Author's Note: Trigger warning for alcohol use and humiliation, and again, there is some minor adult content in this chapter but it's only implied. (And those readers/reviewers who enjoyed adorably naive!Phone Guy in the last chapter might like this one.)
"Hey, Scuzzbucket, hop in. We're going back in time!" Using the typical, less-than-tender way he and Jeremy addressed each other, Mike Schmidt pulled his battered station wagon into his friend's driveway late the following night, calling out through the open window.
"Sure thing, you old burnout. Just let me stash this ax inside." Jeremy motioned for him to wait a moment, rising from the porch steps where he had been strumming his favorite guitar and returning it to a stand he conveniently kept just inside his front door. "Sorry for the delay, but the humidity really warps 'em if you leave 'em out overnight," he explained once he dropped onto the vinyl bench seat of the wagon, feeling its frame noticeably lower on its worn shocks with the weight of its added passenger. He readjusted his trademark red bandanna and grinned; it had been far too long since he and Mike had gotten together and he realized how much he had missed aimlessly cruising around in that pathetic old car, even missed its perpetual smell of fast-food grease and the oil it burned at an astonishing rate. Most of all, he had missed Mike's company, and having somebody else who knew what it been like to have one's entire world shattered in just a single, ill-fated work week.
"Humidity? Yeah, funny you should mention that," Mike said wryly, smoothing a hand down his slightly mildewed uniform shirt as he turned the wagon back onto the dirt road, the cloud of dust it had kicked up faintly visible in his taillights. "The place I worked at? It's a total mold festival after only five years of being closed, and wait until you see how awful everything they dragged out of it looks. At least your restaurant escaped that fate."
"Only marginally," Jeremy reminded him. His workplace, marred by tragedy, had stood vacant for some time after his fateful week there, but as management could scarcely afford to let a newly-constructed building slide into disrepair while it languished unused, it eventually was placed on the real estate market. The entrepreneur who purchased it for a song had carved up the building's interior into a dimly-lit maze of storage units and sound-proofed practice spaces for local bands, and the last time Jeremy had tagged along to another group's jam session in one of the foam-lined cubicles, he'd been astonished to find virtually no traces of the building's previous purpose. The hallways where children had once run screaming with glee were now somber and poorly-lit, and when he had twisted the door handle to that former party room, where it had happened, the experience had been anticlimactic.
What should I have expected? he chided himself, recalling the way the space, standing open and not yet rented out at the time, had simply been...empty, stripped of its birthday banners and tables and chairs. A single foil star had still dangled from the ceiling, the sole survivor from a decorative mobile that had been hastily ripped down. It's not like they would have preserved the site the way it was that day in 1987. Everyone was eager to forget that place. And if I only could, I'd do the same.
"So you said that what's left of those toy animatronics are on display at the spookhouse?" the former guard asked, watching Mike as he drove with one arm slung over the open window, his thinning hair fluttering wildly in the breeze under the brim of his ball cap. "Even, uh, that one?"
Mike's throat moved noticeably as he swallowed hard and reluctantly nodded, knowing exactly what Jeremy was referring to, but his friend was already grinning widely, hardly the reaction he had expected.
"Heh, so did I ever tell you how they scrapped those animatronics?" He pulled his flannel shirt more tightly around himself, shivering in the cool night breeze. "Miller and I sorta had a hand in that."
"You're kidding! Now this I've gotta hear." Mike matched Jeremy's grin with one of his own, albeit a little wistfully at the mention of the lost mentor he had never met.
"Naw, it's a story best saved for another time, and right now, this is what you've gotta hear," Jeremy said, pulling a tape from the widest pocket of the frayed denim vest he wore under his flannel shirt. "It's our band's latest demo, and I went to the trouble of recording it on a cassette tape since you're probably the last guy I know who's never upgraded to at least a CD player in his car."
As the twin assault of shrieking vocals and blistering guitar notes began emanating from the stereo, Mike inwardly thrilled at the sight of Jeremy reveling in some vintage-era headbanging, thoroughly enjoying his own form of music therapy that had seen him through his worst days. His ears were still ringing when the station wagon pulled up next to the horror attraction, and Jeremy hurriedly ducked lower in the seat, masked in the darkness as his friend's youthful boss bounded out to greet him just yards away.
"Hey, Guard-bro! You'll never get a load of the great news I've got for you tonight!" Randy cried, taking Mike's hands and whirling him around with unbridled enthusiasm. The security guard chuckled as his hat flew from his head, feeling relieved to see Randy had recovered his infectious zest for life.
"Uh, hopefully the good news is that your old man fixed the faulty ventilation system I told you about?" Mike asked hesitantly, dismayed somewhat when his boss's face fell.
"We're kinda still working on that one, to be honest," he sighed. "He says it's no ventilation error, and that I should ditch all this moldy stuff and start fresh, but I don't want to fall back on some lousy bedsheet ghosts like the ones in the park's funhouse." The corners of Randy's mouth curled up into a mysterious smile. "Besides, after what I found today, when it comes to coolness and total authenticity, you might say Fazbear's Fright has really leveled up. I'll explain it in the phone call."
The day after Marjorie had spoken to the police and presented the new evidence that already promised to change the entire direction of their investigation, Clyde stood next to Derrick in the dining area of the pizzeria, feeling reduced to a jittery mess as he stole a glance over the top of his clipboard at his assembled coworkers and managers from both restaurant locations. In preparation for the planned reopening of the satellite location, the security duo had been charged with giving a presentation outlining the many new policies and rules that they had helped management develop to prevent another tragedy as well as improve the company's safety record.
Derrick regarded his fellow officer, who clearly hadn't grown any more comfortable speaking in public since he had been coerced, two years before, into serving as the emcee for the grand unveiling of the then-new animatronic characters. The kid's knees are practically knocking together over giving a little talk, he thought derisively. Total security guard material, right?
"Hey relax, Loverboy! Remember, just imagine the audience in their underwear and you'll lose those jangled nerves," he urged him in a hushed voice, leaning in close and peering down at his trainee's shirt collar. Clyde had arrived to work earlier that morning with the collar of his uniform shirt worn straight up, like a vampire's cowl, and Derrick had slyly observed him bringing a hand up to it frequently, no doubt assuring himself it remained in its unusual position. What he saw now brought a wicked grin to his face.
"Loverboy?" Clyde asked in an equally low yet amused tone. "I think I'll stick with 'Deputy' after all. Heh, but no thanks, I'd rather not picture our coworkers that way."
"I'll bet there's one you wouldn't mind picturing that way," Derrick taunted, delighting when Clyde's face reddened and he shot him a warning glare. The exceedingly modest training coordinator may have initially appeared unfazed that his bizarre makeout session with Marjorie had been interrupted, but later during their shift he had seemingly had second thoughts, begging Derrick to at least keep quiet for her sake if not his own.
Or at the very least if you can't resist having a field day with this one, just don't mention the Fredbear suit, he'd pleaded, both of them well aware that if news of such a blatant safety violation reached management it would no doubt cost him his job. And thus Derrick had remained surprisingly silent, leaving Clyde perplexed when the night had ended without a single coworker so much as giving him a knowing look.
The fateful day of the spring-lock accident, I vowed to do two things: return and utterly destroy the place that ruined me and and end you, Derrick thought maliciously as his trainee slid the first transparency onto an overhead projector. I never said exactly when I'd do either, but today seems like an auspicious day to utterly destroy you in front of everyone. The restaurant can wait.
"Knock 'em dead, Sport!" he urged, giving his colleague a terrific clap on the back that knocked his ball cap askew and sent the collar of his oversized shirt flopping back down to its typical position.
Distracted by his anxiety, Clyde failed to notice the adjustment to his clothing, which had revealed a clearly visible and angry welt on the side of his neck. In his haste to extricate himself from the spring-lock suit the day before, he had accidentally set off one of the mechanisms, receiving a formidable blow from one of the solid steel post builts into the collar of the costume for his trouble. Though he had been intensely relieved that he had activated one of the more benign spring-locks in the suit, as most were cruelly sharp and far less forgiving, the area had began bruising almost immediately. Fearing someone might recognize he had been foolhardy enough to disobey his own advice and put on a decommissioned costume, he had scrambled to devise a way to hide the telltale mark, finally opting to turn up his shirt collar.
"So in conclusion, we are more committed than ever to protecting our valued workers and patrons alike, and remember to not only smile, but keep an eye out for others. A child's safety may depend on you," Clyde said, stepping away from the projector and returning his attention to the audience. He had only made it through the talk by keeping his eyes locked on the floor or his notes, but when he finally tried to gauge the audience's reaction, he incredulously discovered he had the undivided attention of the entire room.
There, that hadn't been half-bad. The dreaded presentation was now behind him, he would soon be headed off to the job he had long hoped for, he was still glowing from what had actually been his first kiss, Derrick was being strangely civil and best of all, Hermie would likely be freed within days.
"Are there any questions?" Derrick asked, having conspicuously stared at his fellow presenter's bruised neck the entire time, as had everyone else.
"I have one for Clyde." Nathan Faz's mouth curled into a mysterious smile. "Who's the lucky woman, you sly devil? She must be quite some girl!" Once someone had dared to voice aloud the question that had been on everyone's minds during the entire lecture, laughter erupted around the room in response to the first remotely mirthful incident the pizzeria had seen after three solid weeks of gripping tension.
His young officer's jaw dropped and he whirled on Derrick. "You told them after all?" he wailed, still not grasping what everyone could plainly see.
"I didn't say a word!" Derrick said adamantly, amused at Clyde's cluelessness and greatly enjoying the fallout from his mischief, which was only getting better by the minute. As a former spring-lock performer himself who was all too familiar with the exact location of every mechanism inside the costume, he had guessed the true cause of the bruising. The clumsy fool should be thrilled he got off so light, considering what those things did to me, he fumed, infuriated that the rookie officer would nonchalantly put on a dangerous costume to impress his girlfriend.
Ready for the consummate moment of his plan, he clamped a hand to his mouth in mock surprise, pretending to be the last in the room to take notice of Clyde's condition, before leaning forward.
"I really didn't tell a soul, you gave it away yourself," he whispered in his ear. "Now I see what you were trying to hide; that's a huge love bite you've got there." When the other man just stared back at him blankly, he inwardly cursed. "You've got a massive hickey on your neck that you could practically see from space, Loverboy!" he hissed, slightly more audibly.
Clyde gulped and his hands flew to his shirt collar, pulling it closed, but the damage was already done and there was no sense in denying everybody hadn't already seen it. Inwardly panicking, he knew he couldn't reveal the real reason for the mark; it would put his entire career at stake! The officer-in-training busied himself gathering up the documents he and Derrick had prepared for the meeting, eager to make a hasty retreat.
"We want all the details, so c'mon, dish! And really, who is she?" Mitch, the manager of the satellite location, demanded jestfully. Seated next to him, Marjorie was the only one not at least cracking a smile, and she pushed back her chair, starting to rise to a stand.
No. Clyde was not about to allow her needlessly take the blame for this one and suffer the same teasing he was certain to endure until the others finally grew tired of their joke. Besides, as heavenly as their brief kiss had been, they weren't a couple and she didn't feel comfortable dating coworkers, as she had gently and tactfully reminded him the next morning.
"It's nobody you'd know." Suddenly finding his voice again, the rookie officer was relieved to see Marjorie sink back into her seat, her face a mask of confusion at his motives.
"He's right," Derrick abruptly cut in, startling Clyde with his sudden show of support. While Derrick expected the kid to quit in utter humiliation, he at least wanted to remain on good terms with Marjorie, should she see him in a new light after his romantic competition was out of the picture. "Since it's apparently okay to talk about this type of stuff at Fazbear Entertainment board meetings, let's just say we two guards caught a late movie at the drive-in last night-"
"And parked in the back row!" someone called out, causing Derrick to break into a wide grin. Clyde clutched his clipboard of notes to his chest, astonished at the wild tale that was playing out and yet unable to contest any of it without selling out Marjorie.
"Well, we moved there once he met some girl at the snack bar and invited her over to his car. I'm not really sure what happened after that; I stayed in the front seat." He threw an arm over his trainee's shoulder, pretending to congratulate him, while Clyde took a sudden interest in the tiled floor. "I guess maybe I can't call you a kid anymore, huh?"
"Now that'll be enough," Faz said in warning, sensing his worker's discomfort. "Maybe it was my fault for veering off-topic in the first place, but unless anyone actually has any safety-related questions, we'd best adjourn this meeting. What my employees do when they're not on company time shouldn't be of concern to anyone else."
Clyde had already bolted from the room, destroyed just as Derrick had intended and unable to take any more. Trudging down the hall, he turned into the security office and slumped against the desk, pulling his knees to his chest and bowing his head low, trying to shut out the entire world.
"Hey, is there room for two more?" Marjorie knelt next to her friend, not used to seeing her coworker in such distress, while Derrick kept back at a distance, leaning casually against the far wall of the office as though he had little awareness of the trouble he'd caused. Clyde looked up and nodded weakly, so defeated he no longer even tried to hold his shirt collar closed. "And I know all too well what that really is," she added, bringing a hand up to his injury and feeling bad when he winced despite her gentle touch. "You should have told me you suffered a spring-lock failure. I should have never asked you to try on the suit."
"Failure?" Clyde shrugged hopelessly. "More like user error. I guess I got in over my head. Good thing these things were decommissioned; I'm losing my touch."
"And most of your common sense," added Derrick flatly from across the room before his tone softened. "Really though, I can tell you're sore at me right now but I was just trying to be helpful. You wanted to protect her but you clammed up, so I made you up a nice little alibi on the fly."
"Nice?" Clyde sputtered, incredulous. "Thanks to you, everyone, and I do mean everyone, thinks I went all the way with someone that I just met in the back seat of a car with you practically cheering us on. Thanks for nothing!"
"Okay, so that would be more than a little out of character for you, but what was I supposed to do?" Derrick replied, irritation creeping into his voice. "Just be glad they bought the story and didn't figure out you really got slammed with a spring-lock when those things were supposed to be off-limits, because you've got to admit that's a whole new level of stupid. Besides, maybe they'll see you as more of an adult now." Beside him, Marjorie rolled her eyes in aggravation.
How would doing something so reckless make me more of an adult? Clyde thought scornfully as he touched a lighter to the cigarette that he barely remembered removing from the pack he kept in his pocket. Losing your best friend when you're fifteen makes you grow up pretty fast, the last time I checked.
Dismayed to see her coworker falling back on his old vices, Marjorie interjected, breaking the silence.
"Come on, Derrick, that's hardly the case. You've confessed to - maybe even bragged about - having a few flings and I didn't see any remarkable change in your maturity level." Her coworker fixed her with an amused nod of agreement, though his smirk faded when she spoke again. "Anyway, guys, I guess this is as good a time as any to say I've put in my two weeks' notice as of this morning. I'm a big believer in following your dreams, and I've been squirreling away my earnings for years. Last month I made the audition for dance school, so it's finally going to happen."
"Wow, so you're off to the big city," murmured Clyde in awe, poorly hiding his conflicted feelings. He was thrilled for Marjorie, as she had shared her long-term dreams with anyone who would listen, and though he knew this day would eventually come, her announcement was nothing short of bittersweet.
"You two aren't going to stay here forever, are you?" she implored the security duo. Derrick quickly replied, assuring her he would happily move on to a better job should the opportunity present itself, while Clyde simply shrugged.
"I dunno," he stammered when he finally realized she anticipated an answer. "I mean, I'm headed to the satellite location in two weeks, even if the security gig turned out to be a bit of a pay cut. But I've never really thought about jumping ship and working anywhere else, to be honest." He ran a hand through his feathered hair, as he tended to do when he was anxious. "I don't have any other work skills to speak of, and most guys my age are now college grads or at least close to it, so how do I compete against that?" His voice trailed off.
"Still, Fazbear Entertainment is toxic," Marjorie asserted, and Derrick subtly brought a hand down to rest on his injured leg, nodding in silent agreement. "I've been here long enough to see that this place eats people alive, and just promise me you'll both get out while you still can."
Rising stiffly to his feet while considering his friend's advice, Clyde crushed out the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray on the desk, then looked ruefully down at the lighter in his hand.
"Y'know what?" He wrenched open the desk drawer and released the lighter, watching it fall into the drawer where its landing was cushioned by the stacks of envelopes and rubber bands and other office supplies, then shoved the drawer closed so forcefully the sturdy metal fan sitting atop the desk was left teetering on its base. "I quit. I-I don't mean I quit this place, at least anytime soon, but out of respect to someone else, I'm done lighting up." He shrugged at Derrick. "I shouldn't care about my reputation around here, anyway, because two more weeks and I'm gone."