Things are happening to get Matthew to be part of the family.
Take your place among the lost.
What was it he hated most about the current situation he found himself in? Was it the reminiscing of the past? Talking to a person he'd never met before about the sore subject that was his family? The fact that the woman before him was asking all sorts of questions she had no right to ask? It was something in between. He knew the woman meant no offence, that she was merely doing her job and that she probably hated having to ask a seven-year-old to think about painful memories. He didn't blame her, but he also didn't appreciate just how much she was pushing it. This had been going on for the past hour. The woman was trying to narrow down the list of who he could be, which was why he had to remain vague.
He understood that she needed to learn as much about him as possible and that for him to remain with Henry he'd have to give a lot of information in return. He knew his predicament was shady to say the least. He had no birth certificate here, nothing to legitimize his existence or even citizenship. He was a shadow that couldn't be identified, a fact that could bring a lot of unwanted attention.
Henry had announced that he had officially began the adoption process about three weeks ago and not long after people were already showing up on their doorstep. An annoying, but necessary procedure that Matt would just have to endure through. He expected that there'd be people coming over to inspect things, ask questions and the like, obviously, but he never thought they would do it so often. Almost every day one or two social workers would come over to talk. Usually, they would speak with Henry and Charlie in private, either together or separately, but never in the same room as Matt. When he'd ask the man what he discussed he would always get brushed off with something along the lines of "there's nothing for you to concern yourself with, everything will turn out fine".
Henry had made it clear that he had no intention of divulging what he and the social workers would speak of, but Matthew could make a guess. Most likely, he'd been asked if he was ready to take on a kid, if he could provide for said kid, Matt still had no idea what the man did for a living since Fredbear's wasn't open yet, but in truth he didn't much care, and what he thought of the aforementioned child. Having little luck with Henry, the boy had turned to his daughter to find out what the workers would inquire about. Thankfully, Charlie had no problem letting Matt in on the "private conversations". She had been asked a multitude of questions ranging from what she thought about the boy to how she felt about having him be a part of her family, as well as what he might've shared about his origins, so nothing out of the ordinary.
The reason for his own inquires was to better prepare for when he'd be asked to talk about himself so he could come up with a plausible story. He'd settled on playing the victim, claiming to suffer from memory loss due to whatever happened to his parents. After all, a little boy losing his family was no doubt a traumatic experience that could justify memory loss. He could cook up this idea that his mind had blocked out the memories of what had supposedly happened in order to shield him from the trauma, something that actually happened to victims of tragedies, so that the workers would have to settle on buying his spiel without much prodding. He did feel bad about faking it, especially since people actually went through that sort of stuff but it was required of him to do so in order to save so many others. Plus, it wasn't like he was 100% lying. He did lose his family because he'd been brought here so at least the pain he felt was real. No one could complain about him not knowing what it was like to lose someone he loved.
"You said you don't remember what your last name is, sweetie?" the woman broke him out of his thoughts.
"… Yeah. I don't remember a lot of things from before. It's all very fuzzy…" the woman's expression was pitying. She shifted in her seat on the armchair before him.
"What do you remember about your parents?" curse her and the need to document him. He felt like a lab rat for having to be interviewed. Matt wondered what she'd tell her superiors about him. Would they make a sort of file on him? He didn't know how those things worked. In any case, he needed to at least give her some answers, no matter how lacking they might be. He couldn't just keep quiet.
"My mother, uh, I know she had brown hair and uh… green eyes, I think? I…" he prepared himself for what he was about to say. "I don't remember her name." the sentence came out as more of a whisper than anything else. Of course, he knew his mother's name, but the woman in front of him, he hadn't bothered to memorize her name, didn't need to know that. Looking up he saw her biting her lower lip. Matthew averted his gaze soon after, not wanting to maintain eye contact. He was doing a pretty good job of playing the victim, it seemed.
Charlie, who had been sitting next to him had not said a word since they had begun, she didn't need to. Her presence was comfort enough for him. Perhaps she didn't know what to say, or maybe she thought it was best to let Matt speak without interrupting him. She settled on simply holding his hand with both of her own, tracing her thumb across his back palm. He didn't dare look at her. She deserved better than him lying to her face in such a manner, making her feel sorry for him, and he was sorry she was stuck with him. A required evil however, to ensure that she wouldn't suffer from a premature death.
"I see… And what about your father?" the woman asked. Matt raised his shoulders, shaking his head while keeping his mouth in a thin line and looking to the side.
"Can we please talk about something else? I don't really want to continue this…" he trailed off. The woman's face radiated concern and care, the sort of motherly affection one could expect of older women. And she did look quite old, evident by the snow adorning her hair and her wrinkled visage, probably somewhere in her 50s if he had to guess. She must've worked in this profession for a long time. He just hoped he'd be able to fool her.
"Of course, dear. I'm sorry to ask so many questions, I know how hard it must be for you." she said after nodding.
"Sorry to not be much help, ma'am."
"It's not your fault." it is, his mind supplied unhelpfully. "No one expects anything of you. And I told you, you don't have to call me ma'am, I'm not that old, you know."
"Okay…"
"So, tell me, how do you like it here?" finally! It had taken a while to switch the subject. At last, he was able to talk about something else.
"It's been great, uh, Mr. E- I mean, Henry has been great. He's very kind and so is Charlie." He flashed the girl next to him a small smile, which she returned. Her eyes shinned like shooting stars, radiating infinite compassion. Her reassurance and support meant more to him than she could ever know. "It's nice that I'm not alone. I…" he paused, thinking on how to formulate his next words. "I don't want to go away. From here… Please don't take me away…" he faced the woman, putting on the best puppy dog eyes he could muster, pleading with the elderly woman.
Ah, it's so degrading to act this way. But, if I can convince the workers not to take me away by guilt tripping them then that's what I'm going to do, he lamented. Getting humiliated was a small price he was willing to pay, however, in the grand scheme of things.
"I promise you we'll do everything in our power to make sure you're safe and happy, dear." clever how she didn't really respond to his begging, implying that there was a possibility for Matt to get sent someplace else.
"Thank you." he settled on replying.
"It's no problem. All we want to do is help you." she smiled warmly, clasping her hand. "Well, I think that was enough for today. Children like you should be outside playing, not getting bored talking to old ladies." she got up from the armchair and made her way to the kitchen entrance where her colleague had finished discussing with Henry. The woman turned around and waved at the two of them. "I'll see you next time. Take care of each other, dearies."
"You too, miss Davis!" Charlie exclaimed, waving as well.
Ah, so that's her name. Let's see how long it'll take for me to forget it, the boy thought.
"Bye." he said simply. These conversations were beginning to drain him. Getting grinded for answers was horrible, but at least the people were half pleasant. Watching as Henry led the workers outside, Matthew propped back into the couch sighing. Charlie leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder, hands still stroking his own with wholehearted care. A comfortable silence spread between the two kids. He closed his eyes for the moment, enjoying the soothing peace.
His mind, however, did not allow him a moment's rest. Whenever he had time to spare and wasn't concentrating on the present it would always wander to the same subject. It was hardly possible to focus on anything else. The reason he was here, the events that would happen, the man behind them all. Truth be told he was proud of the progress he had done in the past weeks. After noting down all relevant lore the boy hadn't wasted any time in beginning to piece together a timeline. Provided the world he currently resided in followed the games' lore to a tee then the first major event would be the opening and immediate closure of Circus Baby's Pizza World in early 1983 or even sooner, arguably the easiest tragedy to prevent. The date didn't really matter on this particular event as he'd hear about the opening from the Afton children. All he'd have to do was keep an eye on Baby the whole time and not get close. He could even pretend to be interested in Circus Baby so that when Elizabeth would sneak off to see her, he could accompany the girl. Easy enough.
He would have to make sure the restaurant would close, however, to ensure that no child would get kidnapped by the robots when no one was looking, although he wasn't sure how he was going to accomplish that. Maybe he could set the place on fire or something, even though arson rarely works in this franchise. Interesting food for thought, he supposed. He'd consider it.
The next major event would be Charlie's death, presumably on her birthday, although that wasn't confirmed to his knowledge. The only way of preventing it that Matt could think of would be to accompany her every time she went to Freddy's and keep her out of harm's way. He'd also had to pay close attention to the weather since on the night that she'd die it would be raining.
The bite of 83' would also be pretty easy. Stay with Evan and if it came down to it fight Michael and his trash friends. Alternatively, he could mess up Fredbear so he'd malfunction and be taken off stage before the bullies could put Evan in its mouth.
The MCI was a tricky one. Despite what many would think, Matt would put it after Charlie's death the same year, 1983. It wouldn't be the first event in the timeline but it also wouldn't take place in 1985 as that incident was a tad too different from the games one. Dates in FNaF games are pretty scarce, even in the early games so it was great that he had a clue to go off of. Judging by the newspaper clippings in FNaF 1 the children would go missing around June on separate days. Susie would be first and Cassidy would presumably be last. For this one he would have to befriend the kids so they'd trust him and then he'd have multiple options of dealing with it.
"Hey, Matt?"
He could tell the staff about an employee leading kids in a back room, he could wreck the Springbonnie suit so William would have nothing to disguise himself as or he could even "bump" into the man to accidentally cause a springlock failure, although that would probably traumatize everyone present, as well as cause a ton of problems for the company, and Henry, who didn't deserve it, due to lawsuits by justifiably angry parents, from which Freddy's would probably never recover, so this option was off the table.
He prayed there wouldn't be any unforeseen things interfering and that this universe would stay true to the lore as much as it could. Since he came here nothing unexpected had happened but that didn't mean it would remain that way. At any time, something could go wrong and Matt would never predict it. The boy hoped that whatever had brought him here put him in a world where his knowledge could be useful.
"Matt."
Of course, he wasn't blind to the "easiest" way of preventing everything, which was to kill William. While it was the simplest method of dealing with this Matt was… well… he wasn't sure if he could go through with it. If he was being honest, William Afton terrified and disgusted him. It'd be no easy feat to off him. The man was capable of killing at least 11 children without getting caught. In a weak body such as the one he was inhabiting he wouldn't have any chances of winning unless he took the man by surprise. Even if he went with something more subtle like, say, poison, there was no guarantee the man would die. He would most likely survive and come back, like he always did. After all, in the books he survived a springlock failure, something that should've killed him.
And then it'd be over. Afton's ego and arrogance made him an idiot but he was still an incredibly intelligent man, he'd figure out it was Matthew and then get rid of him.
Killing William should only be a last resort in case things get desperate like me getting sent to an orphanage or a foster home. If that happens then the best course of action would be to grab the nearest sharp object and shove it into Willy's throat when I have the opportunity. But only if things get that out of control.
"Matt!"
Was Matthew a coward for not going with the most effective solution. Maybe. If one really squinted at it. But as far as the boy was concerned, he wasn't going to attempt to directly fight a monster if he didn't have to.
Why does he have to be deranged? Why can't he be like Henry? Why does he have to be a bloodthirsty murderer? the boy asked himself. Was it wrong of him to not try and understand what made the man be like that, to not try to prevent it? He supposed it was wrong to not try and help, but in his defense, he had no idea just how far-gone William was. No reason was ever given as to his murderous nature. The desire for immortality wasn't one as it was never explained what caused it. Did William have a bad childhood, did something in his adult life cause him to pursue immortality, was that man even interested in eternal life at this point in time, the boy just didn't know.
As far as Matt knew, Afton had always been a sick, obsessive, psychotic control freak. Trying to get close to him would only spell disaster. No. He needed to focus on stopping the man, not be his friend, bleh, or something equally repulsive. Matthew made a promise to stop William, he wasn't going to break it in a futile attempt to save a man that was too far gone for help. An idealist would disagree with the boy and do everything in his or her power to save a monster like Afton but Matt wasn't that kind of person. He was the one brought to a different time so he was going to choose to value innocent lives over that of a demon. Whatever complaints other people would have with his way of dealing with stuff he didn't care; they could screw themselves. He'd like to see someone do better than him in his position.
"Matthew!" Charlie almost shouted, finally grabbing the boy's attention. Startled, he opened his eyes and looked to his right at the girl.
"Fu- uh, I mean, sorry, um… what is it?" she eyed him for a moment before speaking.
"I wanted to tell you that you're very brave for talking to miss Davis. I… I know it's hard to talk about it and I'm sorry we're not much help." he wanted to respond but was cut off by her. "But I promise I'll be there for you, if you need help with anything or just want to talk. Dad too. He's going to win and you'll stay with us. I don't care what some documents say, you are part of our family and you won't ever be alone." she reached a hand up to rub his shoulder.
"Thank you, Charlie. Really. I'm grateful for all you two have done for me when you didn't have to and I'm glad you were here. I don't think I would've been able to go through with it if you weren't here. So, thanks for the support. It means a lot." he wasn't sure how to go about this.
"It's no trouble, Matt. I just want to see you happy." she said truthfully. Since he came here, he kept getting blown away by the kindness these people were capable of. Every day he'd be more and more amazed at just how pure they were. The pessimistic part of the boy would often bug him with thoughts meant to disprove the Emilys' good nature, making him think that all of it was fake when in reality it couldn't be truer. No matter how hard it was to accept, their care was genuine. Another reason for him to fight to keep them safe.
"Heh, well, I'm… getting there. Slowly. It's going to take a while for me to adjust to everything, you know?" she nodded.
"Nobody is rushing you."
"Yeah. I'll be alright, eventually. I'm getting more content with the memory loss." his heart ached as he lied to her. Unless the being that took him here decided to be benevolent, he'd never see anyone from before ever again. It took him some time to accept that fact but since there was nothing he could do about it there was no reason for him to dwell on it lest it bring him down and distract him from his self-imposed mission.
"You can be angry with it, Matt, no one would fault you for it. It's not fair to just… forget all about your family. What happened to you wasn't okay." it also wasn't fair to get killed by your crazy uncle he wanted to say.
"I know, but, what, you want me to be angry?"
"No, but keeping all of those emotions bottled up isn't healthy. You need time to grieve and stuff, to… blow off some steam, I guess." a lesser person might've snapped at the girl when all she was trying to do was help. Matthew didn't count himself among that crowd.
"That's just how I function, I'm not the type of guy to lash out or whatever. But you're right, it wouldn't be okay to just hold everything inside." He was beginning to see what she wanted. "Look, I'll make you a deal. If I ever feel ticked off, I'll come to vent to you about it." She smiled.
"Deal. That's what I'm here for, Matt."
Carrying everyone in her arms, huh? She's too good for this world.
"Kay. Welp, with all of that sappy shit out of the way-"
"Language." He rolled his eyes.
"Sappy crap out of the way… could I get a hug?"
"Anytime." Charlie didn't even wait as she wrapped her arms around him, which he returned. "And here I was under the impression you thought I was the sappy one." she teased; amusement clear in her voice.
"Shut it." he said, wanting to enjoy the moment.
If there was one obvious conclusion he had drawn out of this whole discussion, it was that Charlotte Emily gave the best damn hugs ever.
o0o
Sitting on his bed, he glanced at the door. It was locked, naturally. The bedside lamp provided the necessary light for him to read through his notebook. Reading about murdered children and the like wasn't the best idea if he planned to sleep soundly but then again, he's been having nightmares lately and they are very… disturbing. They're not like normal nightmares, no, they're more akin to analog horror if anything. The worst one was few days ago, he had a dream where he was wandering through the dark with his only companion being distorted 80s music that he couldn't make out. Eventually, he had stumbled upon a door and when he opened it, he, well, he just shouldn't have. The first thing he noticed was that the music ended. Despite it being dark, he could see six chairs standing before him, all occupied with the corpses of three girls and three boys.
He knew who they were and he recognized the girls. The one on the left was Susie while the other two on the right were Cassidy and Charlie. The boys were in the middle but he hadn't seen them before. Still, it wasn't hard to figure out who they were. Colored party hats sat on their heads. Their bodies were mangled, having their limbs either bent in awkward angles or missing entirely. Pale faces devoid of life with empty eyes stared into his soul. The children's mouths were hanging open in forced smiles, betraying all the suffering they had gone through. Dried streaks of red coursed down their cheeks from their dull eyes. And the smell… He wasn't supposed to smell when dreaming.
He wanted to look away but couldn't, as something was keeping him in place, and so he was left to observe what had become of the kids. Charlie's whole neck was bruised, Cassidy had been stabbed countless times in the abdomen, Susie had been stabbed and had her throat cut, one of the boys had the side of his head caved in while the other two appeared to have been beaten to death on top of everything else. The gruesome sight engraved itself in his mind.
He wanted to scream, to cry and to run away but he couldn't. All he could do was watch. So, he watched, for what felt like hours, he did the only thing he was capable of doing. After some time, a figure emerged from the darkness unannounced. It stood behind the chairs with a present box in its hands. It was a familiar golden rabbit. The synthetic fur of its hands was covered in red. It didn't speak, it just stood there and watched, much like himself. The rabbit's eyes judged him for a moment before it slowly approached. When it was right in front of him it handed him the present. His hands moved on their own and took the present from the rabbit. They opened it to reveal his own severed head, Matthew's head. His lips were stretched into the same smile as the kids'. "You can't" his decapitated visage said.
Matthew dropped the box and looked up only to find that the rabbit was gone. Instead, the children's smiles had gotten even larger to the point where they reached their ears. "What's the matter, Matthew? I thought you wanted a family." spoke a muffled, British voice behind him. A soft hand gripped his shoulder as the he turned around to face the rabbit. Springbonnie smiled as well before he started crackling with laughter. As the rabbit laughed, its hands moved up and tightened around Matthew's throat, squeezing. That was when the dream had ended.
The boy was used to nightmares, but he couldn't recall when he had ever experienced one as bad as that one. What made it worse was that he couldn't wake up from them even when he realized he was dreaming. They'd only end in the morning when he had to get up. In the past, when he had bad dreams all he had to do was close his eyes inside the dream and focus on waking up, provided he knew he was dreaming, and that would be that. It seemed that he couldn't do so here, for whatever reason. Matt hoped it'd be different this night so he could get a good sleep. It was starting to show that he had trouble sleeping and he didn't want to worry the Emilys.
He sighed, closing the notebook and placing under the mattress. Everything about his nightmares was similar to the media he had watched back in his world. It appeared that his mind took inspiration from his memories of analog horror to create such hellish dreams. The boy wasn't sure why it was happening, perhaps it was a way for his subconscious to express its fear of the situation he found himself in. His heart clenched at the image of Charlie and all the others being dead.
That was what would await him if he failed, that and so much more suffering. But he shouldn't let himself be discouraged by some creepy dreams. He still had time to get things straight. This game of cat and mouse had only just begun, and even though he didn't know which one he currently was, he was certain he'd end up being the winner. He had to, because so much was at stake, so many lives.
Matthew rubbed his temples, shaking his head. Charlie's birthday would be coming up pretty soon. May 13th, just like in the novels. Honestly, the boy had no clue what to get her. He wanted it to be something significant, to show his appreciation for all the support and care she had showed him. Even after living with them for about a month, he still barely knew anything concrete about her. Like what kind of gifts did she fancy? Should he make her, like, a drawing? She'd probably like it, but then again, she'd like any sort of gift. Eh, maybe he could ask Henry about it. Here's hoping the man wouldn't just say something close to "anything you get her is fine".
He wondered how many people would be invited. The Aftons most definitely, and that meant William also, ugh. But, would anyone from her school get an invitation? It was possible, he supposed. It was hard to imagine Charlie not having many friends. She was the kind of girl to get along with everybody. Although, Matthew wasn't a master at social interactions so his opinion on the subject shouldn't be considered accurate. So far, he had only met the Afton kids, minus Michael, and Cassidy. Who knew, he might get to meet the rest of the MCI kids at her birthday party. Though it had to be taken into account that there wasn't any restaurant in Hurricane at the moment that could house so many kids, so he shouldn't really expect a ton of people, mostly just close friends and family.
Speaking of Cass, after their meeting some weeks ago the two of them hung out a couple more times whenever they had the chance. The girl could be a lot to deal with. She was quick to anger, proud, wasn't scared of shit, did whatever she wanted, and could be a little selfish, but Matt had to admit that she was good company. So long as he was nice to her, so was she. Even loyal to an extent. There had been an incident where some boys thought it'd be funny to pick on the two of them, but they were quick to regret their actions as Cass basically humiliated them. That led to a small fight where one of the boys ended up with a broken nose which was enough to send them home crying.
Matt would've liked to help but given that the kids were like 8 and he was in reality 14 he mostly stayed back and let Cass have her fun. She didn't really need his help anyway. And it wasn't as if the two of them had started it. Those little pricks threw some insults and when Cassidy roasted their asses, they decided to get physical. Big mistake. In any case, it would seem that he had been successful in befriending at least one of the MCI kids. He prayed that he'd have the same luck with the other 4. In the meantime, he'd chisel out his plan and figure out what Charlie's present will be.
Man, I hope I won't have to talk with William when he shows up at her birthday. That guy acted a little too interested in me when we went to his place. I mean, he's a child murderer, who's to say he isn't also a pedophile. That twisted fuck might be into that sort of thing for all I know, he mused.
He really hated that guy.
Chapter title from "Sweet Dreams" by Aviators.
