Many, many years ago…

Henry hadn't had a very good day in school. A couple of boys had taunted him mercilessly for crying when a frighteningly large beetle flew near him, and Lucas had made sure to mock him for good measure when he picked him up. Lucas seemed particularly bitter today, probably because he was in big trouble for failing to pick Henry up the other day, and ended up dropping his little brother off at Fredbear's without so much as a 'goodbye'.

Henry, hoping that a few games would cheer him up, used one of the dollars that his father had given him for providing Balloon Boy's voice to buy some tokens. The many hours that Henry had spent in the arcade had allowed him to hone his ticket-winning skills to perfection. Before long, Henry had enough tickets to earn him a prize from shelf three. That was a coveted shelf, where all of the best prizes were kept.

Henry examined his choices for a few moments before his eyes fell upon a purple robot toy. His second favorite color and a robot too. It instantly reminded him of his daddy, who always wore purple and was very good at building and fixing robots. Henry cheerfully asked the Puppet (another character that always gave him the chills) for the robot, and the Puppet wordlessly gave him his prize.

Henry held his toy close, smiling proudly and wondering if his father would be happy with him naming his new friend after his father. Mike the Robot. It worked well enough.

He wanted to show his daddy his prize first. Although daddy normally advised him not to spend too much of his money on tokens (especially since he could quite easily grab a prize after work and give it to Henry) he was normally quite proud when Henry actually won something of value and didn't need to spend a billion dollars in order to do it. Henry had turned one dollar's worth of tokens into a robot that must have cost ten, maybe even a little more, and so he was sure that daddy would be more than delighted. Especially once Henry informed him that he had picked the prize specifically because it reminded him of his father.

Unfortunately for Henry, Michael wasn't inside of the restaurant. Henry's father was chasing down some teenage hooligan whom he had caught spray-painting a dirty word on poor Fredbear's face near the restaurant's entrance. The security guard had been pursuing the delinquent for quite some time, since the morning.

And James was getting bored. True, he didn't adore the opportunity to hop in an uncomfortable Spring-Suit for an hour and entertain a bunch of whiny kids (kids that almost always ended up pushing or prodding at him since apparently Spring-Bonnie just wasn't as beloved as Spring-Freddy), but at least it gave him something to do. Besides, he was a bit worried that if Mike didn't return soon and help him into the suit, the management would count this as a 'day off' and he wouldn't get paid for the day. Then he would lose money and vacation time and…

And he was tired of waiting. Mark was somewhere in the arcade (James envied his co-worker's ability to easily entertain himself with even the most childish of games), but James was sitting in the backroom, staring down at his golden suit and tapping his foot.

Screw it.

He grabbed the suit and lifted it onto the table. Michael had told him once or twice not to try and put the suit on by himself since apparently only 'professionals' could operate it safely, but what did he know? He wasn't a mechanic or anything, he was just a security guard who happened to be fairly good with machines. James had been in the suit, knew it inside and out, and he'd watched Michael put it on him and Mark enough times that he was quite sure he could handle it by himself.

Long as I'm careful, he thought, picking up the feet of the Spring-Suit and slowly slipping his own feet inside, I don't see how this is dangerous. I mean, for Christ's sake, it's a cheap little suit for a kid's restaurant. Not like I'm handling a tank or something. Mike's just paranoid…

James heard the door squeak loudly and cringed, thinking that perhaps Michael had returned at the worst possible time and now he was going to get an earful about listening to him and being an idiot.

But it wasn't Michael that stepped into the backroom. Rather, it was his soft-eyed youngest, Henry. James gave a relieved sigh and smiled at the child. Henry was a nervous little kid, but he was much quieter and more polite than most of the patrons. James didn't know him as well as Mark did, but he liked the boy just fine. So long as the kid didn't snitch on him (and Henry didn't strike James as the snitching type: Lucas would be more likely to do something like that in order to curry favor with a father who clearly preferred his younger brother) James had no beef with the boy.

The child was holding a large toy robot in his hands, a small smile brightening his face as he stepped into the backroom and his gentle eyes darted to and fro. His smile dampened and he looked up at James.

"Hi, Henry," said James with a nod, grabbing the Spring-Bonnie's torso and slowly putting it on.

"Uhm…hello, Mr. Freeman," muttered Henry, hugging his purple robot a little tighter, "Do you know where my daddy is?"

"He had to run out for a little bit," James explained, "Some brat tried to paint a dirty word on Fredbear's face."

"Oh," said Henry with an understanding nod, "Why would they do that? Lucas uses bad words a lot, but he doesn't usually paint them on places."

"Just to be rude, I guess. Make the parents mad. Don't worry: your daddy's chasing the kid and Mark already painted over the bad word."

"Is daddy gonna be back soon? I wanted to show him my robot. I got it 'cause it reminded me of him."

Henry held out the robot towards James and James had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Aside from the fact that they both dressed in purple, the cheerfully-grinning robot didn't at all resemble snide Michael.

"Nice toy," James commented, "Did ya' win that just now?"

Henry nodded.

"All by yourself?"

Henry nodded again.

"Nice! Third-shelf, eh? You're getting better at games. Maybe one of these day's you'll be able to beat Mark in a match."

"Uhm…Mr. Freeman…what are you doing?"

James had just grabbed the last part of his suit: the head itself. He paused and looked down at the kid, who had a concerned gleam in his eyes.

"Oh, well, since your daddy's not here I'm putting on my suit by myself. I have to: it's my job."

"But Daddy said it's not safe to put it on without him," said Henry.

"You're not gonna tattle, are ya'?"

"I…no…I just don't want you to get hurt."

James chuckled. "Thanks, kiddo, but you don't have to worry. It's just a suit, it can't really hurt me that much. Here, watch…"

He put on the last piece of the costume, the head, and stepped towards the little boy. Henry took a cautious step back at first, but when James let out a hearty, "Hey, Henry!" he smiled and stepped towards the man in the bunny suit.

"So…it's safe?" he asked warily, still gripping his robot tightly to his chest even as the unease slowly left his large eyes. James chuckled.

"Didn't I tell 'ya, Henry? It's just a suit! Here, nice to meet you! I'm Spring-Bonnie!"

He extended his hand towards the boy and squatted down a bit. Henry smiled, reached out, took James' hand, and gave it a gentle shake.

It was at that moment that, from somewhere near his torso, James heard a little twang.

And what happened next became a blur of red. He felt dozens of sharp wires and crossbeams pierce his body like daggers, he felt the warm blood that leaked from his body and all but drowned him in his suit, he felt himself fall to the floor. He gagged, choked, and struggled, but the pain continued. He heard a peep of fear from Henry, but the child didn't scream. He just stared at James as gallons of blood poured from the Spring-Suit's every crevice and formed a crimson lake on the floor.

And the very last thing that James saw before everything became black as a shadow was a purple-clad man, Michael no doubt, running in, grabbing the traumatized child, and running out, shutting the door behind him.

Well, enjoy your nightmares tonight!

Special thanks to the folks who reviewed!

KuraiFriend: I know you were looking forward to him ;D

Darkmegatron13: I'm a senpai now? Sweet! But…uh…please don't go all Yandere Sim on me…especially don't try to murder the other reviewers out of paranoid jealousy.

Unknown (Guest): Really? No other author's replied? That's very odd to me. I personally feel that every author should make an effort to respond to his or her readers. Readers make a story, after all, which is why I like to thank everyone for taking the time to read and especially thank everyone who reviews. I'd list and thank everyone who favs/follows individually too, but I just don't have time since this fic has 40 favs already (which is AWESOME! Thanks, guys!). If you have a question or request, though, I'll usually answer it in the next chapter or, if you're signed in, through a PM. Either way, I'll always reply if I can.

Fabro de Verbis

RuetheFox

And guys, I'm gonna need a heck of a lot of motivation. Work is piling up higher than a dog pile and I don't have the next chapter written out and finished yet. If I can't make the next update by next Friday I apologize, but the more reviews I get the more likely I'll be able to get over my stress and write. Review!

Also, I just did a sequel to the fic I did for OFF. If you're a fan of OFF, go check it out! It's called Zacharie Knows Least, sequel to The Player Knows Best.

Also also, if you're a fan of Hetalia, PLEASE go check out The Boy Who Lived! It requires love and hugs!

Thanks a lot for reading, guys! Hopefully I'll be back by next Friday, but I won't make any promises right now. I will, however, update as soon as I can.