Mable: Thank you so much for all the positive feedback! I decided to go along with the story and continue with it. 83 I'm not exactly certain where it's going to lead, but as long as it's fun I'm willing to journey into any uncharted territory. This might be a quieter chapter compared to the last one… Anyway, I hope everyone Enjoys!
Can't Go Home Again
Chapter Two
Mike slid into the bedroom and didn't take a step away from the door. When he wasn't immediately attacked he closed the door behind him, leaning on it cautiously as he scanned the room. The Puppet was kneeling beside the bed, clutching onto something in its arms and trembling. The weeping had gotten a little quieter since Mike entered the room, but it didn't seem on purpose as the animatronic didn't really look like it acknowledged that he was there. Either that or it simply didn't care that he was there. Mike was not ready to throw caution to the wind by accepting either possibility.
He carefully stepped closer and tried to study its face, though now with it hunched over he could no longer see it well enough. A purple liquid was present dripping onto its arms. It almost looked thick enough and bright enough to be paint. Mike stepped over the blanket that had fallen on the floor, recognizing it as the one he tossed on the bed, and paused only to cringe once seeing what it was holding. It was clutching that ratty Freddy; Mike was warier of getting near it than he was of actually getting near the Puppet itself.
It finally tilted its head back just a bit, staring at his lower legs. There didn't seem to be aggression any longer coming off of it and the only noise it made was a slightly more audible choke. Mike responded by finally crouching down on the carpeted floor. "Hey, umm… You okay?" It was a stupid question but was the only thing he could think of to start with. It tightened its grip on the plush toy only slightly. Regardless of how hard it was to see, Mike took it as a sign that it was listening. He reached out towards its upper arm while keeping his hand low enough that it could full see it.
"I'm sorry. He was a good man… He was the best boss I've ever had," Mike kept the conversation going once he actually touched the black fabric, not wanting to go silent. It was different than the soft felt fabric that made the other animatronics; the only one that Mike had personally touched was Chica but he assumed they were all similar enough. Maybe there was some sort of skeleton inside, but he couldn't really feel it and wasn't going to risk squeezing too hard, least the thing suddenly wrap itself around his neck again.
The touch triggered it to raise its head a bit more. The smile was still there, blankly saccharine and unchanged, with the purple fluid spilling from its eyes being the only difference. He had noticed the purple marks earlier when he was staring at the face in horror and now watched it pass over the same markings. Something about it was so pitiful. This was the thing that had violently attacked him, willingly tried to kill him, and yet he did feel a little bad for it. Whether or not he was related to the child in the picture, he certainly was distraught about Fredrick's passing.
Mike contemplated his next move, "If it was planning to jump me it can do it wherever I am anyway. Probably whenever I turn my back... Well, I'm already this far involved." He tried to move his arm around the Puppet's back, finding himself staring at the Golden Freddy plush and trying his hardest not to touch it. There was no telling where that thing had been; perhaps on the grimy floor of one of the Pizzeria incarnations. His other hand moved forward to touch its other shoulder area. He awkwardly tried to fidget around and find some sort of comforting motion.
The second Mike's hand stopped on the Puppet's back, mostly so Mike could figure out what he was trying to accomplish, the Puppet suddenly dropped forward. It crashed onto his front and went completely limp on impact. Mike was able to catch its dead weight even though his natural instinct was to leap back. It wasn't heavy and was more a lapse of any sort of personal space he was trying to keep. Mike managed to take it in stride and pulled it up slightly to bring it into a weak embrace. "It's going to be alright. You're not alone in this. We all… I miss him too."
This was probably the worst comfort Mike had ever given. Usually when he was talking to someone after they had a loss he was more composed. Usually he wasn't connected to the picture at all so he was able to use that distance and come with a rational thing to say. This wasn't one of those cases, so he held on and hoped for the best. It began to weep once more. One of the Puppet's hands cinched onto Mike's arm while the other continued to hold fast to the plush bear between them; to his disappointment Mike realized that the toy was indeed touching him.
It buried its face into Mike's shirt, hiding itself and leaving purple stains against him. It didn't actually bother the human. He knew this was the closest thing to closure over Fredrick's passing that he was going to get; sitting in a child's bedroom and holding a sobbing, haunted mime was a comfort. Just realizing that made Mike bitterly admit that he was the pathetic one. At least the Puppet was possibly related to Fredrick; what was his own excuse for getting so worked up? He glanced around the room and wondered how long it had been waiting for Fredrick to come back.
It seemed to start calming down after some time. Its grip stayed firm on Mike but its grip on the Golden Freddy toy loosen. It still hadn't moved away from Mike's shirt and he wondered how awful it would be if the paint dried and the animatronic was actually stuck to him. If it was crying now he could only consider how much louder it would get if he had to rip his shirt off of its face. That is, if it didn't just kill him at that point. His pulse was starting to ease by now and he readjusted his hands on the black fabric. Definitely softer than the coarse felt.
Then the Toreador March broke the silence with its obnoxious chiming. The Puppet flinched in alarm and Mike could just imagine it suddenly going rabid and turning on him. He grappled for his phone and quickly answered if only to silence the noise. "The second I'm out of this room I'm putting this thing on vibrate… And getting a better ringtone," he mentally swore to himself then answered. "Hello? Sam?" He just had a hunch and it was quickly proven correct by the voice. "It's me. I was just seeing if you were okay… And alive. How's everything over there?"
"You could've chose a worse time," Mike shrugged off vocally. "I'll call you back a little later. Where are you?" Sam seemed confused, "I'm not coming over there if that's what you think. I'm still over here at the warehouse. It's a train wreck in here; there's trash all over the place." For the moment Mike kept any interest in the warehouse at arm's length. He had enough to worry and wonder about here. "Stay there. I'll get back to you later." They said goodbye and ended the call. With the new information he had he needed Sam to start checking around again.
He knew he needed to figure out what happened to Fredrick's children. Maybe it would lead to more information about the missing children and possible murders. For the moment he was sort of stuck with the Puppet. Mike hoped that eventually it would grow more passive or bored, then would either separate itself or give some sort of sign that he didn't need to be held anymore. Again, he was wary to suddenly disturb it, afraid that it would lash out with aggression. It already had done so twice. He tried to pretend that internal guilt wasn't a factor at all.
So he waited, and waited, and checked his phone for the time, and waited, and finally decided that it was simply not going to move. He held its back so it wouldn't flop on its side when he stood, lightly tapping his fingers on its back to alert it. "I've got to make a call. Or a few calls if you want to keep the power on." A few seconds dragged by. Before he could speak again, the Puppet started to right itself and moved back into its kneeling position. One arm looped around the Golden Freddy plush and tugged it comfortable in it lap while the other still had ahold of Mike's arm.
Its face was still angled down and it wouldn't look at him. Mike started to stand and only glanced down to the animatronic when its grip impeded his progress on going out the door. The black fingers only then released him. The man didn't feel right walking out, if it wasn't so important he wouldn't be leaving just to make a phone call. Mike had never been fond of talking into a phone. This only grew after the multitude of prerecorded calls he used to get at the Pizzeria. The last call of the Phone Guy's still occasionally haunted him, especially since the body was never found.
"I'll be back. I'm not going anywhere," Mike promised as he headed towards the door. He needed some air anyway and maybe a drink. He glanced back from the door and only now did the Puppet have its head lifted. It stared at the former security guard's back as he was leaving. The only relief that Mike got from this was noticing that the tears had seemed to stop. The only thing that was left was purple on the bear, on himself, but ironically not on the Puppet's arms anymore. He didn't know if it dissolved or just wasn't visible any longer. At least it wasn't still crying.
He stepped out of the room and once in the living room he called Sam back. "It's me again. It's a long story, but I need you to look for any sort of paperwork you can find floating around, alright?" Sam was a little surprised at the command rushed on him. "Sure, uh, whatever you say. Got any particular requests in mind?" Of course Mike did have a few. "I need anything you can get on the Puppet… And whatever's in there on Fredrick's kids." The other male was silent and Mike insisted, "It's got some significance. We'll deal with that later." Thankfully, Sam didn't pry. "I'll get on it. Are you leaving soon?"
The question drew an immediate blank for Mike and he had absolutely no idea how to answer. "I… No. I have to make some calls before they shut off the lights and water, so I'm probably not leaving anytime soon. Just call my cell, I'll be here." With that they hung up shortly afterwards. Mike then headed in the kitchen to see if he could find some numbers to sort out the issues. Unfortunately, most of the drawers were empty of anything useful, and he eventually gave up and decided instead to try and wash some of the purple substance off his shirt.
He turned on the water in the sink, searched around for some sort of paper towel, and then noticed out the corner of his eye that the Puppet had followed him. It was beside the entrance to the hallway in the living room. It now stood at full height, hovering above the floor, looking almost identical to it did when it chased him out the door except for one of its hands clutching onto the Golden Freddy toy. Mike stared back and waited to see if it went to do something. If it was going to suddenly decide to drive him out of the house.
Instead it just stood there and watched. He finally looked away to search for some paper towels of something. When he looked back a few moments later the Puppet was closer. This repeated twice more as he searched the pantry and the upper cabinets. It was halfway across the living room, then at the entrance to the kitchen, then just a few inches closer. Every glimpse Mike had of it was a bit closer. Maybe he trusted it a slight bit more and was sympathetic towards it, but that didn't make the game of 'red light, green light' any less unnerving.
It got to the point when he just decided to face it head on and address it directly. He stood in front of the sink and braced himself before turning back fully, but now it was gone. He scanned the rooms quickly and then shrugged it off well enough, letting down his guard again to kneel down and check under the sink. "Did everything in this house just vanish? How can there not be…?" He was only speaking as a sort of self-comfort, though cut off when he noticed an old dish rag crumpled up to the side. "Eh, this looks good enough." It wasn't moldy or anything, so it would work.
He glanced over his shoulder; the Puppet was still not sneaking in on him. "I'll just check the pipes while I'm down here," he muttered out and started shining his little flashlight over a pipe that clearly didn't need attention. Anything to just-
"Looks like it's time for adventure!"
Mike's head slammed into the sink as he jumped, his hands struggling to get a grip on anything so that he could pull himself out of the trapped space. Pulse racing, he directed his eyes to the living room and saw the source of the sudden voice and music. The TV was on and playing that Fredbear cartoon, it had been Fredbear himself who was actually speaking, and blasting just a little too loud for the former security guard. He groaned in a mix of frustration and relief, rubbing his head lightly and heading into the living room to see what exactly turned the TV on.
He wasn't surprised that it was the Puppet, he wasn't even surprised that the Puppet was kneeling in front of the couch, but he was a little surprised that it was staring at him as he appeared behind the couch. Its head was twisted at an angle that was definitely not possible for anything that actually used its neck to survive. It was staring him down and he stood there unwavering, just not making eye contact. If it had eyes. Instead he watched the cartoon on the TV and had some sort of flash of memory, as though he recognized the characters on the TV from a distant memory.
By time Foxy was on TV, Mike was on the couch, and now was legitimately able to ignore the animatronic in the room. It stopped staring at him after about ten or fifteen more minutes. The episodes were the standard length of thirty minutes with two fifteen minute segments making each episode. Basically the plot was Fredbear and friends going on adventures, so it was pretty standard. Though Mike did have a rather underwhelming revelation halfway, "So… Is Golden Freddy just Fredbear and I've been calling him something else? Huh…"
At some point along the time he decided that he had stagnated too long and considered actually doing something. "He looks distracted enough where he is. Maybe I can take off for a while…" Getting some time away from the house seemed like a good idea. Honestly, Mike though it would be healthy to get home and get a locked door and four walls in between him and the entire situation. Not specifically the Puppet, but everything in general. The death, the house, Fredrick- His thoughts suddenly changed as he noticed something.
"Why was it hiding back in that closet if it had a box…?" Mike started to stand and circled the back of the couch to head down the hall. He knew the second it started staring at his back, he could simply feel it. Yet he stepped into the master bedroom and crossed to the open closet, looking around inside. At first glance there wasn't much there that looked important. There were hanging clothes, some boxes on the floor, an attic entrance on the roof, and then his gray eyes landed on the file cabinet pushed against the back. He pushed the coats hiding it to the side and leaned in.
The Puppet was probably moving in or out of the attic when Mike appeared, he assumed, and this file cabinet was probably just here on coincidence. If it had been protecting the file cabinet, it would've acknowledged him coming back here and reacted. Inside the upper drawer there were many labelled files with tags such as 'taxes' with a date, 'employees', and many more remaining files that didn't seem too important. Mike did check the employee file though and managed to find both something on Sam and a brief blurb about himself, but it only labelled him working for his first week.
"There's nothing here…" Mike felt a little frustration as he closed the drawer and moved to the lower one. "This is all just-… Standard paperwork that Fredrick would've had. I think I'm overestimating my chances." Then he caught a glimpse of the files in the lower drawer. "…Oh, this is interesting." Each envelope was tagged with an animatronic's name. Some even had abbreviations, such as toy or spring, after their name as though to categorize them. In the back there were at least nine or ten files listing animatronics that Mike had never seen nor heard of.
He took out the one labelled Fredbear and flipped it open, shining the light down upon it. "Fredbear… Date created, date retired…Bear, as though I didn't know that… Discontinued and to be replaced with Freddy Fazbear. Original Fredbear animatronic has been deconstructed for parts. Springlock suit Fredbear is still intact, no longer in use, endoskeleton to be removed in near future…" Mike frowned and closed the file, "But that's not why they stopped Fredbear was it?... Wait." He looked back again, "Springlock suit. If Fredbear's animatronic is gone then is the suit…?"
He checked the files and eventually found the 'Fredbear (Spring)' labelled file and glanced into it. "…So this is Golden Freddy…" There wasn't a picture, but under 'color' the suit was labelled as being gold. "Huh, explains why he was always laying down. Why did they keep this one?" He glanced down at the information following, but couldn't find anything direct. There was a vague hint near the bottom. "Suit being retired due to springlock failure and injury." His brows raised; when did anyone involved in the Pizzeria ever admit to an actual accident happening?
"I'll have to ask Sam about this. Maybe he knows something about these Springlock suits and whatever they actually are." He set it back in the cabinet. "Alright, onto the Puppet," and he began to glance through the file names. Then he faltered after he found a lack of files labelled as either 'Puppet' or 'Marionette'. There wasn't anything even close and he wondered if Fredrick or someone else disposed of it. He glanced over towards the bedroom door and to his surprise caught a blur of black. It had been watching him again and he hadn't even heard it.
It didn't seem aggressive anymore, not since the scene earlier, but seemed to be watching him from a distance now. "Maybe it's studying me. That wouldn't be too far out of the ordinary; studying me and predicting my behavior. I do the same thing on a daily basis." It would make sense considering its behavior and the sudden distance it wanted to keep. It certainly couldn't be afraid of him after what happened before. His neck was still slightly sore; most likely he was going to have bruises by the next day. Yet he had to at least be thankful that it stopped.
"I'll get in touch with Sam again… Maybe I'll just head over there whenever I get out of here." He closed the files, pulled back, and stepped out of the closet. He headed back into the living room to find the Puppet still watching the cartoon. It had been obviously watching him and knew that this was feigning innocence, but he decided not to do anything about it. The next hours, and unbelievably it took hours, involved Mike calling the electricity and water company and making sure that the house wouldn't be losing either.
The phone company wasn't as willing unless Mike could show more physical proof about the death and such. He decided to instead forget about it and leave the phone as it was. It wasn't as though the Puppet was eager to call anybody and his own cell filled his own needs. Then he checked the pipes again, then he watched more TV, then he wandered around, then he tried to call Sam and couldn't get through, and slowly the day was ate away. The Puppet barely moved unless Mike walked out of the room. It seemed to have switched the tape to a different one of the same cartoons.
Mike wasn't getting the feeling that the Puppet was trying to drive him out, or was really concerned with him at all.
Mike stalled until it was dark. He hadn't even realized it as he had become accustomed to just wandering around fiddling with things. "Good job. You screwed around all day and are now on night shift duty," he mentally scolded himself. He peered out of the kitchen blinds at his car. "I can leave now, right? How long was I supposed to stay?" He then glanced towards the living room. Only a little while ago the Puppet had left the living room, turning off the TV while Mike was watching it, and left to the other room where he had been since.
He was pretty convinced that it had spent all day watching him instead of the TV. "I mean, I know Fredrick's gone, but it went on fine being alone this long. Nowhere did anyone ever tell me to stay with it. If anything, it probably makes it more edgy. I'm intruding and I should take off." Mike said this to himself even though he knew he was just trying to convince himself to leave. Yet Mike still couldn't do it. He couldn't just stand, grab his keys, and walk out to the car. Something kept him here and he didn't know what it was. Maybe Fredrick's ghost was haunting him.
There was just something that Mike couldn't stand about going home to an empty apartment. He would be more comfortable, but it wasn't as though he would be able to relax after everything that happened and everything that was currently happening. "Maybe I'll go take a shower. Then I can leave when I'm done," his water pressure was nonexistent anyway. It was best to have something good come out of today. He needed something to clear the multiple frustrations and dueling thoughts.
What was possibly the most frustrating was the unanswered questions that he couldn't find the answers to, and now that Sam was away from his phone it looked like he wasn't getting any. All of these bits and pieces were right in front of him and yet he just couldn't tie them together. Just like at the Pizzeria he was stuck, though there it was because of possibly murderous animatronics and being confined to an office. Here it was because of a possibly murderous animatronic and an empty house. It was as though Fredrick even emptied his house of any sort of evidence.
Mike was approaching the bathroom when the Puppet suddenly appeared again out of its bedroom door. It didn't block his path, but it stood before him and that was enough to halt him. It had its head tilted downwards and seemed to be directly staring at the music box it had in its hands. Mike stared at it too, watching as the dark hand wiped some slightly disturbed dust off of the top. It then thrust the box forwards towards the human. Mike recoiled his hands back in a reflex at the sudden movement.
When he didn't immediately take the box, the Puppet lightly shook it to try and draw further attention to it. Finally, he dared to take the music box from its hands and sent a questionable look. It responded by turning and hovering into its room once more. Mike approached cautiously and looked inside to see it move to stand in its box. It stared at him with a vacant smile; it lacked any emotions that Mike could outright feel. No sadness, no anger, just a blank stare on a face stuck in a smile, waiting for him to do something.
Mike knew what it wanted and complied, even with how confused he was towards why it would want it. He wound the box and as he turned the crank he watched as the animatronic lowered itself down into the present box. At first he thought it was watching him still, but as it lowered it didn't adjust its head to stare him down and just continued the look forward. The flaps of the box closed and sealed it away. Mike set the music box down on the shelf and waited to see if the Puppet did anything else. As expected it went passive like before and he silently left to other things, such as a shower.
The purple stains were basically permanent on his shirt. Mike really didn't care and only noticed it when he was getting redressed. He continued to contemplate on it as he sat at the dining room table again. "If this classifies as paint then there should be a way to get them out…" He shrugged it off and finished off a second cupcake. He tried Sam again to no response. "You'd think he'd be screening me… Hell, he probably will after I tell him I read his file." He set the phone on the table and crossed over to the couch yet again, turning the TV back on low, putting in a different tape for a movie he recognized.
"…Maybe I should go wind the box," he mentally noted as he flicked off the lights and reclined on the couch. "Actually, no, I'll just leave him be. The last thing I want is to get him riled this late…" Instead he continued to watch the TV screen, barely able to hear it as he relaxed on the couch. He yawned as he fidgeted on the couch and tried to stave off growing tiredness. He glanced down the hall as he considered locking himself into a bedroom. It was a shame that every bedroom belonged to someone currently dead.
Eventually he just rolled onto his side and tried to focus on the movie…
Mike awoke to a start on the couch. He blinked, panted lightly, tried to reign in his pulse, and recognized what awoke him with such a start. The closest thing he could compare the noises to was wailing. It partially sounded like an actual voice with some sort of metallic grating added in. It took him a few seconds before he realized that it was the Puppet in the other room. This was beyond the sobbing he experienced earlier; it was practically hysterical. The harsh weeping was enough to rouse Mike awake and he wasn't usually that light of a sleeper.
He ran his fingers through his hair, his hat having fallen off at some point. Ironically enough, it was the hat from his old security guard job that he had simply worn it on a whim. Not that it mattered now. The TV was back on blue screen as the tape had ran out and, because the room was dark, Mike couldn't locate any clocks. He swore there had been a Grandfather clock somewhere around here. "I'm out for a two minutes… A few minutes… Two hours?" He had left his phone on the dining room table as well and wasn't sure whether it was worth checking it.
Instead his focus was on the creature falling to pieces in the other room. "Oh geez… Am I supposed to go back in there?" He was answered by the door suddenly opening into the hall. The Puppet exited and seemed to quickly hurry back towards the master bedroom. It briefly stopped crying, but once in the bedroom Mike could hear it once again. His concern then shifted when he realized that it may think he was gone. "If it comes out here and sees me- It's night, what if has a nightly freak out and comes to strangle me?" It appeared from down the hall and Mike reflexively closed his eyes to pretend he was asleep. He had been able to hear its movements from the weeping, but suddenly it went completely silent.
"It sees me," Mike mentally pointed out. "…I mean, of course it sees me. I've gone the only light in the house shining on me." He begrudgingly seemed to curse the TV as the Puppet slipped closer. Its location was a mystery until he heard something from the back of the couch, like it touching the couch or something. He could just envision it leaning over him. Then it moved from the couch and the room went silent again. Mike dared to open his eyes a crack and noted that it was no longer with him. There was movement at the bedroom door and he shut his eyes again.
A short while passed until Mike was suddenly alerted to something dropped on his legs. He clenched his teeth and fought the urge to open his eyes as something dragged over him. Then like a sudden flash of realization, or a sudden jolt of wailing in the night, he realized that the thing being put on him was a blanket. From the size and texture of the blanket it seemed to be the one that he had previously used to shield himself from the nasty Golden Freddy Plush. It circled him, adjusting the blanket, and then left yet again.
He released the exhale that he was holding in. Then held his breath again as he saw a flash of white and the Puppet returned once again. This time it put something between him and the back of the couch, stuffing the soft body down beside him, then again lingered. It was leaning over him for sure this time, its porcelain face staring at him. By time Mike was starting to get incredibly uncomfortable it had left once more. He couldn't see it down the hall and it didn't shut the bedroom door, and yet it never returned.
Mike was starting to regret staying the night. He passed out before he could dwell on it further.
Mable: I find writing FNAF a little more difficult than writing 9. Mostly because I've been so used to the latter that I write something and it's already how I want it. This takes more tweaking to see the image that I want, but I'm having a lot of fun with it! While this chapter was quieter, I can assure that it will start to pick up pace in the near future. It all starts somewhere… The next chapter will be posted as soon as I can write it, so I hope everyone enjoyed!