least ushered him off to the concession counter to request a lunch? As the sons of the franchise manager, they enjoyed the rare privilege of unlimited dining as well as the coveted key that unlocked every game in the arcade to free-play mode. While those had left Rodney much envied among his classmates and perpetually surrounded by a gaggle of loyal friends, he had been less than gracious about sharing them with his brother.

Certain he had heard something, Rusty finally turned, taking in the sight of an animatronic headpiece staring vacantly back at him from its resting place on a shelf, its eyes half-lidded but still seemingly locked on his small form. It was Spring Bonnie, the diner's rabbit character who bounced across the stage giddily during performances, only he didn't seem nearly so happy-go-lucky as he did during his song-and-dance numbers, with his head detached ominously from the slumped form of his plush body. The child's knees locked and his eyes sealed tight as he lost his resolve...

...And then the door opened, a key rattling in the lock and a blessed sliver of light slicing across the floor and then widening into a triangle as someone shoved the sturdy door inward.

"Rusty!" From behind the large panes of his glasses, the eyes of the company's young training coordinator appeared almost comically wide, betraying his shock at finding the son of his boss trapped in what must have been nothing short of a young child's worst nightmare. Only a few years older than Rodney but infinitely more mature, Clyde dropped to his knees, scooping up the child who had collapsed to the tiled floor and depositing him back on his feet.

"I saw that brother of yours in the arcade and he refused to tell me where you were, so I knew something was up. How long have you been back here? Who locked you in?" He fired several more questions Rusty's way before recognizing that the child was too busy convulsing with sobs to answer just yet. "Aww, I'm sorry. Sometimes I forget you're just a little half-pint, and here I am throwing questions at you a mile a minute," Clyde corrected himself, using the nickname as a term of endearment. He dug in his pocket for a clean handkerchief, handing it to the boy and gesturing to his dripping nose. "Might want to do something about that." Unclipping a walkie-talkie from his belt, he spoke into the device while Rusty dabbed at his face with the cloth.

"Hello. Hello? Uh, yeah, I found him. He's fine," Clyde said in reassurance to whoever was on the other end of the line. "Yeah, he was still in the building; he's not much of a roamer. Over and out." His grin faded when he noticed Rusty wiping futilely at a damp patch across the front of his shorts.

"Er, don't feel bad about that," he said dismissively. "I can't blame you, what with how scared you must have been. Why don't you head to the restroom and I'll bring over a spare set of pants from the front desk? They keep a few extras there, because these emergencies do happen, more often than you might think."

Hearing that he wasn't the first one to suffer such a humiliating accident made Rusty feel a little better, and by the time he had joined Clyde in the employees' break room, wearing a pair of brand-new blue jeans borrowed from the restaurant's stash of spare clothing, he had managed to put some of the trauma behind him.

"I don't suppose that brother of yours saw to it that you ate a lunch, or even breakfast for that matter?" Clyde asked, answering Rusty's head-shake with one of his own. "I can't believe he thinks you can survive on pizza all day, every day. Let's go get you something better from the salad bar."

That brother of yours. Even at his young age, Rusty had to smile at the training coordinator's thinly-veiled disapproval of Rodney. A long-time friend of the family, Clyde had first been hired to cut their lawn long before Rusty was even born, and, impressed with the then-teenager's reliability and general good nature, their father had brought him into the family business, eventually charging him with training new workers at a relatively young age. Though fiercely loyal to his employers, when only Rusty was around Clyde wasn't hesitant to admit he didn't care much for his older brother's lack of compassion and responsibility.

"I'm sorry Rodney doesn't treat you any better," he said once they were seated at a cafeteria table. "I hope someday he realizes that being the oldest means he's got to protect you, not push you around. Y'know, he's got to help fight off your bullies, not be one himself."

"I'm not holding my breath." When Rusty finally found his voice, it was surprisingly strong and unguarded. "I still can't believe you have eight little brothers and sisters! And I'll bet you never picked on them, did you?" He used the tines of his fork to submerge a chickpea under the dressing on his salad, watching the strange little vegetable disappear beneath the oily mess.

Clyde gave a reluctant laugh. "Well, not exactly 'never,' but my dad sure straightened me up when I screwed up. Let's just say I didn't do it often and leave it at that!" He paused with a forkful of salad greens suspended halfway to his mouth. "Everyone has their bullies, though." He chewed thoughtfully, trying to use his best judgement on how much to reveal to a young and impressionable child.

"Back in high school, there was this one kid who knocked me around a few times and made fun of me every chance he got until I felt just awful. Y'know what, though? It turns out he was just really lonely and had a hard time making friends. He turned out to be a pretty decent guy once I got to know him."

"Are you still friends now?" Rusty asked eagerly, trying to imagine a hypothetical future where he and his brother could actually get along. He pictured what it might be like riding bikes to the ice cream truck together, maybe sneaking into the living room to meet up and watch a late-night monster movie when they were supposed to be asleep early on a school night. Anything would be better than the way he was shut out at every turn.

Clyde's face fell, struggling between honesty and his urge to shield the boy from unhappy news. "We did become friends, but he's gone now. He was really young." Rusty nodded respectfully, intuitively knowing it wasn't the time to ask prying questions. They were interrupted when the doors to the cafeteria swung open, revealing the tall, slender form of a man who stood twirling a plastic grocery sack on his finger, an overconfident sneer plastered across his face.

"Found these in my office, so I kinda figured you were here on a visit to the diner," he taunted, slinging the bag haphazardly onto the table. Rusty realized with horror that it contained his wet shorts and underwear as the diner's security guard leaned over Clyde, his crisp purple uniform shirt standing out in sharp contrast to the training coordinator's threadbare and rather outdated paisley button-down.

"What's the matter, did seeing Fredbear up close make you whizz your pants?" the guard pressed on, pushing the bag dangerously closer to Clyde's lunch. "Whatever happened, I do not appreciate finding this in my office, near my desk, left by some marginal employee who floats between the various restaurants trying to look important and telling me how to do my job."

"Those are a tad bit small to be mine, Derrick," Clyde said in a tone that approached pleading, casting a wary eye Rusty's way. "A little respect might be in order? I left them in the office so his dad could take them home to launder." He gestured to the child, who was already shuddering in dread, and lowered his voice in sympathy. "He got locked up in the parts and service room, so I'm calming him down. And you know I'm not here to tell you how to do anything; it's just time for the semi-annual audit."

Derrick sniffed loudly. "Audit or not, I can't believe they pay you by the hour to coddle whiny kids." His eyes ceased their rolling, locking sharply on his co-worker and accompanied by a malicious grin. "Then again, you did survive the Great Lockout of 1976, so maybe you can relate."

"Sheesh, can we not bring that up?" the young worker warned, visibly trembling at the memory of this event that was unknown to Rusty. "I was fifteen."

Ignoring him, Derrick continued on with false cheerfulness, turning his attention to Rusty. "Sorry to hear about your latest mishap, kiddo, but maybe Clyde here can tell you all about the time he was so clumsy he locked himself in a freezer." He gave an exaggerated wink before turning on his heel and leaving the other two to stare at each other awkwardly.

"You got shut up in a freezer?" Rusty asked incredulously when the unpleasant security guard had left.

"Well, uh, yeah, I guess you could say I did," Clyde admitted, knowing the inquisitive child deserved an answer. He dabbed at a spot of dressing on his shirt, only succeeding in making the greasy stain grow larger. "I'll spare you the details to avoid scaring you, but that was in the days before walk-in freezers had extra handles so you could open them from the inside." He sighed, crumpling his napkin and letting it drop back to the table. "I wish Derrick had never brought that up."

The child regarded his friend carefully before speaking up. "You said everyone has a bully. Derrick's your bully, isn't he?"

Wow, out of the mouths of babes... The training coordinator gave the faintest nod. "And unlike that kid from high school, he doesn't want any friends. Believe me, I tried. Heh, but that's all pretty heavy talk, isn't it? So anyway, have you drawn any new characters for us lately?" It was Rusty's turn to fall silent.

"Yeah, a great one, but Rodney ripped it up," he ruefully admitted, and Clyde stepped out, promising to return quickly. The boy loaded their empty trays onto a conveyor belt at the back of the break room and watched as they disappeared through the small window into the kitchen. Far off, he could see the heavy iron door of the ancient walk-in freezer, and he shivered, trying to decide whether being locked in sub-freezing temperatures might be even worse than being trapped and surrounded by idled animatronics.

"Here you go!" Clyde said, handing Rusty some office paper and a pack of crayons from the prize counter. "Could you draw your guy again? I'd love to see him, and we could hang him up somewhere here so your brother wouldn't dare tear it down."

The pair worked side by side in the tranquility of the secluded break room, Clyde meticulously copying figures for the company audit onto various documents spread out over the table and Rusty scribbling away, for once feeling so uncharacteristically carefree at the diner that he let his legs swing back and forth under his chair. From time to time he'd chuckle at his creation until he finally set the masterpiece down and leaned back in his chair to admire it, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Haha, now who's this?" asked Clyde, smiling at the diminutive figure on the paper, its face lit up in a rosy-cheeked grin.

"This," announced Rusty proudly, "is Balloon Boy, only I didn't know how to spell that so he goes by BB. He's really nice and he's always laughing, and every time he sees someone he says, 'Hi!' or 'Hello!', like you do into your walkie-talkie." Clyde interrupted his speech with a burst of laughter but motioned for him to go on. "He's not supposed to be you, though. There's this kid who lives down the street and his dad owns the gas supply company, so he can have all the helium balloons he wants and he's always playing with one outside. That's where I got the idea," he explained, pointing to the cluster of balloons BB was clutching, so numerous that they filled most of the paper.

"Aww, I like him! He looks a little like the Raggedy Andy doll I had as a kid."

"Really? Was he your friend?" Rusty was taken aback at Clyde's encouragement; his brother was constantly after him to give up the stuffed animal collection he felt he had outgrown, even resorting to damaging his prized toys.

"You bet! Now my youngest brother has him," the training coordinator said unguardedly. "And may I give this to your father? He's been talking about adding some new characters, and I think he'd love to see this one. Just imagine, seeing a character you created right here in the diner, walking around and everything!"

"Good, because BB wants to be everyone's friend, so he doesn't just greet you; he gives out balloons to all the kids," insisted Rusty. "Even to the ones who are scared."

"Even to not-so-nice big brothers?" Clyde asked, making his young pal giggle.

"Yeah, even them."

(Author's Note: Observant readers might recall that in FNaF2, Phone Guy admitted he could barely remember the name of the diner, strongly suggesting he never worked there. My headcanon, at least for the purposes of this fanfiction, is that he was assigned to work there on occasion but in an effort to put the tragedy that happened there behind him, he later denied he had any connection to the place.

Also, the full story behind Phone Guy's late bully-turned-friend will be revealed in "Nobody's Puppet," a WIP Puppet origin story.)