So, uh, I enjoyed writing this chapter. And, like the other chapter, this one is sorta long.

Enjoy!

Mike furiously rubbed his hands together, fingers brittle thanks to the world's first wave of cold. He towed himself through snow, powder stuck in his hairs even when secured underneath his hat. There was once a time where he wished for the cold to come father, hopeful that it would chase away the previous soggy autumn rains. Now he wished it took its time.

Shoveling through the driveway, he took sanctuary underneath the porch. The powerless chandelier hung without an ounce of beauty. It loomed over him, smiling. For better or worse, Mike welcomed himself home.

He slipped his boots off the moment he opened the door, picking them up and placing them on a mat to dry. His fingers were starting to recover their warmth, losing that pink-ish hue. Mike closed the door behind him, and locked it. Any other inhabitants would need a key. Swiping his hat off his head and shoving it carelessly into his pocket, Mike ventured into the kitchen.

The smell of the coffee maker's freshly brewed contents flooded the kitchen. He wrinkled his nose, glad his distaste for the stuff hadn't changed. Instead, he dove straight into the pantry fishing two packets of hot chocolate mix as well as two mugs from the cabinet. He filled both of the mugs two-thirds full of milk and propped them in the microwave. After a small sequence of buttons, the two mugs were set to rotating like two records. Mike left the unopened mix packets on the counter. The snow that sat in his hair had mostly melted at this point. Feeling suddenly stuffy and hot, Michael took his jacket off and draped it over the back of one of the kitchen table's chairs.

Although several weeks before the holiday, the hall was already decked with little lights that hung from the walls. Delicate drawings made with thick pieces of crayon added to the decor. He examined them briefly as he walked past, noticing shapes of reindeers and presents. Mike scratched his arm. The pictures reminded him of the same ones the same artist once drew. Said pictures were probably packed away in a box, tucked forever in the attic or a storage unit somewhere else. All for Evan's sake.

Apparently, Evan didn't remember anything about Fredbear's. Or Freddy's. He recognized the characters because every child his age did, but he didn't remember what the songs were or his favorite ride, or even the week following up to his birthday. MIke remembered everything- he couldn't really forget. And it wasn't like Evan forgot because he wanted to. It was just some forced tragedy burned into his mind. Some sort of amnesia.

Evan remembered Michael though. The good Michael and not the one that made him suffer for five days in a row. He also remembered their mom, and vaguely their dad. But when asked about Elizabeth, Evan didn't remember too much. Just that she got "hurt really bad" and "went away for a while". He remembered even less about Charlie.

Mike hadn't had the chance yet to ask Evan anything about remembering Cassidy. That Fredbear plush still hung around anyways, so maybe? In fact, Mike hasn't even heard from Cassidy since he stayed at the hospital. He doubted she moved on to the afterlife given Mike's dead ends to finding the murder victim's bodies. He had to even admit to himself he was at a dead end. For now.

He spotted a picture that stopped him immediately on his tracks. Just as clumsily drawn as all the other ones, there wasn't much of anything to it. Just five figures, all holding of the figures had bright orange hair, scribbles to resemble curls. Both resembled each other with matching green eyes to pair with the hair, but one of them was shorter than the other. Mike realized that the taller one was supposed to be their mom. That meant the other one was Elizabeth.

The remaining three figures were more identical. All of them had brown hair and blue eyes. All of them ranged from tallest to shortest. A closer look and Michael noticed the tallest one had darker hair, almost bordering to black. It didn't take much effort to conclude who the three were; Evan, Michael himself, and William.

It was a family portrait, which were unfortunately scarce around the house. It was drawn recently too. The wax from the crayon marks still shimmered in the limited light.

Mike thought he would feel some sort of longing or sadness to the image the picture portrayed, but he felt nothing at all.

There were no more pictures that tried to show a perfect family. The rest changed into trees dressed in lights and snowmen. He was partly glad. Most of the pictures crowded around the door leading into Evan's room. Mother had suggested he decorated his door, and so he took that literally and taped hand drawn photos all over it. Decorating bedroom doors was a tradition that was round even when Michael was a kid. The last time he decorated one was before Elizabeth died. Her door was bare and locked. But he was still somewhat glad the tradition was being pushed, to an extent.

Mike emotionlessly passed Afton's always locked office. A smile warmed his features when he found himself standing right in front of Evan's door. The light sound of music chimed through the door. Welcoming himself without invitation, he found Evan sitting on the floor, back pressed against his bed's backboard. Placed a wide half circle before him were four plushies representing four different species of animals ranging in four different colors. Mike looked for the fifth one briefly before spotting it. A golden bear was sitting in Evan's lap, resting somewhat lopsided. In front of the toys was a small hand of cards, faced down, and in the middle of the circle was a deck. Evan looked like he was playing his own version of make-believe poker.

Silently, the boy consulted his bear, who was pushed up-right. Michael watched, amused, as his little brother looked over his inanimate opponents, a small hand of cards pressed close to his face in a fan, eyes shifted in suspicion.

There was no talking. Evan shuffled his cards around, letting Fredbear take a peek. Then his head snapped up. Mike moved a bit into the hall, for some unknown reason scared that Evan saw him, but Evan's attention was on something else.

"It's not cheating," Evan said to one of his plushies. It was hard to tell which one specifically. "Fredbear's just helping me."

The purple one, Bonnie, fell on his face. His cards moved underneath the sudden force of his small body smacking on them. Evan placed his cards down, frowning.

"Of course it's in the rules!" he said, feigning offense. "You guys were the ones who made them!"

None of the plushies said anything. Evan huffed, collecting the cards. He took Chica's and Freddy's, lifted up Bonnie to take his, and was just about to take Foxy's when Evan's hand stopped just a few centimeters shy. Mike watched intently as Evan poked the red fox on the muzzle.

"You can't tell me what's fair when you only see through one eye. Plus, Fredbear doesn't wanna play. He tells me he's not very good."

Foxy fell on his back. A smile warmed on Evan's face. "Alright, I acep... Accept... Actim..."

"Accept," Michael muttered softly into the door.

"A-a-accept!"

Good job!

Evan helped Foxy up from his back. "I accept your apology!"

Ready to move things forward, Michael quietly closed the door, pressing his weight against it to soften the sound. He waited a few moments, counting slowly in his head until he reached fifty. Then, gently, he knocked on the door a few times and opened it.

Evan was spending this time holding a complete deck of cards in his little hands. One short glance at the door was confirmation that he acknowledged Mike's existence. Mike moved more into the room, prepared to talk. He stopped before he could even get a word out at the sight of cards flying all around the room. Evan had tried to shuffle the deck, but his hands weren't coordinated yet enough. Mike stifled a laugh.

"The brown bear is laughing at me too," Evan said. He went on his hands and knees to gather the cards. "He laughs at me a lot."

"Freddy does?"

He looked up at Mike, blue eyes widened with confusion. "Freddy?" Evan shook his head. "He says his name is Gabriel, but then I told him he made that up. Now he likes to laugh at me."

Mike leaned against the door frame, looking at the Freddy plush. "That's not very nice of him."

"I told him that, but then Susie-" Evan pointed to the plush of Chica, the yellow chicken,"-said that it wasn't nice that someone hurt her puppy."

Something inside of Mike took note of what Evan was saying, even if it sounded like sentences formed out of a child's imagination at first glance. He looked at Fredbear, wondering. Deeply interested. Is that their names?

"Susie also told me that Bonnie knew where her puppy was, and that that was nice." The cards were now all collected. Evan set them down in the circle. "I then asked her if that meant Jeremy found her puppy because 'Bonnie' sounded like 'bunny' and he likes the bunny."

"Do these children tell you anything else about Bonnie?" Mike felt like he was on a path, one cleared of most dead ends. He just needed to know the right answers to make the right conclusions.

But Evan just shook his head. That deflated Michael's hopes of getting more leads, but only by a little bit. Currently, it wasn't even the time to dig deeper.

"Well, anyways, I got some hot chocolate in the making. Since it's cold outside, you know. Want some?"

"Yeah!" Evan bounced up from the ground. "With marshmallows too?"

Mike nodded, smiling. Evan gasped, delighted. He ran over to his older brother, stopped on his tracks, rushed back over to his bed, and picked Fredbear off the floor. On Evan's way back to Michael, there was a huge grin on his face. It was almost contagious.

Evan had raced him to the kitchen expectedly beating Mike since he didn't take much effort in the little game. Emerging out from the hall, Evan slid briefly across the kitchen tiles in his socks, scampering over into the pantry. Mike followed afterwards. The pantry was just as dark as the hallway, the light casting from the kitchen through the opened door. All of the shadows disappeared when he flicked the lightswitch. A scene of Evan perched on the tips of his toes appeared, fingers barely grazing the next shelf, which was where the bag of marshmallows sat. Mike stood over him and pushed the bag forwards enough to where it fell gently against Evan's chest. He wrapped his little arms around it with a surprised sound. Fredbear unwillingly fell to the ground.

Evan didn't noticed the absence of the bear until he dropped off the bag into the table. Once he did, he started to look around the chairs and the table. Mike grabbed the plush.

"Does Fredbear like to play hide and seek?"

Evan nodded. "It's his favorite game." He pushed a chair away from the table, crawling underneath on his hands and knees.

Michael watched, calm, the little golden bear looking at him. He looked at it, looking deep into those little black button eyes. As expected, the toy was lifeless. Nothing put a heep of stuffing and fabric. But he knew better. And Evan knew too by the way he talked about them as if they were real. As if they were people.

Something flickered in Fredbear's eyes. He must've only imagined it, but already Michael's interest was captured. And perhaps too quickly. But he saw it, swore on it, until now he saw it again. This time so much clearer. A little light coming from deep inside those eyes. For some reason, Mike knew it just wasn't the reflection of the light.

The loud sound of the table's legs hitting the floor so suddenly and harshly it immediately drew Mike's attention away from the toy animal. A thought dawned in his brain, almost too quickly for him to catch, and he found himself rushing over to the table, shoving pushed chairs out of his way. He expected to find blood, to smell it, and the exception almost drove him crazy. Michael didn't find anything but Evan holding the top of his head cradled in his hands.

Fredbear was dropped to the ground, completely forgotten. Mike got on his knees and moved underneath to huddle with Evan. The space was even more cramped than he remembered. He shifted, neck bent down so he wouldn't bonk his head like a clumsy fool. The vertebrates that met with the beginning of his spine were already starting to cramp. He tuned out his own pain and focused on his little brother.

Michael touched Evan's wrists lightly. "I hit my head," Evan whispered in response.

"Does it hurt?"

Evan shook his head. Michael knew that was the reply he would get, even if it didn't feel right.

"I didn't expect it."

Evan skilled doctors couldn't fix a damaged nervous system.

"You want me to check your head?" Michael asked. "Just in case?"

Evan nodded. Michael scooted closer and moved those curly tendrils of hair until he could see that scared scalp. He smiled reassuringly just as there was a knock on the front door.