Mable: Here is the next chapter! It took a little longer than usual to get this one done since it's a bit of a transitioning chapter. A lot of the things in this chapter will be dwelled on further in the story. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
Can't Go Home Again
Chapter Twelve
It was the first time that Mike had woken early since everything had happened. The dull ache in his arm reminded him that it was time to take a dose of something to numb the pain. He fumbled over on the nightstand for the Aspirin he has set out, not wanting anything heavier this early. He then checked the clock on the nightstand and noticed something very obvious beside the bed. When he had gone to sleep the box had not been in the middle of the floor, he knew that much. He glanced around and could see the music box on the dresser as well.
Mike slid out of bed and almost reluctantly took to the world. He briefly peered into the box and it became obvious how the Puppet moved the box; other than the animatronic, the entire box had been emptied out. The only thing left inside was a bundle of wires and what looked to be a control cross in the bottom. It didn't look comfortable and he shut it back, then immediately wound the music box. There was no point in forcing Marionette to get up early too, especially when he was going to be busy anyway. He knew he had to be getting more familiar with 'My Grandfather Clock' by now.
As the song began to play he felt a comfort setting in and set it down on the dresser. Then he stepped out and headed down the hall towards the front room, putting on coffee and grabbing his cell phone to call Sam. "Morning, it's me. We, uh… We need to talk about something. Can you get ahold of Jeremy and come over here?... Just tell him he's asleep… See you then." He hung up the phone and continued with his morning ritual. By time the coffee was done and breakfast was started, Sam finally appeared and let himself in. "Still asleep?" Mike quipped a brow of amusement in response.
With the answer, Sam turned and called out the door. "The coast is clear, get in here," he pointed out in exasperation before sitting down at the dining room table. "I'm finally starting to feel yesterday and I'm thinking I should've just gone to the hospital. Ugh…" He rubbed his face tiredly as Mike poured him a cup of coffee. "Trust me, you didn't want to be there. I would've rather been treated on a table at the Pizzeria." Jeremy slowly inched into the house and shut the door behind him. "Ask Jeremy, he was there. It was practically a four hour wait."
"Huh?... Oh, yeah, pretty bad," Jeremy agreed and sat down as well. "Sorry, just a little… After yesterday." He looked anxious, Sam looked tired, and Mike had a feeling what he was about to say was going to get some mixed reactions. He sat down his plate, sat in the chair, paused for a few seconds, and then simply announced, "I want to reopen Freddy's." There was a couple of seconds of quietness until Sam raised his head. "Is… That a joke?" Mike's face was dead serious, Jeremy looked frantic, and Sam just was dumbfounded. "Mike, we can't- why would- hold on."
He got his things together, "Okay, first things first. How could we do that? The building is beyond salvaging, or beyond any sane amount of salvaging, Freddy's completely out of order, we have no money at all, it's just not really possible." To Mike's own surprise, he found himself defending his idea as naturally as possible. He had thought about it for a while but he couldn't say he had thought through every possible downside to the idea. In fact, he wasn't even completely sure why he suddenly wanted this, and pushed his breakfast aside to work things out.
"We could get funding. I'm going to have a little money put away and I can use that for some of what we would need done, but we would have to get outside investors. Maybe we can find some of the people who had stocks in Fazbear Entertainment. As for the building… I'll give you that, the building is in shambles. Depending on what they'll do with the demolition we can decide whether to fix it or look for another location. I was thinking about it last night though and I think we could get the demolition stopped. I mean, think about it, the Pizzeria is the site of multiple unsolved disappearances."
Sam and Jeremy said nothing. They both just stared across the table at Mike like he was insane. Mike took a moment to get his thoughts together and swig another drink of coffee. "And we don't need Freddy. We've got Foxy! Foxy was always a fan-favorite, right?" They reluctantly nodded in agreement. "So it becomes 'Foxy Fazfox's Pirate Themed Pizza place' and people don't see Freddy Fazbear so they forget the bad history." Sam seemed a little hesitant at the idea, "I don't know. They might still think Foxy caused the bite of 87." Jeremy chimed in, "Didn't he cause the bite of 83?"
"There was a bite of 83 too?" Mike asked in disbelief and was answered by the two breaking into a brief disagreement. "I don't know. One of them was that golden bear, maybe the other one was Mangle," Sam tried to assume. Jeremy argued, "I was the guy bit by Mangle. I'm pretty sure I remember what happened. She nearly took my head off!" Mike looked to Jeremy in disturbance, "You were bitten by the pink Foxy?" Jeremy got an awkward look, "Y-Yeah. Not my finest hour. Hey, nobody got killed!... I don't think. I sort of passed out pretty quickly. They were all acting wrong."
"It was that facial recognition, it never worked," Sam insisted. "Sometimes they misread people, sometimes they let people by without checking them, and they were incredibly easy to tweak the programming on. Anyone could have tinkered with them." Mike butted in, attempting to regain the conversation, "Freddy and the gang seemed to have the same problem, I was-…" He was completely ignored as Jeremy insisted. "They were able to see my rap sheet, and I was only arrested once, and it had nothing to do with kids!" Mike was baffled, "Rap sheet, what?"
Again, Sam continued to drag on the conversation. "Those toys were sent for maintenance constantly. Every time I fixed something someone tweaked it and ruined it. I don't even want to think about how children could've destroyed Mangle." Finally, Mike made his voice a little louder, "We're getting extremely off topic here. The only technicians and maintenance are going to be us, so we don't need to worry about that. Fritz, I'd just leave it to you. We'd only have two animatronics anyway. Maybe the smaller scope would be easier to deal with."
"It still doesn't fix our other problems," Sam explained rationally. He didn't want to damper Mike's hopes, but he was seriously doubtful. The former security guard glanced down at the table, "Look, I'm going to level with you both… I just can't get over Freddy's. I can't be the only one of us whose stuck in a job he doesn't like with no hope for the future." He looked to Sam who looked away towards the floor. "How long has it been since you two worked at the Pizzeria? And you both still remember every detail. You're both in the same boat I am, I know it."
"I don't know…" Jeremy quietly started. Mike insisted further, "But I do. As insane as it sounds, that Pizzeria became something to me, to you two, and it's unfair that it ends like this because one night guard with issues decided to completely lose it. This might be a chance for us to do something. If it works this could be bigger than Freddy's ever was. If it fails at least it doesn't go out with a scandal… At least we don't get stuck changing our names." Jeremy looked over towards Sam who Mike was looking at. Sam said nothing and fiddled with the table cloth.
"On that note, I have to go wind the music box," Mike commented in a slight attempt to ease the tension. Jeremy made a choking noise, "Yes, hurry and do that." Mike stood and headed towards the back. It wasn't just to wind the box, but he also felt like he needed to step away for a second to let them actually think. He had made some bold statements and he knew that both of them were liable to not react well, but he had to try. He stepped into the master bedroom and shut the door behind him. The second the door clicked closed, Marionette began to rise out of the box.
"Morning," Mike greeted. "I was just coming to wind the music box. I thought maybe you'd want to get more sleep." Marionette moved a little stiffly and lightly stretched, "Oh, don't worry about me." Mike got an amused smile, "You can reconsider if you want. Sam and Jeremy are sitting out in the dining room." Almost immediately Marionette changed his tune, promptly lowering back into the box. "In that case…" He chimed playfully as Mike went to wind the box. "Don't bother. I don't need it." Mike was a little confused by the comment, but did as he said and set the music box aside unwound.
"I'll come get you after they take off." The box closed again and Mike headed back out into the hallway, crossing down towards the dining room. He wanted to wait to mention the idea to the Puppet, when they were in private. He sat down at the table. "So… Quick question, what happened to the other restaurants? There was more than one, right?" Jeremy answered, "I heard they were closed. There was… Questionable things happening there too. I wasn't asking at the time, but it was bad enough that they were closed." Mike nodded, "Any way those buildings would still be operational?"
Jeremy shrugged a little and Mike considered it. "…Nah, probably not. They're probably running just as destroyed as this one, or have been sold to someone else." They fell silent for a few seconds. Then it was Fritz who spoke, "You're right." Mike looked to him, "About the other locations?" The technician shook his head, "About me, about the Pizzeria… Look at me; every day I go back to that warehouse and try to keep everything together. I don't get paid, it doesn't need this much attention, but I still do it." He sounded completely exhausted as he spoke.
"And finding jobs is impossible. The last company I worked at went under, nobody around here owns animatronics that need actual work… I spend all of my time doing standard repairs on basic computers. I don't know if you know how mundane it is to work on a dozen computer monitors and have that count as a good day." He rubbed over his face weakly, wearily, and then raised his head. "…I want to say 'Let's do it', but I know with our means it's going to fail." He cut off, sighed, and then offered, "If we can get the funding somehow I'll… I'll be your technician."
"…Thanks, Fritz," Mike didn't know what else to say. He was a bit surprised at his sudden change in decision and didn't want to rock the boat. He looked to Jeremy who seemed flabbergasted at Fritz's decision. "I… Uh… Well…" he rubbed his shoulder. "I mean; I guess as long as I didn't have to be a night guard… It's better than sitting in a cubicle for the rest of my life, right? Even if that life would be a lot longer, probably…" So that was it. They were all in agreement about what they were planning on doing. "…So what do we do now?" Jeremy offered.
"We need to figure out if we can legally use everything. Better to be safe then get sued," Fritz suggested. Mike agreed with him, "Fredrick's got a file cabinet in the back full of paper work. We can find something there… Let me just double check that we can get back there." He stood and beckoned the two who followed along towards the master bedroom. Mike went in first and lightly tapped on the box. There was no response, so he tapped in a more rhythmic fashion. Still, there wasn't a single noise, and Mike lifted open the box just a small bit.
There was nothing inside except for the control cross at the bottom. Mike didn't know where Marionette had gone but quickly had a reassuring thought. "He heard us coming and left. He's probably over in his room now." He opened the bedroom door the rest of the way. "It's fine, come in." He headed in the direction of the closet followed by Fritz and a very hesitant Jeremy. "It's not going to come out? The box isn't wound…" Mike decided it was better not to say that the Puppet was gone. Instead, he answered with, "He's not coming out. Don't worry about it."
He opened the closet and led them to the file cabinet. They began to go through the papers to see if there was anything they could figure out.
The warehouse wasn't as depressing as the dilapidated remains of the Pizzeria. That was something, he assumed, but it was still not pleasant looking at the amount of abandoned stuff left behind from the closed down Pizzeria. Everything seemed so neatly stored into boxes, fitted away calmly and in an organized fashion, that it just felt unnerving. Even for something or someone like Marionette. He drifted amongst the items and recognized most of them. The alternate heads, parts, and endoskeletons were also slightly unsettling.
It didn't cause him to hesitate as he searched for one thing in particular. Though he assumed that it wouldn't be stuck in the shelves. He didn't think it would actually be possible. Regardless, he continued into the back until he finally noticed a secluded room in the back. Unlike the open section of the warehouse, this one was relatively blocked off and he approached the doorway, looking inside. Naturally, this was what he was looking for. He could already see Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica stored in the back. They were positioned in an orderly line, most likely by Fritz.
There was one exception, as there usually was, and that was the animatronic crouched down over in the corner. Marionette's focus fell on Foxy who had secluded himself over to the side, staring at the wall. He wasn't certain if the animatronic was asleep, if he was shut off, or if it was pointedly ignoring him. Really he could buy any of them from Foxy. It felt so strange for it to only be the two of them left behind. It wasn't as though he had communicated with him much since… When Marionette had first started trying to stop the murders he always went directly to Freddy.
Really, it wasn't as though Foxy wasn't always slightly off. The others just needed a little coaxing, sometimes more than the Puppet was comfortable with, but Goldie wouldn't do it. Goldie held a lot of grudges, including those towards the other animatronics, so it only seemed understandable that the Puppet himself was the one to gather the others. But never Foxy. Even now Marionette liked to think it was because he was unreliable, because he wouldn't listen to commands, but maybe that wasn't the case. Maybe there was a more emotionally driven reason that he avoided the fox as he had.
Or maybe he was just thinking about this because of his recent reflections. Even that brought around the question of why Foxy was so different than the others. He wondered if he had seen something, if he had remembered something, and the latter sent him through a course of emotions. It was only now that Marionette realized he had been standing there staring for quite some time. Foxy hadn't moved, he hadn't moved either, and he considered his next option. His mind went back so something he remembered seeing earlier when he was passing down the aisles.
Marionette turned and headed off into the warehouse. His thoughts simplified as he tasked himself with something a bit different than usual. He found the folded object relatively quickly and looked over the purple fabric. He didn't know if Foxy liked the curtains, he didn't even know if he missed Pirate's Cove, but he did know that Foxy liked to be secluded out of view and being stuck in that back room didn't seem comfortable. He got to work and did what he could with the area and resources that he had done. Then he moved back to seek out Foxy once more.
This time he forced himself to move closer. He reached out and brushed Foxy's shoulder, and the animatronic reacted with a violent tremble. Marionette retracted his touch but wasn't exactly surprised at the reaction. Foxy stiffly raised from his crouched position and turned himself around to face the other animatronic. They stared at each other; Foxy gave no visual or auditory cues. Even the faint unexplained sense that was shared through animatronics, this cohesive sense where they could silently feel something from each other, didn't show anything that he could catch.
Foxy was entirely blank and Marionette almost took this as a bad sign. Almost, but not quite yet. Maybe Foxy was just still not fully awakened; he was clearly present the day before, so he wasn't going to assume yet that he was empty. If he was empty then he wouldn't be moving freely as he was. Keeping a distance that he hadn't the day before, Marionette started to the door and beckoned the animatronic to follow him. Thankfully Foxy followed him without trouble. Marionette led him to another part of the warehouse, a back corner of the warehouse that he had blocked off with the curtain.
Marionette paused nearby and watched to see how Foxy would react. The animatronic's ears raised in interest and he suddenly seemed to take some sort of life again. He passed through the curtain into the secluded area. It was a lot more unimpressive inside. While the shelves were lined with things leftover from the pizzeria, there wasn't really anything that he could put into the curtained area. Some leftover drawings of Foxy, a Foxy plush that somehow evaded the Puppet, and a cardboard cutout of a pirate flag. Foxy entered the are as though it was his cove and looked around at the gathered things.
His yellow eyes eventually stopped on one of the children's' drawings. He shuffled towards it and stared at it, it barely taped to the wall by a tiny slip of tape. It wasn't even as though he recognized the scene, but that the picture itself had just enthralled him, even though it was simply a rough sketch of himself. Curiosity nudged at Marionette as he wondered if any were left from when he was a fixture in the Pizzeria. He had certainly remembered a couple posted to the wall around the prize corner, but whether or not they survived transition into a warehouse had yet to be seen.
He started out of the curtain again, thinking Foxy would want to be alone as he went to scour the box of drawings, but to his surprise Foxy did follow him out. At first Marionette was fine with it as he stared searching through a box packed with childish tributes to Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie. By time he finally found a single one of himself shoved at the bottom, Foxy had been slowly inching closer and closer behind him, and he was well aware of it. The fox was being extremely clingy; for a second the Puppet knew how Mike felt. Ironically, he found the clinginess return as concern about Mike returned.
"Yar, welcome to Pirate Cove! It be time to shove off and go on a quest for treasure!" An audio recording suddenly broke out. Marionette actually flinched at the sudden voice in the empty warehouse. He then looked back to Foxy, staring at him and trying to guess if he was actually trying to say something. Instead, Foxy just seemed as confused as he was, and so the Puppet let it drop. Instead, he showed the drawing to Foxy excitedly, pointing over the picture of himself with an eager delight. He wondered if Foxy could remember that far back to when he was working.
Those had been good days. The Purple Man was still at large, but the joy of passing prizes out to children was irresistible. The Prize Corner had become something of a sanctuary for him, even if it wasn't entirely of his own choice. Naturally he had heard what Mike was talking about with the others before he left. It was out of a suspicion that they were talking about him that he was listening, which he found more amusing than anything, and it had spurred him to come here. He knew he would have to anyway and he didn't want to stay in his box any longer.
Whether or not Mike could actually reopen the pizzeria was unclear. Whether or not he could keep the pizzeria and children inside safe was another matter entirely. Marionette didn't believe for a second that Mike would be capable of letting someone do what the Purple Man did, even with his vocal doubts the night before. He was clearly capable to make the right calls and wasn't afraid to do something, even if it risked his life. He wasn't one to brush something under a rug just to protect himself. This was why while Marionette was doubtful, he wasn't exactly against the idea.
He stared at the drawing again, portraying himself handing a gift to a child. He did miss that. He missed make children happy, he missed 'miscounting' tickets and giving better prizes than he was supposed to, he missed them looking to him with eagerness instead of fear. He never looked at a child and saw the Purple Man. He never felt threatened by the parents, though occasionally uneasy around them. If he was going to be honest, as much as he enjoyed this newfound freedom to wander around and do what he wanted, he did somewhat miss the perks of the pizzeria.
Which didn't make any sense. He was literally strung in place and there was a murderer on the loose, but something about it, he still missed something. Foxy started to head back towards his private 'cove' in the corner of the warehouse. Marionette now mimicked Foxy's earlier action and loyally followed him along.
Out of an entire afternoon, Mike, Sam, and Jeremy accomplished virtually nothing. Other than getting the name of a lawyer Fredrick may or may not have used, there wasn't any paperwork that officially gave them rights to using the building, Foxy, or his name without a possibility of a lawsuit. It didn't help that halfway through things were brought to an abrupt halt when Mike received a call from his workplace asking him to come in for the night shift. Against his better judgement, knowing he couldn't do much with his arm in this state, he accepted the work for the funds it offered.
He hadn't seen Marionette since that morning. Even after Sam and Jeremy were long gone, the animatronic had not returned to the house. Mike wasn't worried and just left a note before leaving the house in the evening. When he arrived at the office it was almost cleared out of workers. Nothing seemed to be different from any other night, so he wasn't exactly sure on why he had been called in. Natalie was already there downing a thermos of coffee. "Hey," Mike greeted tiredly and sat down in his own chair. He reclined on it wearily and stared at the security monitors.
"Hey. What happened to your arm?" Natalie asked in a nonchalant fashion. Mike attempted to briefly fold his arms behind his head, but then immediately stopped when it became too uncomfortable. "There was an accident. It's a long story." Natalie got a playful smile as her eyes focused on the cast, "Uh huh, sure… So who's this Mary?" Almost immediately Mike's eyes widened with a start. "What are you talking about?" Natalie pointed to his cast, "The girl who signed your cast?" Immediately Mike yanked his arm back and scanned the cast on his wrist.
Sure enough, on the back of his cast, right where he couldn't see it unless he was looking, was the name 'Mari'. There was also a tiny smiley face drawn after it with a wide smile and round cheeks. Mike's brows raised as high as they could. There was no way that Sam and Jeremy hadn't seen it at least once, they just hadn't said anything when they did. "What in the…? How did I not see this?!" The blonde got a cheeky smile. "Oh, I think it's kind of cute. She must be a special girl if she gets a special privilege like this." Mike frowned at it, "This better not be permanent."
She offered her thermos and he took it, halfway through downing a gulp when his phone started to ring. He nearly choked on the liquid and passed the thermos back. He wasn't supposed to have his phone on but had forgotten to turn it off. He answered it abruptly, "Hello?" The timing was impeccable. The soft voice was immediately familiar, "Sorry to bother you at work, but I didn't know when you were getting back." Marionette chirped as though he hadn't defiled Mike's cast while he was asleep. "…How exactly are you calling me?"
"That doesn't matter. What is your favorite kind of cake? Or cupcake, if we're being more precise." Mike wasn't surprised that he dodged the question entirely. "Chocolate. Why, are you baking?" There was a teasing tone, "I might be.~ And frosting, pink or baby blue?" The security guard glanced towards Natalie and noticed that she was looking to the screens. He had no doubt that her looking away meant that she was trying to listen, so he turned his chair away in an attempt to cut down on it. "Uh, I guess blue. It doesn't really matter." He could hear movement over the phone.
There was then a hum of disapproval. "This one's a little past date… Well, I suppose it's fine. You did survive the pizza." He then lapsed into a brief period of silence before asking. "When are you coming home?" Mike actually shrugged before realizing that he couldn't see him shrugging, "I just walked in, so it's going to be a while. Don't set anything on fire while I'm gone." There was a chime of contentment over the line. Mike then added in, "But when I do get home we need to talk about what you left on my arm." Marionette chimed in amusement.
He then retorted in what sounded like the most patronizing tone he could muster, "Mike, I'm pretty sure the hospital left that on your arm." Then the call ended. Mike turned off his phone and put it away. "I don't even know why I let him get anywhere near the kitchen. If I die under mysterious circumstances, have the authorities check the cupcakes," he noted to Natalie. She suddenly got a surprised look, "Wait, him? It's a guy?" Mike nodded and Natalie grew quieter. "Oh… That makes a bit more sense." It caught his attention, "Excuse me?"
"Why I never heard you asking any girls out or anything. I don't have anything against it or anything like that, I'm just a little surprised." It took a few seconds for Mike to catch on. "She doesn't think we're-?!" It wasn't even the fact that she thought he was with another guy, it was the fact that, for a second, somebody thought he and the Puppet were an item. "Whoa, wait, no. It's nothing like that!" He raised his hands in defense. "We live together but we're not- We're roommates, that's it…" Natalie wasn't looking convinced, "And he's baking cupcakes for you?"
She was smirking and Mike was ready to say anything. "We're going into business together. We're opening the old Freddy place again." Right afterwards he knew this was a stupid thing to let slip. There wasn't even any concrete plans and yet he was already passing this information out; it had only been this morning when the decision was made. She was shocked by the reveal, "Have you seen that place? It looks like it's going to cave in if it rains too hard! And I don't even want to think about what went down a couple of years ago…"
Mike looked towards the screen. There were a few people still working late on some of the floors, but it didn't seem like enough to have called him in for. "I know. I've already thought through all the details, it's just a matter of getting stuff done. If it works I won't have to work here anymore." Natalie made a scoffing noise, "If only we all were so lucky." He glanced to her and noticed her sudden change in tone. She looked tired and her voice revealed exasperation that he hadn't expected from her. She always seemed so content with her job.
"…You know, if this works out I'd give you a job. I've seen how hard you work and I know you'd be able to do it," Mike honestly offered. Natalie got an uncertain look, "Thanks, but I think I'll pass." She looked to the screen and then added in, "Wouldn't want to make Mary jealous." The former security guard cringed at the comment. "Heads up, someone's trashing an office on the third floor." Mike looked just in time to see a balding man throw a potted plant at the window and shattering the entire pane. There was already paper dumped and splayed all along the floor.
"I'll go deal with him," Mike grumbled to himself and stood. It wouldn't be the first time that he had to deal with an angry employee on a rampage. "Guess I better enjoy it while it last. At least these guys can't literally bite my head off…"
Mable: Mike may have bit off a bit more than he can chew. He's got a pretty big job ahead of him now, and the success rate is pretty low, so wish him what luck you can… If you can wish a story luck, of course! The next chapter will be posted as soon as I can get it typed. I hope you enjoyed!
Also, if you're wondering, he used Fritz's phone. XD