Mike sighed as his attention was diverted yet again to the animatronic being down the hallway. He felt bad that Mari was trapped in his room in his own home, but it was Mari who'd suggested over the phone to his mother that Mike host a family game night at their house which had dug him in this hole, so it was a bit of spite. Although that didn't make it fair.
Currently, the Schmidt family adults, and his oldest younger cousin Mitchell, were gathered around the table playing Monopoly. Of course, after that awful Freddy knock-off board game Mike detested so much, he wasn't too fond of the original version anymore.
Mike happened to glance back after he landed on the yellow property and handed Aunt Lisa her money, and saw a slender black figure resting against the now-gutted grandfather clock inconspicuously, and Mike fought the urge to yell at Marionette for being so obvious. Mitchell, who had just rolled the dice, glanced up and saw the mask of white and jumped back in fear, but Mike gave him a 'shh' sign and he nodded hesitantly. Then he tried to wave Marionette out, but he just shook his head and leaned further into the clock smugly.
Mari got even more ballsy and came up right behind his Uncle Issac, mere inches away from touching the top of his head, and watched as he mortgaged his Parkway to get hotels on his orange, then shook his head at Mike saying he wouldn't last in this game after going nearly bankrupt for paying so much money upfront.
Mike silently prayed nobody would look at Isaac and that Isaac wouldn't look up, and it was a miracle that the only person who glanced over was Isabelle, who gave Mike an alarmed look. He replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
"So Mike..." Patrick began, and Mike's heart dropped to his stomach. "Crap, he saw Mari. How can I play this off? But it wasn't that. "Are you seeing anybody?" Relief flooded through Mike, until he felt a tap on his leg and looked down. Mari had somehow folded himself under his chair and looked at him smugly, as if saying 'yeah Mike, you seeing anybody?'
"Yeah." Was all Mike said, hoping to drop the subject. When it became clear to Mike that his family wanted more information, he sighed and continued on, carefully choosing his wording. "I'm in a great relationship with someone named Marion." He felt a squeeze on the knee from Mari and he put his hand on top of the animatronics more slender one.
"Oh, really? When can we meet her?" His stomach lurched forwards. Not only at the fact that they were so direct with the gender, but the fact that he most likely dug Mari into a hole too.
"Well, Mari is very shy and probably won't meet you anytime soon, way too shy and freezes up face to face, but all those baked treats you guys are eating were baked by him." Mike didn't even realise how noisy the rustling of the money and pieces lightly tapping on the board had been until it all stopped and he felt Isaac, Grace, Mitchell and Patrick all look to him in shock. He fought the urge to laugh it off or to bring a hand to his mouth in shock of what he did. He just accidentally came out to his family.
Mari's hand vanished from his knee and he looked around the table, staying silent. Finally, Isaac spoke up. "He? You're dating a... a he?! Why Michael, why would you- Isabelle, he's your son, back he up." Isabelle just had her head in her hands. Mike obviously had no intention of admitting Marionette was a boy but it had slipped. Finally she spoke up. "I already knew Isaac. Marion is a sweet boy and he or she, I'm glad they found each other."
"You're just gonna let him bring our family's name to filth?! You realise everyone will think of us as the family with that gay kid?! Why would you-"
"Stop." Isabelle interrupted, and both men snapped their heads to look at her. "Isaac, I've met Mari. He's sweeter than almost any girl I've met. He and Mike love each other, and you should stop yelling at Mike before he hears you and gets mad. Mari is very protective of Mike." Isabelle warned. "You would love him if you met him, but no way will either Mike or I let you meet him when you're so angry. Mike can do whatever he wants with his life, and we should just be happy to be a part of it."
"Do I look like I give a care about if he's kind or not?!" Mike watched as Mari inched slowly down the stairs, and there was no smile on his face. There was just a very, very angry looking Puppet. "You think I'm gonna let my nephew stand here and become a freakin' gay pervert?! You thought wrong! He needs to think about not only what this could do to him, but his family!" Isaac ranted. The family knew Isaac and knew he'd get frustrated and yell before calming down and looking at the full picture and eventually accepting it, but Mari didn't. A split second before it happened Grace gasped as Mari brought Isaac crashing to the floor and sat on top of him, slender fingers wrapped tightly around his neck.
"Mari!" Mike yelled and wrapped his arms under Mari's armpits and tried to tug him off his uncle, but Mari held on tightly. "He called you a freakin gay pervert, you think I'm gonna stand here and listen to him calling my Mike that?!"
"Mari, enough! Let go, you're gonna hurt him, and I'm not going to learn how to dispose of a body when I haven't had to this whole time." Mike said the last part in a joking manner and the family, minus Isabelle, looked to him wondering how he could joke at a time like this but Mari released his grip on the man. He still sat on his chest and kept him semi-pinned to the floor, but looked to Mike as Isaac caught his breath. He then sprang at Mike and wrapped his arms tightly around Mike's middle, sobbing, his head being buried in Mike's chest. Mike could tell the Puppet was frozen for the mere fact that as he tried to guide his hand into Mari's, Mari didn't even flex his fingers.
"I-I'm sorry... I got so mad... he-" Mike shushed him and put all his attention towards calming the Marionette down so he wouldn't have another episode. He'd obviously been in a blind rage about hearing someone being so rude to his man. Mike continued to shush him softly and rubbed his back slowly.
Isabelle came over to the Puppet and put a hand cautiously on his shoulder before giving it a soft squeeze. "You okay Baby?" Mari nodded slowly, trying to overcome his frozen state and kept his face hidden in Mike's shirt. Grace only then came to collect her husband off the floor before giving him a sharp smack across the face.
"Hey! What was that for?" Isaac yelled out. "I might not agree with him being with a boy, but you shouldn't just be so... Mike? Did you call that thing Mari?"
Mike sighed and brought the clinging Puppet away from his chest. Marionette gave a short nod and he exhaled slowly before talking. "Yes, this is Marion... Marionette. Before you think I'm entirely crazy, the long and short of it is... Mari is a human trapped in an animatronic body." Mike dragged it out before stroking his head and continuing. "I never intended to tell you guys he was an animatronic, that he was a he at all... I'm sorry if I bring you shame, but it's my life. If you don't want me part of your lives then that's fine, but I shouldn't be yelled at for it... Just wanted to add that Mari normally doesn't attack people unless he thinks I'm in some sort of danger, so just don't cross me and you're good."
Finally, his Aunt Lisa spoke up. "I thought that was the mime thing from the pizzeria that followed... oh." Mike nodded. "Yep, my Button Baby follows me around sometimes when he's bored." He got a kick from Mari's flat expression towards him at the nickname. "Oh come on, you act like you don't love it."
"So... how did this happen?" Aunt Grace asked shyly. She never was one to like same-sex couples, but accepted them. "Well... Mari was like 'I'm in love with you' and I'm like 'cool let's get together' and he's like 'but I'm not human anymore' and I'm like 'whatever if I didn't know what I was asking for I wouldn't be asking for it.' That's the short story anyways, the long story... complicated." This caused a few laughs and a chime from Mari.
"Honestly I think it's so cool! I have a friend whose dating her goldfish!" Mitchell broke the awkward moments of silence after that. Mari seemed to realise there was a kid there and perked up, but Isaac pulled his son behind him. "Relax, I'm not gonna hurt him! The only reason I attacked you was because you were being mean to my Mike, and I was worried you'd hurt him. I'm created for children, why would I hurt him?" Mari slowly approached the eleven year old, who scanned the robot curiously. "You are so cool! So you're human?" Marionette nodded. "So are you dead?"
Mike knew that this would make the Puppet uncomfortable, so he quickly broke in a comment. "Well I think the game is ruined." Everybody turned to look at the gameboard that at some point had toppled onto Mike's chair. "We should play a different game, I don't know if we have time to start the game over."
Mari perked up with a chime and vanished, coming back with the Freddy board. Mike grabbed it from the striped male and went into the kitchen, coming back without the box. "What did you do with it?!" Mari asked, playfully upset. "I put it where it belongs. No way are we playing that. How about Guesstures?" Patrick, who'd been silent the entire time, slowly nodded with everybody else. Mitchell gasped and ran up the stairs, calling to Mike, "Natasha likes the game too!" He came back down with his eight year old sister in tow. Aislynn, Lisa's four year old girl, were following them too.
Mike grabbed the game and set up the coffee table with the cards and the timer. He then split them into two teams: Natasha, Lisa, Isaac, Patrick, and Mari on one team and Mike, Isabelle, Mitchell, Bryce, and Grace. Aislynn was quick to claim being on Mike's team, for whatever reason wanting to be his teammate.
"Ha, we get the sock monkey." Patrick said to Mike, and he shrugged. He wanted a challenge against Mari anyways. He felt glad that people said nothing about him being an animatronic, even if it was for the fact that Marionette was sitting on the couch next to them.
"Can we go first?" Aislynn asked and dragged Mike up to the timer. He picked out the red cards and nearly laughed. The first four point word was 'Marionette'. This was going to be easy. He got down to Aislynn's ear and whispered, "I'll do the last one, okay? First, can you pretend to be walking with an umbrella?" She nodded. "The next word is angle, so make your arms go like this." He made his arms into an L shape. "The third one is bubble gum, so I want you to pretend to blow out a biig bubble." She nodded excitedly and he pressed down the timer.
"Guess umbrella!" Aislynn yelled out. "No, Aislynn, you can't talk." She turned to him with wide eyes before acting out opening an umbrella. Isabelle smiled and guessed umbrella. Mike grabbed the card and she acted out the second word, which nobody guessed and it fell through. Bryce guessed bubble gum quickly, so Mike then moved to the last one and pointed to Mari.
"Boyfriend! Husband! Spouse! Love! Lover! Wife! Heart! Girlfriend! Valentine's day!" His team began yelling out and he facepalmed before making all his joints go loose and pretending to be tugged by strings. "Mime! Magic! Puppet!" He tapped his nose in a 'close' sign at that last one. He heard someone call out 'marionette' and he grabbed the card right before it fell through.
"Hey, no fair! He's on our team!" It was only then he realized that Mari was the one who'd yelled it out and now Mitchell was mad.
Finally deciding they got the point since it was guessed, Mike ended with ten points. Mari stepped up and smirked at Mike. Oh, how was Mike going to lose.
"I hate you." Mari grumbled to Mike and pushed his mask into the crook of his neck.
"You know you love me~" Mike sang softly and kissed the top of his head before petting over it, making him tremble in delight and cling to the man. "I do, I do. But you beat me!" Mari whined and splayed over his lap on the couch.
At this point only his mom was staying the night, and she looked from the table, where she was sorting some random papers, to the two boys.
"Mike, Mari, are you two okay? Not only did you come out, but admitted to your family you're dating an animatronic..." Marionette clutched Mike tightly, remembering the anger from hearing his lover being insulted.
Just then a furious pounding came from the door and he opened it to see his entire family who'd left minutes before. "You're dating an animatronic?!" The timing was impeccable for the family to realize, and Mike looked over to see Mari frozen on the couch, the kids out in the car so the adults could openly talk about this.
"Uh oh."