Title: Fearless

Rating: M for Language, Violence, Grotesquerie, and General Trippiness

Summary: A girl suffers trauma to her temporal lobe. The result: no fear. ~ Squint and turn the screen sideways for romantic subtext. 1000 words per drabble.

Disclaimer & Important Notes: Don't own Freddy; don't own the rhymes. You know the drill.

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Fabricated

(Night 45)

It wasn't so much that he wanted to slaughter her, specifically anymore. It was more just that he wanted to slaughter something.

And it was becoming increasingly rare that he got the chance.

More and more often, she would show up, and if her chattering didn't drive him to distraction and cause him to the lose the scent of whatever rare piggy he'd managed to pull into his dreams, then she'd talk his goddamn ear off or get in the way when he was trying to make the fucking kill, interrupting all his carefully-planned monologues and witty one-liners.

If he still had hair, he was sure he'd be pulling it out by the handful. He was beginning to think she was doing it on purpose (though how anyone could willfully be that fucking annoying was utterly beyond him).

Take last night, for instance.

He'd had that little girl—the one with the daisy-blue eyes he'd been playing with the first night Ash had invaded his dreamscape—stumbling through a maze that led her again and again to a dark nursery room full of dolls that stared at her from malevolent eyes. He'd been waiting for her in the closet, letting her see the door swing open slowly, waiting till the moment when she glimpsed his eyes burning out of the darkness. Letting his blades scrape over the floor so she could hear it, like a claw.

But then the other door had opened, and Ash had walked in, her eyes wide and guileless. "Annie!" she cried, and he thought her surprise was fake but he wasn't certain. "I've missed you, little cousin!"

He hesitated—a concept formerly alien to him—when she fell down on her knees beside the little snot. He skimmed the brat's mind. There was recognition, and something like hero-worship. Cousin, he thought, and believed it.

"Freddy," Ash said, and her voice was a pretty plea. It was a sound he hadn't managed to pry from her in spite of the number of times he'd gutted her, throttled her, garroted her, flayed her, burned her, dropped her from the factory roof twelve stories onto cement, drowned her, or fed her to rats piece by piece. No, the begging was something he hadn't heard from her before, and he found himself rising to his feet in spite of himself and edging out the door, eager to learn what had brought such a beseeching tone to her pretty lips.

His skin heated at the sight. Fat teardrops trembled on her lower lashes. He stared, fascinated and greedy. He wanted to slam her head against the wall, just to jar the tears and make them fall down her round cheeks.

"Freddy," she pleaded. "She's my cousin. Please—please—don't kill her—"

"Are you telling me what to do, bitch?" his voice was raspy, hoarse not only with the remnants of smoke but with famine. He was starving for her pain, dammit.

"N-no," she stammered, her eyes wide and honest. "I'm begging, Freddy—"

He licked his parched, misshapen lips. "I'm not a fucking charity, whore—"

The tears spilled over and his eyes followed them. He was surprised they didn't evaporate under the heat of his gaze. The physical pleasure he felt was so gaunt and hungry that it speared through him and he sucked air in between his teeth. He didn't think about the fact that he could kill the child and make her cry even more; he didn't think about the ways he could use her—he only basked in her tears, and when Ash squeezed the piggy's hand and the child flickered slowly out of existence, he didn't try to stop her, only reminding himself that she'll be back soon enough, and now that I know, I can really make the bitch cry—

And then she'd tossed back her hair and cast an incandescent grin up at him, her tears still glazing her cheeks. "That was fun," she said brightly, and he'd known, fuck, he'd known—

"Don't sulk," she admonished, and there was light amusement in her eyes, but no gloating or triumph, and certainly none of the terror he so bitterly desired. "You're the one who gave me the idea, anyway," she teased, and reminded him, "I guess I can make myself cry after all."

Cry, baby, cry,
Put your finger in your eye
And tell your mother it wasn't I.

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This drabble is dedicated to nlech16 for the prompt, "Fabricated."

It is 720 words long, and I had a lot of fun writing it. The process started with the association of "fabrication" to "lie," and I knew that this tricky, cold girl named Ash Kindwall would lie to our friend Freddy about something, and catch him good. What could fool Freddy? Well, what fools anyone? We all see and believe what we want to see and believe, and there's nothing Freddy wants more (he thinks) than to cause this girl pain. But what motivation could she possibly have for fooling him? From there, this little drabble (longer than most) developed, and I think I smiled the whole time I wrote it.

Thanks, nlech16, for supporting a starving fanfiction writer!