Mable: Here we are with the next chapter! I'd like to quickly note that while Sam is Fritz, he will be continued to be referred to as 'Sam'. This is because Mike knows Fritz as 'Sam' and technically he does go as this new name, so he's still the same guy. I probably didn't need to clarify that, but I needed an author's note. XD I hope everyone Enjoys!
Can't Go Home Again
Chapter Four
Mike awoke on the couch as he had the night before. This time it was supposed to be more comfortable; he had actually laid out better bedding on the couch and changed into more appropriate sleepwear. He hadn't stayed awake too late, he slept well enough, but something was terribly wrong and he knew it. As he rolled onto his back he felt something like a pulse in his abdomen, followed by a strange sour feeling. He slid upwards on the couch as the pressure and pain spread further. It reminded him of how he felt after he bruised his abdomen in a motorcycle accident years ago.
Though only if the outside pain somehow managed to migrate underneath the skin and muscle. "I knew there was something off about that pizza." It had an odd taste, but it was the slightly chalky consistency that had turned him off. He still ate most of the pizza without a hitch. Now he regretted it; it was worse than any hangover he could've possibly felt. Something was definitely wrong with that pizza. Suddenly an overwhelming clench hit his body, a wave of pain, and before he could even rationalize his body's actions he was off the couch and into the bathroom.
When Mike emerged a short while later he was feeling even worse. He leaned against the doorframe and rubbed his damp face. At some point he apparently started to sweat even though he felt clammier than hot. "I'm dying," he croaked out and looked back towards the living room. He couldn't go back to the couch; he felt too sick to suffer through laying on the couch. This was the first time he considered actually laying down in the master bedroom and, for a moment, almost managed to mentally talk himself out of it. Then the pain started to slowly intensify and he gave in.
He unintentionally banged on the Puppet's room before swinging in on the door in an almost drunken fashion. He was sure that it looked a lot worse than it was. The Puppet was knelt near the foot of the bed doing something half underneath it. The way it suddenly jolted upwards when he came in, completely interested in his presence, made him believe that it had heard him through the wall. He hoped only when he had slammed the door on the way in and not the awfulness that followed. "You, uh… You don't care about me being in the back bedroom, right?"
It slightly tilted its head and seemed almost to shrug a shoulder, maybe. Mike, meanwhile, was only there for a total of seven seconds before turning to leave. "Alright, thanks. I'll be in there." He didn't even wait for a full answer. He just took the Puppet's lack of offense as a good sign and hurried into the bedroom as fast as he possibly could. The bed was still made as he collapsed on top of it and just laid there on the comforter. It was already so much more comforting than the couch and Mike almost felt a little better.
That passed quickly and he turned onto his side, clutching his middle as if it would relieve the mess occurring within him. The Puppet appeared at the doorway shortly later. Mike didn't see him come in and seemed to, instead, 'feel' him coming. Almost like the feeling one would get if they thought they were being watched. Mike had become used to it and the animatronic enough that he let his guard down. It wasn't like he had the strength to raise his guard again. "I think…" He tried to force out, pausing for a moment before looking back to finish. "That the pizza was a death sentence disguised as a lump of cheese and bread."
He immediately regretted using the word 'death', but the animatronic didn't react to it. Instead the Puppet leaned over him and stared downwards at him. It scanned him, his body, his posture, and seemed to be a bit concerned. As concerned as it could be with a big smile on its face; though it didn't outright ignore the situation either. "I'm fine, I just… I just need to lay down for a while. I'm not actually dying or anything." That chiming laughter returned from the day before. The Puppet then left and Mike rolled over onto his side again.
"Death would just have to be the only option," Mike mentally noted in an almost bitter manner. "Damn it, Sam… And never mind, Sam told me to throw it out, so it would be my fault. Damn it, Mike." He vacantly laid there as his mind seemed to continue talking. It wasn't like he had anything stimulating to do. He felt too ill to actually do anything more than lay there and stare at the blank wall. Fredrick didn't even have much of anything interesting to look at on the walls except for a few pictures. Even they were pretty standard; him with a baby, him with his oldest son, a wedding picture, and a small painting of a ship at sea.
He zoned out staring at it and only returned to reality when the Puppet started trying to slide the Foxy plush under his arm. Mike raised a brow and looked down at the doll now beside him. "Huh, look whose back." The Puppet was delighted at his willingness to take the toy, regardless if he was ill or not. "Thanks. I'll try not to lay on him this time." He humored the animatronic by dragging the plush beside him. However, right afterwards he felt an acidity in his throat and forced himself to sit upwards against the pillows. To his relief it faded away; as bad as he still felt he had managed to get that much under control.
His mouth still tasted like a piece of rotten flesh from inside an animatronic suit. As soon as that thought passed his mind the acid returned. Just the thought of bodies distorted his usually unaffected body in ways he couldn't imagine. It wasn't like he could get the thought out of his head either; just thinking of those rotten bodies, that moldy Pizzeria, the disgusting pizza that had been sitting in the freezer-. A few seconds passed where Mike couldn't figure out whether he needed to sprint back to the bathroom or continue laying there unmoving. Finally, he slid back down into the pillows.
The human closed his eyes and evened out his breathing to get everything under control. It worked too well and he faded out for a short time, rousing later to the feeling of his arm being shook. He half-heartedly glanced down at the black hand on his arm. Then his vision was obscured with an offered pink cupcake. A wave of nausea struck as the sweet smell irritated his already suffering senses. By now he knew the Puppet was unpredictable, so he wouldn't usually shove its hand back as though the cupcake was poison.
"No, not- I can't. I can't eat it." The Puppet looked to the cupcake and to Mike, seemingly confused, but then followed by suddenly straightening. It held the cupcake close took back into the hallway. With it gone, Mike rolled back onto his side. "If it comes back in here with that pizza…" The thought cut off as he stared at the plush form of Foxy right beside him. He reached out and clutched it in his hand, "Foxy, you have to help me." He mockingly begged the inanimate creature. "My body's turning against me and I think I might be losing it."
Naturally Foxy did nothing. Which was actually a relief; Mike didn't think he was well enough to deal with talking toys. It was hard enough that a life sized jack-in-the-box was trying to feed him. Speaking of which, the Puppet must have crept behind him as it chimed attentively. Mike turned back full of dread and was relieved to see a glass of water instead of any other foodstuff. He accepted it thankfully, though did find himself studying it before daring to drink it, then tried to pass it off as nothing as he drank. His mouth already tasted less stale.
To his immediate annoyance, his phone started ringing the second he was chugging the water. He inwardly groaned at the thought of having to get up, go into the dining room, and then talk to some random person… Unless he didn't have to. Mike glanced to the Puppet which was now turned towards the door, staring down the hall. It had been relatively passive and helpful enough already without any indication that it was still angry about the day before. "Could you grab that?" The Puppet obediently did so without even a hitch. It left the room and returned with the phone.
Of course, by now the call had ended. Mike checked and could see that it was Sam who called, again, and exhaled. "Sam's checking in on me again…" He wasn't sure what the point of voicing his disturbance to the Puppet was. "And if I don't call him back he's going to work himself up." He huffed a bit and dialed the number. It wouldn't have been a problem if he wasn't feeling like this; in fact, he would've been excited to see if he had found anything. Sam answered with a quick greeting, "Hey Mike. I was just about to call back. I found something."
"Yeah?" Mike's voice sounded disinterested and Sam was taken aback. "Something up?" The former security guard quickly explained the situation. "I think I got food poisoning. If you're not doing anything, maybe you could drive by and drop off some antacids?" There was a pause on the line. "…You… Want me to go over there? Where you and- it can't hear me, can it?" Mike rolled over again, feeling a swell of discomfort forming again along with the slight burn of acid. "I don't know. Just toss it in the window. It's in the back of the house- Hold on."
And then Mike was gone. Too much water mixed with the lingering agony from the pizza. The phone sat untouched on the bed as the sound of Sam speaking could be heard. The Puppet stared intently at the phone as a low static started to grow in its chest, it hearing the other human on the line. It snapped out of its glare when Mike returned. He was swearing under his breath as he sat down on the bed. He felt a little a better now, or was able to sit upwards for a while to talk on the phone. "I'm here, barely," he complained, his voice hoarse.
"Is this from those cupcakes you've been eating?" Sam asked in disbelief. Before he could assume the worst, and Mike had to think about cupcakes, he broke in with a response. "Remember that garbage I was supposed to toss out from the freezer? One of the pizzas still had a good date so… You would've done it too. I know for a fact that you don't throw anything out. That's why you had me do it." Sam made a disgusted noise into the receiver. "I wouldn't have done it. Mike, I hate to tell you, but those freezers were practically defective. They were going on and off all the time; everything was spoiled."
"Why are you telling me this now after you know I've eaten the pizza?" Mike groaned out and rubbed the sweat off of his forehead. He was shocked that he was sweating with how dried out he felt. Sam was upfront, "…Spite. Mostly because you're making me risk my life to give you antacids. If the Puppet recognizes me it's game over." Mike fought the urge to roll his eyes, "Really, I appreciate it. I'll see you then." With the phone placed aside he was able to collapse back onto the bed. "He's not coming in but he's coming by. Just stay away from the windows and you don't have to see him."
There was no movement or acknowledgement. Mike noticed and looked over to it, seeing it stand there beside the bed in its 'default pose'. The default pose being what he labelled when it would just stand there and watch him. It hadn't done this since it had been upset the day before; he took it as a sign. "Something wrong?" It didn't respond traditionally and instead just turned itself to look at the window. It then went completely still once more. Mike shrugged it off and laid back down. It took about thirty minutes until Sam could be heard in the driveway.
"Mike?" Sam called out through the open window, standing underneath it. "Mike, I meant what I said earlier. I'm not coming in." The former security guard dragged him off the bed and to the window. "You look awful. Are you sure you shouldn't be in an emergency room somewhere?" He was obviously concerned and Mike leaned against the window frame. "I'm pretty close to being in a ditch somewhere, Fritz. If I don't get this under control I don't know what I'm supposed to do about work." He couldn't sit in an office like this, even if the place he was guarding wasn't anything like the Pizzeria.
Sam frowned in disapproval at the outright use of his name and tossed the bottle to him. Mike immediately twisted it open and retrieved a couple of pink tablets. "So what did you find out?" he asked as he popped them in his mouth. The chalkiness wasn't exactly easing him any, but he was holding out hope that it would somehow help. "Are you sure it's a good idea? I mean, we could wait." Mike raised a brow, "Nobody's going to hear anything or know what's going on. I'm not-… Oh." He caught what he meant and glanced off to the side towards the other side of the room.
"He doesn't care. Don't worry about it." It was the Puppet. That was what had Sam so afraid to linger or risk saying anything that would possibly trigger it, which Mike doubted as it never went outside. In a way Mike understood; in a way Mike didn't want to know what the animatronic used to do, as he only just got to the point of feeling comfortable around it. The Puppet, meanwhile, stared with an empty smile. All of its previously helpful behavior was hidden as it eyed him. If it spontaneously forgot who he was and began treating him like a stranger, he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
"I've got a tape you need to listen to- Not on me, back at the warehouse- where that Phone Guy talks about how to put on the suits. I had to have gone through that entire box and it was the only tape saying anything about it. That guy could talk a lot, but a lot of it was unimportant. I got, maybe, one sentence of actual information and then a couple of minutes of stuttering. I've never seen- heard a guy be so much of a talker and still have practically no communication skills… Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No reason." Mike took a small swig of the water, hesitating in setting it down as a soft static noise started to fill the room. He already knew it was the Puppet and looked back. It hadn't moved from its position. "I'll play it over the phone later. That way you don't have to come by," Sam offered and took a step back. "I'm going to take off now." Mike was planning to stop him, but the Puppet was growing louder, so he instead let the other go. "Thanks again," he finished and shut the window, then looked back to the Puppet.
"He's gone now. Better?" Mike asked, but then immediately noticed how unsteady he was. He sat back down on the bed, then collapsed on it. The static noise stopped and was abruptly followed by a loud slam. Mike shot upwards on the bed, "What in the hell?!" His head shot to the side to see the Puppet standing beside the window which was now slammed shut. It smiled with a slight tinge of a glare around its eyes. Mike didn't even ask and simply dropped back on the bed on the spot. He rubbed over his face and tried to ignore the powdery taste still in his mouth. "I'm going to try and sleep this off…"
The next thing Mike knew; he was waking up in bed. His mouth tasted even worse, but his stomach was starting to feel a little better. He released the Foxy plush, which he had started grappling in his sleep, and sat upwards to look around the room. The Puppet was missing and hadn't left any sort of sign behind. His curiosity piqued some and he dragged himself out of the bed. He staggered down the hall, his body stiff and sore from the prolonged sleep. It might have been the grogginess, but he was starting to become worried about the Puppet's behavior.
It probably wasn't that smart of him to bring Sam into the picture. The Puppet was clearly not trusting of humans. He knew this by its violent reaction towards him when it first appeared. Earlier he had been so focused on his own sickness that he didn't realize how dangerous it really was. The Puppet could have lashed out at him like it did to Mike himself only a few days before. Then the damage would be done; someone could see, Sam could get hurt, and it would be a disaster that could've been avoided if he just thought it through.
The bedroom door was slightly ajar so Mike let himself in. "Hey…" It was at this moment that he realized he actually didn't have a name for the Puppet. He pushed this aside for the moment. The Puppet was knelt by its box with its slew of plush toys sitting around it. It was holding one of the Freddys and a Chica, and its head snapped slightly upwards as its gaze fell on the human, surprised by his sudden appearance. It almost looked like it got caught doing something wrong. "Mind if I come in?" It moved its head down like a partial nod and started to fidgeting with the plush toys.
Mike shuffled over and sat down on the bed. The Puppet moved uncomfortably and seemed both unwilling to touch the toys and yet unable to leave them be. It hit Mike that he had walked in on the Puppet, the animatronic that would have willingly attacked someone earlier, actually playing with the plush animals. "Oh, that's cute," he wasn't sure if the mental comment was sarcastic or not, but the scene was just a small bit endearing. If anything it brought a smile out of Mike. "I'm not used to living with another person. Usually I just do my own thing and don't sweat the details."
The Puppet looked over in interest. Mike reacted by looking down at the floor. "And this is the second time I did that. First was that mix up with me leaving and now was this thing with Sam. I brought a guy in who's a stranger to you into what was- is your house. It's not mine, no matter what the papers say." Then he remembered that he never actually told it about the will. He kept going like it didn't matter. "So I botched that too. It's not the stupidest decision I've made. Not even the worst one this week, considering I ate the pizza."
There was a familiar soft chiming and the Puppet trembled a small bit; the Puppet was laughing. Mike felt his body relax at the complete absence of anger. "I'm going to get better at this one of these days…" And it hit him like a ton of bricks that 'one of these days' wasn't too far out of the picture. He was living with it now, accommodating it as it did so for him, and unless there was a massive change in the near future there was a good chance that he was going to spend a lot of his time here. Almost like being a night guard, except watching a single animatronic constantly.
He didn't really know how he felt. There was alarm from the idea, but Mike didn't feel positively or negatively about it. It didn't help that the Puppet was being so passive with him. Or that it had wept in front of him. Or that he walked in on it with a bunch of plush toys. Regardless of what happened earlier with Sam, Mike didn't feel ill will. "…I don't trust a lot of people myself. Never had. You just put up a guard to keep from getting screwed over by people, and usually it doesn't work… But I do trust Sam. He's never done me wrong. If it's any consolation, I wouldn't have told just anyone I needed help."
Now the Puppet looked downwards. There was still a disinterest and coldness towards Sam, and the Puppet evidently didn't want to deal with him. Mike decided to let it drop; this was good enough for now. "Foxy's still back in the bedroom if you want him…" He reached down and lifted one of the Chicas, noticing that it was different from the normal Chica. "I didn't get to see these the other day when you were pulling them out." The Puppet then rose to full height and approached the box again, silently retrieving something before turning back with that same smile.
Mike had to fight off the look of horror that tried to emerge on his face. The Golden Freddy plush had returned with a vengeance, looking more possibly poisonous than even the pizza did. The nausea that still lightly lingered didn't help the fact that the animatronic was coming at him with it. Just seeing it up close made it so much worse; he could only imagine the brown stain on its belly being old, dried blood. "Death by Fredbear… Never thought I was going out this way." He tried to hide his discomfort and took the plush into his hands.
The Puppet patted the toy on the head like it was alive, affectionately doting on it before literally putting it into Mike's hands. "Maybe it's an animatronic thing. Maybe it thinks it's alive too… But I never saw Freddy stuffing suits full of teddy bears." Looking closer he noted something else. "This is probably the one from the picture. If there's no other ones floating around and Fredbear was taken down… Maybe this is the last one. If there was anything in the warehouse…" He had a possible new lead literally dropped into his lap, but decided to ignore it for the moment.
This was enough of a recovery for now.
Sam dropped the stack of files onto the desk in frustration. Nothing. There was nothing here. As much as Sam was willing to try to ignore the past, Mike's search into the history of the Pizzeria had gotten himself enticed as well. Unfortunately, all he could find was a single tape on Springlock suits and absolutely nothing else. He was just about to give in and call it a night, it was quite late now, when his phone rang. He reached to it and answered without hesitation, "Hello?" There was a pause on the other line. "Hello? Wrong number?" Then a voice cut through, "Sam…"
"Mike?" Sam blinked in confusion. "Hey. I didn't expect you to call me. How are you feeling?" Mike sounded a little tired or like his voice was hoarse, but he spoke without a hitch. "Doing a lot better. I think I'm past most of it…" The way he trailed off was odd. "Is something wrong?" Sam pried. Mike hesitated before speaking, "Sam… Something happened earlier… I can't tell you much, but I think someone's watching us. They're watching us investigate. I know it sounds crazy, but someone was standing outside on the road earlier, staring at the house."
The technician's body went cold. "Oh no… Do you think he saw anything? Like… You know." A wave of panic was racing along his spine. "No. I don't think so. He knows I'm here, whoever he is, but he didn't see you and I don't think he saw Marionette either. Just…" He exhaled in distress and went silent for a short while. Sam waited patiently until he continued. "Here's the plan; you keep researching over there, I'll keep looking around here, and we'll just… Limit contact for a few days. If he sees you he'll know you're involved, and we can't have that."
"No, we can't…" Sam looked through the cameras at the dark warehouse. "I won't come back by. Do I call you?" Mike continued, "Don't. He might track the calls or listen in on them. I'll call you in a few days once everything's quieted down. Don't call me until then, alright?" The technician agreed without a hitch, "Alright…" There was a short period of silence before Mike continued. "I just know that if he sees us we'll be in danger, you'll be in danger, and that's… I don't even know what we'd do then. Who even knows who he is or what he would do."
"Well, you always have the Puppet at least. I don't think it's just going to let some guy walk in and kill you." Sam said it as a serious statement, but Mike laughed a little. Mike wasn't exactly one to laugh at anything Sam said, so he was suspicious. "Mike, is… Is there something else going on?" There was a shuffling against the phone before Mike blurted out, "Hold on, the guy's back. I have to go. Remember, don't call until I call you." With that he hung up, leaving Sam confused and concerned. He knew that something was wrong.
Mable: …So what changed in those few hours between Mike feeling better and the call to Sam? Something certainly changed… Perhaps it will be revealed in the next chapter. ^-^ I hope everyone enjoyed!