You Won't Die…Yet
~s~s~S~s~s~
*cracks knuckles* Let's see...it is 11:56 right now, and I had this little one-shot written out and sitting in my Google Docs since...December I believe? Anyways, I'm stupid late to the FNAF fandom, but my friend twisted my arm and I finally managed to watch all playthroughs back in 2017, Markiplier and Matpad (aka GameTheory) being my primary channels. That said, prior to even FNAF4, I canoned The Puppet/Marionette as an entirely different entity; not haunted by a child, but as something called a Revenant.
A Revenant is often defined as a ghost, or something or someone who has returned from the dead. In other cultures and definitions though, it is defined as a spirit of vengeance that may not have had human origins. In my verse, Puppet is a mix of Revenant and Poltergeist since it was 'given life' not by a spirit, but by the sheer tragedy of the murders at Freddy's.
Alongside that, and ADAMANTLY avoiding the gender wars (fuck's sake people, they're robots, who cares), I refer to good ol' Mari in the nonbinary, or even 'it' since, in my Revenant verse, they were never human to begin with.
So! Please enjoy this spontaneous one-shot I pulled out of my ass when it was written, and here's to hoping the more ludicrous fans don't try to bite my head off (HAH!) due to the binary system here.
This can be considered Freddy's Pizzeria Simulator compliant, or entirely different!
Enjoy!
~S~
~s~s~S~s~s~
Henry, as a (former) businessman, has made many mistakes in his life.
From rookie choices in his earliest entrepreneur years, to picking up bad business habits, to making bad investments. Yes, being a businessman and business co-owner comes with its difficulties. Mistakes are expected; even anticipated by those who may oppose that one decision that strikes a domino and no sooner topples a building.
Yes, Henry has made many, many mistakes. But none have haunted him so horribly, for so long. Over twenty years, and still, it will not let him forget.
Oh sure, it was fine at first; surely there was an explanation. Simply a lack of sleep. Simply his forgetting to eat that day. Simply a side effect of the booze. Simply something to be explained and ignored.
One would think after a few weeks he would have considered less explainable reasons. Or perhaps the most obvious.
His and Afton's creations had a way of getting under the skin. Their faces in particular, long before those tragic events, were images permanently branded into his consciousness.
Even now, as he lays limp and trembling from the overflowing alcohol and sleeping pills in his veins, saturating his organs and blood, that one face remains.
Ever smiling, ever cheerful. But those god damned eyes…
Henry never wondered at the idea of loathing the stars, yet two peered down at him not unlike a grinning Cheshire cat regarding a mouse in a trap. The permanent smile did not fool Henry, though at one point, far back in his memory, there was a time he took comfort in it; if not for himself, then for the tiny, precious souls he swore to protect from the devil he once worked with.
Afton may be evil incarnate, but Henry was no saint. He knew this, Afton knew this, and the wrathful, monochromatic demon leering down at him knew it.
Henry has made mistakes. He supposes it is that one decision he made that was both a blessing and a curse.
"You won't die…" it purred, its voice vibrating in triplicate, buzzing and weaving through the ions of alcohol-laden atmosphere. Sultry, dark, crooning…
Was it any show of irony that this willowy, deceptive being has done more good than harm, compared to Henry?
The poisoned man gritted his teeth, scowling painfully at the lanky form looming over him. Vaguely he wondered at the thing's schematics, from when he first built it. Was it always this tall? Or was it simply the booze, pills, and his own downtrodden resolve only making it seem bigger?
"Why the hell not…?" he rasped, limbs twitching into a tighter fetal position. The motion did nothing in relieving the bone-deep pain in his body, the destruction of blood cells and organs that refused to die. "It's what I deserve…!"
The Puppet tisked, head listing to one side in a mockery of an innocent head tilt. Their smile seemed to sharpen at the corners, curved like a freshly polished axe blade.
"Surely you do not think so highly of yourself, dear Henry," they said, breathy tone lilting in mild exasperation. It turned its frigid, starlight eyes onto the various empty bottles littering the floor, as well as the single bottle of mostly empty prescription sleep aid. "Surely dying in the throes of poison is not the cruelest way to go…"
Henry snarled, swallowing back bile and the urge to spit at the points of white blaring against the black canvas of his dingy apartment bedroom. "Fucking demon…!"
He winced as Marionette only chuckled lowly, sultry and almost fondly amused. Pointed, monochrome striped feet gracefully and soundlessly crossed the few feet separating them. The once gift-giver bent at its cylindrical waist, arms dangling limply at its sides; despite its innate grace and fragile, wispy frame, it never ceased to remind Henry that it was a puppet that had cut its own strings. Fragile limbs no longer made of anything Henry remembered building it with were yet still as deadly as they were gentle.
He watched their rubber-like neck extend a few inches, white mask and silvery eyes nearly blinding the ill man with their new proximity.
"Demons are born. Evil is made. I am not the one who built and joyously created both," they said softly.
Henry screwed his eyes shut - from pain or shame, he was not sure. Perhaps it was both. Regardless, he was caught, and just like every other time he tried to take the easy way out, tried to end it, he was stopped. By forces and means he could only call supernatural, the poison coursing through his body would only cause him pain, but not the death he so desired. His curse would not allow it.
Marionette had a haunting way of holding onto people by invisible strings. Henry was no exception, but perhaps these gossamer tethers would be best described as balls and chains.
He groaned in minute confusion and alarm as the Puppet reached for him, lanky, not-soft, not-hard claws grasping him by the front of his sweat-soaked button-up. Nausea churned in his gut as he was yanked upwards into a partial sitting position, his head and eyes screaming in protest as he was only drawn closer to the over bright, beady white pupils of his curse.
"Why must you continue to do this?" Marionette inquired, their tone outwardly calm, but over twenty years, Henry was able to pick up the scarcely hidden ire in its voice.
He sniffled shakily, head swimming and leaden. "You know why…"
Marionette's tiny white eyes seemed to minimize further. Henry felt more than saw its second arm come up, wispy fingers wrapping around his neck. The grip, oddly, was not threatening. It was loose and gentle, as if it was checking for a pulse. But then he felt that familiar pulse of something frigid and cruel spark in his throat and drop down into his gut.
Henry blanched, the Puppet firmly pushing him to roll onto his side just in time for his stomach to decide it did not particularly enjoy having a few bottles of cheap booze and potent sleeping pills inside it. He choked and retched, heaving the liquid and partly dissolved capsules onto his dirty carpet. Sweat dotted his entire body, vision blurring as tears were squeezed from the backs of his eyes. His head screamed and throbbed, his gelatinous brain beating against his skull to be let out.
Yet despite his wretched body's agony, Henry could only acknowledge and feed one thing; anger.
Gasping and coughing, choking on the remains of putrid bile, he spat once on the floor and shakily turned his head to look up at the impassive Puppet.
"You fucking…! Why?!" He shouted; as much as he could with an acid-burnt throat, that is. "Why won't you just let me end it…?!"
The Marionette simply stared at Henry. If they were capable, the ill man would think the willowy entity would frown. Or perhaps scowl in some judgemental way. He certainly recognized the implied expression in their eyes. It was a similar look his ex-wife made all too many times in their shaky marriage.
"We had a deal, Henry," it intoned softly. Henry spat again onto his carpet, tremors wracking his frame as he forced himself to sit on his knees and lean heavily on his palms over his putrid sick.
"We had no deal," he hissed. Marionette hummed, as if thoughtful.
"In your eyes, perhaps not," it said. Their starlight eyes pricked once more, minimized yet hauntingly bright. "But you made a promise, regardless. You made me."
"I made a mistake," Henry coughed into the crook of his elbow, pushing back to lean against his bedroom wall.
He knew he said the wrong thing, but the Puppet's flat, almost curious tone only made it worse.
"A mistake…" it repeated, eyes sliding up the wall to seemingly gaze blankly through the cheap drapes and into the night. "Yes...yes, you did make a mistake. You made many mistakes…"
Henry flinched when the Puppet edged closer, its dainty, pointy feet stepping between his sprawled legs. Its voice was closer now - too close - yet Henry refused to look up at the haughty thing.
"Your first mistake was ignorance," Marionette purred, "Ignorance of the man you threw your lot into, despite knowing how he looked at your plans, your prototypes, your family…"
Henry snarled, teeth gnashing, eyes screwing shut. His numb fingers twitched in the urge to cover his ears.
"Your second mistake was your willingness. Your willingness to turn a blind eye, avert a deaf ear, and seal a tongueless mouth…"
"Stop it…" Henry rasped.
"Your third mistake was greed. Greed for more; more resources, more chances of showing the world what you could do; greed for the eyes and adoration of those who could and would not give it freely."
"I said, stop…!"
"Your fourth mistake was your hope. The hope that nothing could go wrong, that while those outside may be hurt, you and your family would be fine; so long as they stayed inside."
"I said, SHUT-!"
Henry gasped and froze, wide, glassy eyes swivelling to stare at the stony claws embedded in the drywall beside his head. He lowered the fist he had been about to throw, his form trembling, knuckles white and throbbing. He stiffened further when Marionette's free hand came within his line of sight, a single, delicate finger hooking under his chin. Frightened, confused eyes locked with steely pinheads donned in starlight crowns.
"One small, delicate life, snuffed out. And you...you made your fifth mistake. You made a promise - you made me."
The Puppet forced Henry's chin higher, their foreheads nearly touching, Marionette's face obscuring Henry's view of his bedroom.
"You hoped that by making another monster, you could prevent your child's involvement - that you could prevent her death," it purred, "But oh, what a foolish, foolish thing. One does not go making something from the fabric of monsters and expecting it to become a knight. Your fifth mistake was stupidity."
"I did NOT make you to be a monster!" Henry snapped.
"No, you did not. That is, and always will be, the issue," Marionette said. Slowly, they pulled their claws out of the wall, the limb falling limp at its side, coated in chips of drywall and leaden paint.
"You made me to protect. To keep safe. To guard those precious souls," it said, and just faintly, Henry shuddered; he would to his dying breath swear it was from a draft, but he knew that cold puff of air had been from anything but the window. "But a shield can only do so much with so little. One cannot protect without a sword as well as a shield…"
Marionette's eyes blazed briefly, flashing with something colder than the abyss of space its eyes belonged in. The claw under Henry's chin sharpened and pressed under his jaw.
"You made me to protect, and yet you would dare not even give me the ability to open a damn box with a couple extra pounds on its lid," Marionette hissed, tone sharpening, growing shill and something other than what its silent tone should sound like. "You would dare be so selfish, so blind, so ignorant, that you would create me, then spit on me by not even giving me the ability to do what it is I was created to do. You would DARE run like a coward into your grave while the souls YOU charged me to protect scream and cry and plead within their monstrous prisons?! You would be so selfish and condemn us?! Condemn her?!"
Henry made a strangled noise in his throat, trembling fingers curled around the Puppet's wrists. It took a moment for the Puppet to realize they had their now steel-hard fingers wrapped tightly around the man's neck like a vice. And the moment it realized its slip in control, every cold ounce of wrath left the hollow Puppet in a grey puff of cold, lifeless breath from his gaping, smiling mouth. Their fingers loosened on Henry until the man gasped and began to cough, clutching his throat as he fought to catch his breath. He coughed and gasped shallowly, eyes watering as he forced himself to look up at the Marionette. The Puppet did not look at him, instead choosing to once more seemingly stare dazedly through the window drapes and into the dark city. Henry knew better though.
He was not the only one who was weak, after all.
The Marionette haunted him, and it was a powerful, terrifying thing; it was cold, frigid really, and its words cut deeper than even its steel-edged claws. It made sure Henry suffered, but never died. It was cruel, but for those Henry tried to forget, it was anything but. In Henry's presence, it contradicted every blip and algorithm of the programming and intent Henry put into it. The voice he had designed - soft and lilting, echoing and whispering between male and female - had somehow become a devilish croon. Hands built to gently take small hands and guide them away from danger were now the envy of the sharpest knife and the strongest deepsea monster. It was everything Henry had hoped it wouldn't be.
But to those lost souls, it was everything Henry intended; it was kind, gentle, tender. It was the soft-spoken, silk and cotton stuffed companion and guardian that played music from a metal heart made of gears and wires. It was mother, father, brother and sister to those weeping ghosts.
To Henry, it was steel, ice and blackness with only the most haunted points of light. It only brought so much comfort and assurance in their shared, skewed goals. It was a voice of reason and madness to the broken man. And no matter how low Henry fell, the Puppet, no matter the circumstance, or how close Henry was to achieving relief, it always, always, pulled Henry back up by his strings.
It would not allow Henry rest until the little ones it looked after got their rest first. It refused to let its most valuable puppet be cut loose so soon.
Henry was a means to an end for the Puppet, a wretched and rusted key to an uncertain future. A simple, necessary evil.
They were, in essence, each other's curses it seems. But they were also weak, broken, fractured inside and out. Marionette just hid its fractures and cracks better.
Henry sniffled, looking up from behind greasy, greying brown bangs at the still Puppet.
"How is she…?" he inquired with a low rasp.
Marionette did not answer at first, seemingly taking its time considering. Its silver eyes expanded into dime-sized disks; a weary, though less agitated expression it could express without warping his permanent grin.
"She is restless, sleepless," it said softly, its voice rueful and tinged with a maternal worry, "She continues to try to give life when it should be left alone."
Henry nodded, head falling forward tiredly. He stared at the striped points of Marionette's stilt-like feet, just as weary. Yet somehow, a part of him took comfort in the Puppet's worried and soft tone. Its care for the ghosts haunting cold, murderous shells had long since surpassed programming and software. To this day, Henry had absolutely no idea just what his creation had become. He had built the Puppet to be a guard, to watch over and care for the kids of the restaurant. But at some point, perhaps even before his daughter had been murdered, it simply…woke up. It was no longer just an animatronic, but an entirely different entity. It was never human, it was never alive, but it lived. And it lived for two things and nothing more; to care for and shelter those who were lost and trapped, and to haunt those who trapped and harmed.
His child - and the many other young victims - were trapped and weeping. But they were not without at least one warm presence. They did not go without at least one entity that tried to soothe their hurts and dry their phantasmal tears.
But the Puppet could only do so much, Henry conceded.
He looked back up at the Puppet, taking note of its current form and what it was made of. Marionette seemed intangible and enigmatic in what it was now made of. Not metal, not plastic, not fabric, not wood. It had long since abandoned such singular, mortal substances. Sometimes it would revert to one depending on its mood, or simple curiosity. Sometimes they appeared to Henry as being made of wood and paint, limbs stiff and creaking with haunted oak and worn nuts and screws. Sometimes they would appear as plastic and hard casings, shiny and saturated, its every movement accompanied by plasticy clicks and creaks. And sometimes they appeared soft, a skin of rich black fabric stuffed with cotton and brittle wires. There were even times they appeared to actually have skin, and a warped bone structure to accommodate its proportions. Those instances were always strange, words never spoken, but eyes of light brown and silver seemingly studying ribs and protruding hip bones under unnaturally thin black skin.
Tonight, Marionette wore an ambiguous form that seemed to settle between flesh and bone, fabric and cotton.
It could only do so much, Henry repeated internally. A Puppet could soothe broken hearts and tame fears for so long. But it could not fight that which harms, that which makes its little ones cry, that which keeps them trapped inside the monsters that ate them up - the monsters, Henry reminds himself, that his daughter deemed the only way of bringing them back to life. Puppets don't fight. Puppets were only made for being controlled by those it it was meant for. Marionette, while powerful and entirely other than what it used to be, was powerless against a child's will.
The first victim; Henry's daughter. Stubborn, ignorant, foolish...just like her father. Only she had dared to take Marionette's strings and make his many mistakes into something far worse.
The aged and worn man regarded the Puppet with bone-deep exhaustion. He considered asking how long it had until it was called back to the restaurant. It only ever appeared to Henry before midnight in the evening hours, before the nightshift. It never appeared in the day, or during the hours of midnight to 6am in the morning. Those were the hours the Marionette's body was no longer its own, when their strings were taken up once more by the ghost of his daughter.
He wondered at the frightening existence; to always be aware that you can be pulled back into blackness at any moment. To know that more than half of your life and sense of self was not your own to control or own. It was a tad ironic actually, because Henry was partly living just as the Puppet was. His daughter will not let her Puppet stray, and the Puppet will not let Henry run or rest. They all had each other on strings.
"What was my sixth mistake?" Henry suddenly asked, tired, aged eyes still on the Marionette.
The Puppet's head tilted to look down at Henry, but the beaten and broken man felt no hostility or sense of smallness this time. He only felt exhaustion and numbness, and perhaps somewhere deep inside him, he hoped for some shred of reassurance; some form of kindness from the entity that haunted him yet provided him with his only means of knowing his daughter was still here.
Marionette's gaze never faltered, but Henry could swear to seeing the edges of the sharp white eyes softening somewhat.
Henry blinked once, and he suddenly found himself lying in his bed. He blinked twice more in hazy confusion, trying to lift his heavy head from his old, flattened pillow in an attempt to look around his room. A narrow shadow fell over him, and his gaze instantly averted to it.
Marionette stared back at Henry calmly, appearing less imposing now that Henry was elevated upon his bed, the Puppet's feet still on the now (somewhat) clean carpet. No traces of his purged poison remained, nor the glass carcasses of gas station whiskey. The white plastic bottle containing potent capsules was also gone, and he had a feeling he was never going to see the damnable bottle again in his life.
The knowledge somehow relieved and infuriated him. But it was as Marionette said; they had a deal.
Or at the very least, he had made a promise. To his daughter, to himself, to those lost souls trapped in his former partner's hellish nightmare, to Marionette…
Tapered black fingers gently touched a sweaty and clammy forehead, as if feeling for a fever. Henry took some odd comfort in the icy touch on his heated skin. He noted Marionette's hand felt oddly like fabric, with a few creased lumps of cotton between non-existent joints and bends.
"Your sixth mistake is not yet made," Marionette said softly, "You tried to see it made numerous times throughout our knowing one another, and have failed each and every time."
"Because of you…" The words would have sounded heated, but not even Henry could muster the strength to sound spiteful.
The Puppet chuckled lowly, the tips of its claws flicking away sweat-soaked bangs from a feverish forehead. "Because of me," it repeated.
Henry hummed, eyes blinking slowly; tired and bone-weary. His eyes slid closed for about five seconds, and by the time he opened them, he noted the sudden change in clothing - his stained and sour button-up and trousers gone, replaced with his comfortable sweatpants and clean under shirt. He was under the thin blankets of his bed now too, and Marionette now stood on his footboard, towering, but not looming. An ominous perch for an equally ominous, lanky gargoyle.
A reminder of Henry's mistakes, but also the one anchor he had left to this earth. And quite possibly, his one key to redeeming himself.
Punishment and pity...what a strange mix, he thought.
He blinked again, eyes closing for eight seconds. Opening them again, he found the Marionette literally standing over him, feet flanking either side of his knees.
"You always come back…" he mumbled.
"That I do," Marionette agreed, its sonorous voice not even disturbing the apartment dustmotes.
"You won't let me go, will you?" Henry asked. Marionette shook its head.
"I cannot allow you to rest, to die, before the the children have their rest first," it said. There was no apology in their tone.
Henry sighed through his nose, dread and resignation coiling in a gnarled knot in his chest.
Eyes shut. Ten seconds. Marionette is looming over him, noses inches apart, frigid, beady eyes bearing into his weary soul.
Henry did not seem to mind.
"Why me?" he asked, "Why not William?"
Eyes shut. Ten and a half seconds. Eyes open - there is only blackness. There is no Marionette, but there are strings on his wrists and ankles. His bedroom is gone, leaving only blackness. He can feel twin stars above is head though, harnessing the threats binding his limbs in spidery black fingers.
Breath having never touched living lungs ghosted past his neck, yet he did not shudder. It was a familiar sensation, one experienced when one is allowed to sleep, but never dream. Such luxuries are given to those who deserve it, and Henry had long since lost that gift.
Yet, he found himself feeling fine with the arrangement now. Marionette's next few words would only cement his fragile resolve.
"Because William Afton cannot be saved," it whispered.
Henry has made many, many mistakes in his life.
One such mistake had resulted in a haunted monster that mocked and tormented him with venomous whispers and bitter ice. Yet that same voice would silence itself when sharp hands decided they did not need to cut, claw and choke. And that same monster was what was keeping his daughter and many other lost souls safe.
Good puppet masters needed to take care of their puppets. Good puppets do not cut their strings and turn on their masters.
No, Henry could not die. He could not take the easy way out for his sins. Marionette would not let him.
He won't die...not yet, that is.
END
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A/N~ So, to clear up any confusion...
Mari here, while a powerful, supernatural entity that was never human, is still imprinted with their function of being A PUPPET. And since Henry's daughter was the first victim and even had the drive to help the next child victims, they are completely under her control during certain times (during night guard shifts and the day). So even though they do not want to add more ghosts to robot shells, they have no choice, as Henry's daughter, while well-meaning, is the one in control of 'giving life'.
Their situation is only made doubly worse because, during its times of primary function, it could not save Henry's daughter. If you have watched playthroughs of Freddy's Pizzeria Simulator and seen the Security Puppet mini-game, you will see why. And that is just cruel; giving someone the responsibility of something, then sabotaging them when you overlook a simple flaw; a literal Achilles heel.
I may create a sequel or even a prequel to this to check in on two other people, one being Mike Schmidt (aka Michael Afton) post-scoop, and one other I will leave as a surprise. Let me know what you think!
~S~