It would have been easy to say that Vincent's night went by as any Tuesday night did. Like it always was, it was just a polished version of the night before, and it'd continue to be polished until he couldn't see and was instead blinded by the luminescence. Shining light down the hallway and, upon seeing Foxy, flashing it on and off gently, because he had only one eye and lights always scrambled his sensory system. Check the ventilation shafts to either side to ensure that none of the animatronics were sneaking in. Slip on the Freddy head (barely able to contain his panic) as Bonnie stared at him with an empty face. Remove the mask and wind the music box, bearing in mind that anything could sneak in while he did so and pull down the monitor.
When you felt like you were safe, that's when they struck.
It would have been easy to say that he knew how to handle it when he heard an unfamiliar sound in the vent. He never checked the ventilation cameras and hadn't done so since the first few days that they got the new camera system a year or so ago. There was a reason for that-it was a waste of time and effort. If they were coming at him from the sides, he'd be able to turn on the light to the ventilation in his office and see them before taking necessary measures.
He ignored it first. It was the same vent that Toy Bonnie and Mangle generally crawled through, with their plastic, cheap smiles, and figured that it was about time they come anyways. It was three in the morning and he hadn't seen them anywhere but in the hallway.
The noise continued, and he checked the hallway, seeing Toy Chica standing with her beakless grin and her happy cupcake. He wondered not for the first time where her eyes went when she wandered the halls at night and went to checking the vents. Nothing in either vent. A little frustrated, he listened, hearing the sound continue, so he checked the left vent again to see if Balloon Boy was there.
He wasn't. The shiny boy with the toy grin had been there two or three times that night, crawling through and passing by under the assumption that there was no adult there. Flustered and confused, Vincent turned to the camera, glancing at the Puppet's music box before flipping through the vents.
Nothing in the left vents. There were only faint tendrils of cobwebs, from spiders that long abandoned their stations when they discovered the trafficking problem. Maybe I should clean the vents tomorrow. He chuckled numbly to himself and shook his head, reminding himself that it wasn't his job, he wasn't a janitor, he was a guard, and he should remember his place. But I might get paid extra. The selfish thought was enough to jar him out of his inner misery to cough, shocked at himself. He'd done this before and had been through this a hundred times with himself-'extra' in the Freddy franchise was a matter of cents. Working longer than needed upped the pay by a measly fifty cents.
No, he didn't have time to work extra hours. He had enough work and he was already tired as it was.
Vincent stifled a yawn, turning from the dusty vents to the left to the rusty vents to the right.
He saw nothing-again-except a faint black splotch secluded to the corner. He leaned toward the monitor and narrowed his eyes, a puzzled frown on his face. It wasn't the first time he saw it (at first he had a small panic attack before realizing it guaranteed no harm to him), but it did bring him concern. The splotches were there for perhaps three or four weeks, and it slowly spread until it covered almost the entire corner. He'd have to tell Scottish tomorrow... if he remembered. No, it'd be better to leave a note on the desk for him to read later.
He turned back towards the Puppet's camera, winding up the music box, before lowering the monitor and checking the halls. Freddy the Old and Chica the Young still stood there, one ragged and one offering. No Foxy. He checked the vents to either side again, double-checking the right shaft, before turning back to the camera.
He heard a thunk in the right vent.
The room was filled with a stiff silence, broken only by the Puppet's music box and the gentle, unsettling hum of the fan. For the first time that night, he realized how dark and miserable the room was, and thought it a shame that he had to die in such a place after nearly four years of fighting for his life. A weak chuckle emanated in his throat.
It was brokenly silent for another minute.
He turned to the vents and saw nothing again.
He turned the light to the hallway and nothing was there.
He blinked, startled by the sudden vacancy, the silence broken by the humming fan.
He was quiet for the longest time. Oh, great. I've finally gone insane.
Or maybe he just snapped out of his insanity. Either way, he was unsettled by it, after four years of getting used to the schedule. Vincent sniffled slightly, daring to reach over the desk to pull out a tissue and wipe his nose. His heart felt like a jackhammer, breaking his concrete rib cage and ripping it from the inside-out.
Suddenly he heard clanking, and the clanking was getting closer. Quickly, he turned to the cameras and froze. What was that?
...No.
It couldn't be.
It couldn't be that girl from earlier.
Vincent wandered over to the vent to his right, a weird sort of ease spreading through his body. If he was right, then what could be the worst that'd happen? He was worrying for nothing. The animatronics wouldn't hurt a child, after all. That's why they weren't passing through the vents, right?
He crouched down and peered through, eyes narrow and squinting. It hurt his muscles a little, and it was difficult to see in the shiny darkness, but he could scarcely make out a small, shadowy figure pulling its way towards the office, grumbling occasionally. When it looked up, it stopped.
"...Hello?" said Vincent, surprised at how much his voice cracked. Oh, God, he was so relieved. Why had he tried to kill her? She'd just saved him from having a panic attack.
"Hello," she echoed tonelessly. Of course she wasn't worried-Vincent gathered that she didn't worry about much, even when someone pulled a knife on her. She seemed calm, even though deeper in the ventilation, he heard the scraping of metal on metal. His addled brain tried to figure out something to say but found nothing.
"How are you?" he found himself saying, as she pulled herself out and sat up on her knees, glancing around disconnectedly. When he spoke, she turned towards him, eyes slightly narrowed and calculative.
"Fine," she said. The girl seemed like she was expecting him to do something, and seemed ready to attack.
Vincent was too tired. It crossed his mind to ask her what she was doing there-why she was there, even-but he was too tired and disinterested to care right now. "Good," he said instead, standing. He looked at the clock, frowning slightly. That whole episode had lasted scarcely more than an hour. His shift was almost up, just another hour to go. Get ready to get up at about noon to go to work, Vincent.
He sighed. The purple man glanced over at Clarence, rubbing his eye tiredly, weary and fatigued. "So, uh... I guess you can stay until my shift's over. I'll take you home after."
"Right, I'll get in a car with an eggplant murderer." Clarence's tone was dry and humorless; she looked at him with passionless eyes. Vincent let himself skim her a moment, noticing that she was wearing the same jacket that she had earlier at the restaurant-denim and dark, almost black. Her hands were in her pockets, casual as could ever be. How long had she been there?
Gah, doesn't matter. She could dress up however she wanted, for all he knew, she was one of those people that got dressed and fell asleep in what they were going to wear the next day. What he should be focused on was the conversation. He couldn't afford to let his attention wander off elsewhere right now. "Right," he said, shrugging. "Maybe not the best idea. How about I... call your parents, okay? No?" Vincent frowned when she started glaring at him, quietly, glowering. "You don't want me to call your parents?"
"I don't have any. I never knew my parents, and I don't care who they are." She shrugged, her pale face contorting to disgust. A surge of envy passed through him.
"Okay," he said, glancing around. "How about I, um... call... Scottish?" he suggested helplessly. Now he was just spurting random crap, he didn't even know Scottish's number. But maybe he could find it, if he tried.
She shook her head. "No."
"All right," he said, rubbing his backside a little, "if you're an... orphan"-God, that was such a tough word to say-"then do you live in an orphanage or something?"
"If I did, do you think I'd be here?"
"Right... good point."
She was quiet, leering up at him with.
"...How about your foster parents?"
"No," she said. "They don't care about me. They just want the money they get for taking care of me."
Oh, was that right? Then apparently they were one of those selfish types of people that use others for what they want. Perhaps they were people that used children to string necklaces or make clay pots and gave them the bare minimum. Child labor, right? He'd heard of such tales from the TV in the break room, from Scottish's irritated ramblings, from discarded newspapers that he found on the side of the...
"Then what should I do with you?" Vincent asked, looking down at the girl. He wasn't happy when all she did was shrug.
Perhaps he should have been angry with her. Perhaps he should have taken her outside and given her a two-hour lecture before making her walk home to her abusive foster parents. Perhaps he should even have called the police and get her into trouble for breaking and entering.
But he doubted that any of these things would end well, and he was really running out of ideas.
She shrugged, starting to wander about the office. She picked up one of the stuffed animals and stared at it, stared deep into the eyes of Plush Mangle, unhurt and unaltered by petty children's hands. "What do you call this one?" she asked, ignoring the question and holding it up to Vincent.
He stared at it for a moment, taking in Mangle's one eye patch, his slight smile, the two teeth that stuck out of the front of his snout. "...The staff calls him 'Mangle', he explained, noticing her smirk.
She looked at the plush toy, squeezing its belly a little. "Well, that seems like a rather cold name for a child's idol, doesn't it?"
Vincent thought the same. "Well, the staff calls him 'the Mangle'," he explained, rubbing his eyes. "We don't... say the nickname in front of the..." His explanation was cut short by a yawn, and he didn't even bother finishing. Instead he sat down in the office chair again, rubbing his eyes and trying his damnedest to stay awake.
"What are you even doing here?" he asked quietly, looking at her through his fingers. "You should be at home, even if it is a living hell."
Clarence laughed. Shortly, at first. And then it got longer, slightly louder. It didn't take him long to recognize the sarcasm in it, and it probably took him longer than it should have.
"You know what, never mind."
This wasn't answering the question of what he should do with her. If what she said before was true, then she really shouldn't go home to begin with. It'd be best if she were with a trustworthy adult, but she didn't want him to find Scottish's number, and Winston, of course, couldn't be trusted with children. Vincent hated to imagine if he had a child.
She stopped at that, turning back to the toys on the desk. "So what's with all these things?" she asked, putting the Mangle down and picking up the Toy Bonnie figurine instead.
"It helps me calm down."
"Calm down?" She glanced over and raised an eyebrow, and Vincent gulped slightly. "Why would you need to calm yourself down? That's dumb."
"Y-Yeah, isn't it?" Didn't she know that the animatronics tended to wander at night? Especially considering that she'd been in the vents for who knows how long...
Oh shit, the animatronics.
Vincent suddenly reached across the desk, snatching up the flashlight, and shone it down the hallway, heart racing and skin cold, chilled to the bone. How long had it been since he checked the hallway? Surely Foxy was about ready to pounce on him, hook and hand up and ready, dislocated jaw gaping wide open!
Nothing.
Not even a trace of his mechanical body-and for that matter the others. It was unnervingly quiet, broken only by the hum of the fan and the shuffling that Clarence made. He glanced over at her, confused, wanting to ask her where they were but not expecting her to know the answer. She was just a kid, after all. What could she possibly know about the current predicament that he was under?
He lowered the flashlight, collapsing into his seat, letting the flashlight clatter onto the ground. He was so tired, he could barely keep his eyes open. But he had to stay awake, he had to finish his job until six o'clock in the morning came around and he could go home and take a small nap.
"Shit," he grumbled, rubbing his eyelids. It was no use. He was going to fall asleep at this rate, with the adrenaline fading in his veins, with a child's life in danger.
"Cuss." Vincent glanced over at her, faintly registering her disinterested expression.
"Shit," he repeated.
There was a short moment of silence before she shrugged and placed the Toy Bonnie figure back on the desk, looking back at him. "Take me home with you."
Adrenaline. He sat upright at that, shocked. "What?!"
"If you don't, I'll tell your boss that you're the murderer."
Vincent stared at her for a moment, wide-eyed, shocked, heart beating. A steely calm passed over him like a torrential wave, and he let himself smile slightly, leaning back with a faint chuckle. "...Maybe it'd be best," he muttered, rubbing his face. "Best to... get it out of the way. Confess everything. Go to jail, maybe get the death sentence. You know?" He was so tired of pretending. He didn't know how much more he could take. Four years he'd lied. Four years he'd acted like he was normal and fine. Four years he'd kept the grizzly, dark secret to himself, hidden away under lock and key.
He coughed.
He killed that kid on accident.
He forgot to adjust the springlocks of Fredbear on accident.
The rest was with a conscious effort. They were no accident.
"So you did kill them?" she questioned.
She already knew the truth. There was no need to hide it from her.
"...Yes." There was some sort of finality in this word, as if he were closing the door on his life and welcoming his death."
"When?"
"A few years ago," he admitted, trying to keep from crying. Someone who was like him didn't deserve such things. Maybe he should work some overtime just to get less sleep than he'd been getting. Maybe he should just give up on trying to put the past behind him, because the past always ran up behind him.
"Not the recent murders?"
"No." His voice choked, and he went quiet, covering his face with one hand, trying to keep himself composed.
"So why did you try to kill me?"
"I don't know. I thought that you were a brat."
"I am a brat."
He could see that now, but he wondered whether he even cared at that point. Even if she were a brat, was it really her fault? He wondered. And then he decided: No, it doesn't matter. I wouldn't have the motivation to do it, anyways. If he were to kill her, it would be to get caught.
So why did he pull a knife on her in the first place?
Because I could, he thought, coughing.
"You're sick," he heard her say.
"No, I'm not. My throat's just raw."
And then he remembered what she said about what he should do with her-bring her back to his home, or she'd tell the police he was a killer. He looked up, the clump in his throat dying down just a little bit. "And no, even if you tell the police that I'm a murderer"-which was true, he thought-"you're not going to stay with me."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Because it's not fit for kids to live in."
She tilted her head.
"Because I don't have much food to begin with, and I don't have any soap, and all I have for food are three cans of soup and half a pack of raw toast-"
"Raw toast?" she questioned, eyes widening. The fan disrupted the silence again, persistent.
She broke into laughter, laughter so loud he was sure the cameras would hear it, laughter so loud she doubled over onto her knees and had to support herself on the desk, laughter so loud he worried in the back of his mind that she'd choke on her own breath. Vincent sat there, confused, staring at her child hand. "W-What's so funny?"
She laughed a little longer before letting go of the desk. He heard her back press against the desk as she leaned against it, dissolving into giggles, before devolving into quiet snickering. "'Raw toast,'" she repeated. "Do you mean... b-bread?"
He felt the heat rise in his face. That kid was making fun of him, wasn't she? How the mighty have fallen... well, he was never mighty to begin with. Her pale hand reached up and pressed against the top of the desk again, pushing herself up. A few papers and newspaper clippings rustled on the desk, almost falling off. When she finally stood up, she was holding her sides, a bright smile on her face.
Oh.
She just found it funny.
That wasn't to say he wasn't still embarrassed. He wasn't even angry, just feeling wave after wave of heat cross over his cheeks. He tried to glare at her, just for a second, but ended up burying his face in his hands. "Fuck..."
"S-so, Purple Guy, can I stay with you?" she asked again, limping to his side. The sneer was in her voice; he didn't even have to look over at her to know that she grinned like a Cheshire cat. "If you won't let me, I'll tell your friends that you call bread 'raw t-toast.'"
She stifled her laughter as best she could. Part of Vincent found himself imagining Scottish's reaction to learning of such a phrase. The other part of him wished that he had the passion to kill children again. Conjure it up from somewhere, step back in the past and take the phone and bash it over her head until she collapsed onto the ground, and continue bashing it into her until she lay in a pool of her own blood with her clothes and skin stained red and her body slowly grew colder...
But of course, passion couldn't just be made. It had to be there to begin with, or spurred on by an event or an idea, and couldn't be blocked off by a dam that stopped its flow. And his dam was so filled and cluttered that he forgot about how it felt and thought it better that the flow didn't disrupt everything he built since.
Vincent sighed. "How long?" he asked, rubbing his scalp with his tired, weary fingers.
"A week or so," she said. "Depending on your hospitality, maybe longer, maybe shorter."
Something told him that if he decided to be rude to his unwanted guest, that she'd go on ahead and tell everyone everything-that he was a murderer who called bread 'raw toast'. Vincent grit his teeth together slightly before nodding.
The clock struck 6.
Maybe I shouldn't be so bothered by it, he thought, walking her to his car and greeting Scott after she went into said car and closed the door. They exchanged a few words-"How did your night go?" Good, not much trouble. "Okay, that's great. Remember what I told you and get to sleep, alright?" Alright, sure, Scottish. I'll be sure to do so-before he opened the driver's seat and hopped in, starting the car before beginning to amble away. Already he forgot about the kid.
Until she made her presence known by lightly tugging on his shirt when there weren't many cars on the road (there never were at this time, but this was less than usual). He looked at her disinterestedly for a split moment before turning back to the road, lifting a hand to rub the haziness out of his eyes. "Yeah?"
"Where do you live?"
"In a motel," he said wryly, turning on his turn signal. It was hard to talk and drive at the same time. His brain was mushy murk, it was hard to even remember where he lived, much less how he always got there, or why he always dreaded even coming back home when he knew deep in his hart that he should look forward to it.
"In this part of town?" There was a tone of disgust to her voice as she glanced out the window, taking in the abandoned buildings with broken windows barely visible in the flickering lamp post light. The buildings were predominantly either motel complexes or small convenience stores, dusted with rotting blush and polished with chipped paint that could be described as anything but pretty. Literally anything but pretty-but Vincent really didn't have many options, and compared to where he was, this was his piece of heaven.
"If you don't like it, you can jump out the car and walk home," he said, frowning. "I don't have to drive you, and I can't waste my gas on anywhere other than where I need to go."
He expected a smart remark, but she was intelligent enough to shut her mouth and keep quiet. That didn't stop her from glancing around with evident distaste shining in her black, cold eyes.
He pulled up to one of the oldest, most worn-down motels in the neighborhood-the one with the cheapest rent. Low security, old, decrepit locks, creaky floorboards and hallways that moaned at night. The doors were out in the open for ease of access, and luckily there was only one floor, or else Vincent would have to go to the second-cheapest motel and end up being sacked at the end of the month. He was worried that if there were anyone romping around on the nonexistent second floor, then the floor would collapse on top of him and he'd have to pay repairs and hospital bills.
It was shocking that Scottish and his little brother were making good life progress in 'this part of town'.
He took out his key and inserted it into the lock, jiggling it a little bit to loosen the lock. He turned the knob, too, though hesitantly. It was hard to say when his room was broken into or not, harder to say when there was someone in there, and harder still to know when the key hit the lock's sweet spot in just that right way that the doorknob wouldn't lock up and delay his slumber any longer. This was one of those occasions. The door was in dire need of replacement, but there was nothing Vincent could do about it. This was a place for the desperate and the desolate, and he was both.
Clarence said something-he didn't register what it was, but could guess that it was an insult. He looked over at her, still trying the doorknob, the key slightly stuck, uncomprehending. She looked up at him, crossing her arms, raising an eyebrow. Why? Why are you giving me that look?
"How long have you lived here?"
Ah, was that what she'd been saying? He thought it was another insult, or a blow to his self-esteem. He swallowed, throat slightly sore, before turning back to the door and by some miracle opening it within five minutes this time. "Ah, maybe... a few years? I don't know, it's hard to tell."
That was a lie-he didn't bother counting the years. He didn't like counting the years because he preferred that they blend all together in a sick cauldron and made one sumo year. Oversized and overweight and sitting lazily on the couch with mixed emotions and hormonal balances-if he weren't so tired, he would have laughed. If someone were to jump at him right now, he wouldn't even have the strength to keep in the door way. If someone were to shove him to the side with what little money he had saved up in his old coffee canister, he wouldn't be able to get up.
If someone were to come into his room without him even taking a step into it despite not really even being supposed to be there, he wouldn't be able to stop her.
The light turned on, and he flinched, covering his eyes. He walked inside, closing the door behind him, vaguely deciding: So no one came in when I was gone.
And then he thought: I really need to hide my money better than I have been.
Vincent completely forgot about it when he heard the kid clicking her tongue. He glanced at her, curiously confused and distant. "This place is absolute garbage," she said, shaking her head sadly. He saw sarcasm in her posture rather than heard it in her voice.
Vincent glanced around, shielding his eyes from the dim light, looking at the dirty floor with paper and grocery bags all over the place, some stuffed with garbage in a vain attempt to clean up, some with cans of soup he had yet to put away, most just strung around without organization or coordination. The ceiling: Dirtied, with a fan that looked like it would fall at any moment, and an window that never opened had a hole from when the previous tenant got robbed. Cracks in the wall that looked like spiderwebs, specks of cockroach and rat shit on the ground, with a few of the former strung across the floor. Not even the furniture gave any insight to affordability: It was cheap, made of filthy fabric, torn, infested with bedbugs. Well-worn, because it was always right there when he came back from work.
Home sweet home.
Vincent set the keys on the table and walked into the kitchen area, opening one of the cabinets and pulling out one of four cans of soup. "Um, do you want some?" he questioned, glancing at her.
She was looking around, a distant look in her eye. Her expression wasn't unreadable, but from such a distance it was impossible to say what she was thinking or, for that matter, feeling.
Clarence sighed.
Her voice seemed as far off as if she had been three miles away and shouted with a megaphone through water. Vincent figured that what she said was, "Sure, I'll have some"-it'd make things so much easier-and nodded his head, reaching across the counter for the can opener.
Five Nights at Freddy's belongs to Scott Cawthon, the genius behind the series.
I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far-I'm just making it up as I go along, really. God, I gotta update these on fanfiction.
Feel free to leave criticism at the foot of the story-one can't get any better as a writer without coaching.