Mable: Here we are with the next chapter! Without further ado, here we go!

Can't Go Home Again

Chapter Forty

It felt out of place to enter the house and not have Marionette immediately greet him. Mike knew he was probably still asleep, but it felt abnormal to not have him nearby. Especially considering everything that he had learned from Phone Guy. If anything, he wished that the animatronic was with him, because then he would feel less uncomfortable. With a slow exhale, he shut the door, locked it, and headed towards the hallway to find him.

"Don't mention the Afton thing, wait on the bite until later, pretend like everything's fine," Mike mentally reminded himself as he opened the bedroom door. The light was still off and the box was still closed, but the music box had wound down.

"It's been a while… He's slept long enough," he self-encouraged and approached the box. Slowly he lifted the flaps and stared into the box. Through the shadows blocked him off and the plush toys obscured him, Mike could see Marionette still folded into the box, face turned away. "Just don't think about it. This is Mari; he's not a child anymore." He meant that in more way than one as he stared down at him. With a slow exhale, he reached down and laid a hand on the puppet's shoulder.

There was a shift in the black fabric before Marionette turned to look upwards at Mike. Apparently, he was at least somewhat awake before he came to wake him. He looked upwards with interest and Mike noticed quickly that he hadn't said anything. He paused for a moment, staring down into the box with a tense mouth. "Say something or he's going to be weirded out," Mike mentally scolded himself. It took him a few seconds to finally get out actual words.

"Hey…" Mike hesitantly began. "Feeling more awake now?" He managed a relatively normal smile as he asked the animatronic. From the way the animatronic slowly dragged himself upwards, stretching tiredly, he seemed to have not noticed Mike's odd behavior. Looking over at him, his smile regained its usual luster.

"I am. How was Fritz?" he asked without any suspicion. Mike chose his words extremely carefully.

"He's doing good. We shot the breeze, bumped into a friend of his, basic stuff," Mike answered in a dodgy fashion. He then set out a new offer on the table. "How about we do something? We've got time to kill and nothing better to do. When's the last time that we got any free time?" Before the other could respond, he added in, "Christmas doesn't count. I spent too long at the store for it to count."

Marionette seemed immediately eager towards the offer and chimed in delight as he slipped out of the box. "I would love that! Anything you have in mind?"

It was hard pretending that there wasn't another reason why he was doing it. Not that he wouldn't want to spend time with Marionette, but the information he knew was weighing on him. "You decide. Anything you want to do." Maybe he gave the puppet too much power, as he quipped a brow in interest and gave another chime, one more thoughtfully slow.

"Anything… Hmm…" Something sounded a little too focused in his voice. With another chime, he approached his bed and reached underneath. Mike expected anything other than what Marionette brought out from under the bed, which was what looked to be a board game box. That was, until he turned around to reveal the cartoon Freddy Fazbear on the front.

"There was a board game?" Mike asked in disbelief. "There weren't even more than a handful of restaurants. How was there a board game?"

"It was a prize at the Prize Corner. Very high ticket value; only a handful were ever exchanged for. You know how children are with tickets," Marionette responded with an eager smile. He clearly wanted to play the game and, unfortunately, Mike set himself up for this. "I haven't played it in years! I maybe played it once with father." He knelt on the floor and set the game's box down between them.

"So, what is this, a rip-off of monopoly?" Mike asked as he sat down as well. There was no point in resisting if this was truly what the puppet wanted to do.

"Relatively close," Marionette lightly shrugged and opened the box. Inside was a folded board, tokens, various cards, paper money, and small plastic figures. "Now the game is very simple," he unfolded the colorful board on the floor. "We need to get to the pizzeria, but we need enough tokens to enter. Tokens are randomly spread around the board and can be bought with money, that we collect from circling the board and events. We roll the dice to see who goes first and- here." He placed a figure in front of Mike. "You can be Bonnie and I'll be Freddy."

This wasn't the Bonnie that Mike was familiar with. With the half-hearted paintjob, it sort of resembled the toy version that Mike saw pictures and parts of. Regardless, he didn't argue, and was only relieved that neither of them had to play a Foxy character, toy or not. There was still that nagging irritation in the back of his mind towards the fox animatronic, or towards the person that he used to be. It felt odd being angry at what had been a child at the time and was now a fox suit around a metal endoskeleton, but Mike wasn't planning on talking himself out of it.

He had to change the subject for his own good. "Goldie ever play this with you?" Marionette looked to him suddenly, but his face didn't change as he stared. There had to be some sort of surprise, but not enough to affect his look. This wasn't a trick question though. This was simply out of curiosity, as Marionette practically never spoke in detail about Goldie.

"…No, he didn't," Marionette finally admitted. "Goldie and I didn't play games. Or, we didn't after I left childhood. Which was a shame; I would've loved to continue playing games with the others, but Goldie was constantly obsessed with-…Well, I don't need to tell you what he had us doing every night."

Mike watched the board, as though engulfed with interest in setting up the game, but this was simply so he didn't seem too eager. He had a feeling that talking about Golden Freddy was just as risky as nudging around the event of the bite itself. There was some sort of reason that he didn't talk about him that much, and now knowing about the bite… Mike couldn't trust that Marionette was telling all of the truth.

"Nah, I figured that much out," Mike pointed out. "I was just seeing what past players I was competing in the shadow of."

Marionette handed over some cards and paper money. "I wouldn't worry about that, Mike! It's not a difficult game," he pointed out. Then, amused by the comment, he adds in, "And don't feel second to Goldie. I owe him my life, he was my closest friend… But he was a stick in the mud." Mike's brows raised at the comment and Marionette chimed in amusement.

Then the game officially begun. Mike learned quickly in the first turn that this was, indeed, some sort of Monopoly rip-off. The only difference being that there was a specific goal in mind instead of just buying properties and collecting money. There were about fifteen turns before Mike started to realize that the game was not going well for him. Suddenly he was beginning to wonder if there was another reason why Golden Freddy had outright refused to play the game, because Mike had collected only one token and was somehow down to only a quarter of his cash.

"If I land in the water, I'm broke," Mike remarked as he rolled the dice. Somehow, he dodged the water penalty, but landed on a space that didn't reward either. "I don't know where my money's going, but I don't remember Fazbear tokens being this expensive. No wonder kids aren't getting enough tickets to buy this thing; they can't even get into the front door without dropping a grand."

"Half a pound of tupenny rice, half a pound of treacle.~" Marionette playfully sung as he rolled his dice and moved his character along. "That's the way the money goes…~" He landed on an event space, grabbed a card, scanned it, and added in, "All players on the board owe me twenty.~"

"You're eating me out of house and home, Mari," Mike lamented. "I'm too broke to buy rice at this point. That's where the money's going." Yet the game didn't seem anywhere near being over. It didn't help that the floor wasn't exactly comfortable for long stretches of time either. Though Marionette seemed happy enough playing the game. This made up for some of his less than impressed feelings.

The game ended in the most anticlimactic way possible. Mike was stuck in jail and Marionette secured the last token he needed, effectively winning the game.

"If this is what Freddy has to go through to go to work, then I get why he gets his kicks slaughtering night guards. At least we didn't have to pay to get in," Mike pointed out with a light smirk.

"Good game," Marionette remarked with a smile. "You may have better luck the second time around."

"Yeah, no." Mike stiffly pushed himself off the floor. "You're limited on one game a night. Bonnie'll have to stay in jail." He looked over in time to see Marionette giving a slight frown, lips pressed tightly together and smile all but missing. He didn't necessarily look angry, but he seemed less than impressed about Mike's resistance. Almost like a petulant child pouting at not getting his way, even though Marionette was much too old to be doing such.

And Mike would be damned, but it was effective today.

"There's got to be something else worth doing," Mike pointed out in a desperate ply to get away from a second round of the board game. Marionette considered this, tapping his fingers on the floor and considering the possibilities.

Then he finally perked and spoke, "There is something I have been meaning to show you." His smile suddenly reappeared on his face once more. "It's in the attic. Wait here." Then he was gone. Mike took the time to quickly toss all the game pieces back into the box and shove it back under the bed, hoping that this would keep the animatronic from asking for a game later. He shoved the box under the bed and turned back to see Marionette waiting there with a new box, just watching his desperate efforts.

Mike found that the best thing to do was to completely ignore what he had done. Instead, he looked towards the dusty box that the striped male was holding. It looked like an old shoe box, but wasn't labelled or printed on. "What's in there?"

"Oh, I just thought I'd get out another board game, since you loved that one so much," Marionette quipped back. He passed by him to sit on the bed. "Now we will need to be careful with these, but I think you're old enough to handle them." He chimed in a playful manner and beckoned him over. He opened the lid of the box and revealed the tissue paper tucked inside. "These belonged to my grandparents. I never met them, and I wasn't allowed to play with these when I was little, so this is sort of new to me too."

He drew out a set of small, wooden puppets from the box. One of them resembled a jester while the other resembled a princess. They were dressed in stiff clothing that looked like it would disintegrate with too much touching or movement. The jester's face looked freakish, but this could've been because the paint has started to flake off. Marionette handed over the jester doll.

"Be gentle. Their strings should still work, but their bodies may be fragile," Marionette warned as he handed over the body. "My mother loved these puppets. I think she grew up with them. She had to of, I suppose. I doubt her parents kept them in the attic like father did." He didn't notice Mike's inward cringe at the mention of Fredrick. "I wasn't too disappointed to become a puppet, even though it's fully unconnected to these little dolls, but I was a little confused to look like this instead of like these."

"I think you got lucky. You could've looked like this guy," Mike playfully remarked as he took the puppet doll's two crosses in his hands and fiddled around with them. "Sock monkey is a lot better than scary, child eating jester." This got another frown from Marionette while Mike smirked, "Give it up, Mari. You're a sock monkey. You have the look, you have the buttons, you have the stripes- the monkey even goes with the 'Pop Goes the Weasel' thing. You know it's true, so don't give me that look." Overconfidence dripped from him.

Marionette looked down at the puppet in his lap with that same, frowning, pursed lip look.

"And what's your issue about it anyway? A sock monkey is literally a little plush think meant for kids to play with- which, might I add, is exactly what you are." Now Mike was more serious about it, even if it sounded patronizing. "It's not like I'm comparing you to this guy or something." Marionette responded dismissively under his breath and his focus shifted to the wooden doll in Mike's grasp. He seemingly became focused on the way he handled the strings.

The Puppet himself lapsed into silence and allowed himself to be entranced by the stiff, simplistic movements of the tiny doll. It made him feel odd, considering that he was looking in at a puppet when he was also one, but there was something hypnotic in watching the gentle tug of the strings.

Mike noticed and glanced over at the animatronic. His curiosity piqued and the previous sock monkey discussion was smoothly dealt away with. He continued trying to manipulate the disfigured doll. By now he figured out which strings did the basics of movement and continued to fiddle with the doll.

"You're a natural," Marionette praised, then reached out to touch his hands. "Let me show you…" He laid his hands on Mike's and started to carefully adjust the male's grip, knowing exactly which strings were which. "If you hold it like this then it's easier to work the subtler of movements," he explained his actions. "But I had a feeling you would take to this quickly. It's all a matter of hand-eye coordination."

Mike got a slight smile of amusement, "It's a good skill to learn if that track ever gives out. We might have to improvise."

Marionette gave a chime in response. He said nothing more, but he gave Mike's hands a soft squeeze in response. He didn't remove his hands and Mike, at first, tried to show that he could clearly puppeteer and didn't need the guidance. It became apparent soon that the animatronic had no intention of releasing him.

Normally, Mike would've questioned this action, but he decided not to. Somewhat because of earlier, maybe because it could've been an apologetic gesture, but mostly because it was relatively innocent. Though it couldn't last; Mike knew he was pressing his luck fiddling with the wooden doll this long and knew, at any second, it could fall apart. He returned it to the box, noticing that Marionette had not touched the puppets beyond initial interactions with them. As far as Mike was concerned, he assumed it was just another 'Mari quirk'.

"You want to do another movie night?" Mike offered. Slowly the thoughts he had been ignoring starting to return. Puppets, childhood, heads being crushed by metal teeth; he knew it was going to come back and the urge to ask about the bite was overwhelming. "I could run to the video store and be back only in a couple of minutes."

"I would like that," Marionette remarked before tilting his head. "Is everything alright? You're starting to get that look again."

"What look?" Paranoia started to seep in.

"That distant look. Did something happen with Fritz?" The only reason that Mike knew Marionette didn't know what happened was because he knew the Puppet wouldn't have been nearly as calm. There was no way he would smoothly take the information in.

"No, it's just…" Mike hesitated, considering what he was going to say, and then exhaled slowly. He took one of Marionette's hands and gave it a squeeze. "Don't worry about it. Let's just have a good time, okay?" Marionette glanced down at the hand squeezing back at his. Mike wondered if the puppet would continue to question, but instead he seemed somewhat sated by the answer. Or at least was distracted by Mike hand holding enough to not question further.

Though Mike stood and got ready to leave. "I won't be gone long," he insisted as he prepared to leave. "You got a preference in what you want?" Things seemed to ease quite a bit since he reassured the animatronic. Marionette returned to his previous bubbliness and kept close to his human companion.

"Just whatever you think we would like. It doesn't matter what kind," Marionette insisted as he helpfully handed over Mike's jacket to him. "Just don't keep me waiting too long." His voice was edging on sing-song, but had yet to return to the point it had been during the game. He watched as Mike made his leave and drove off, loyally watching by the window. Marionette was feeling a growing suspicion that something was being kept from him by Mike's apparent behavior.

Not that he would complain. He was thrilled that he wanted to spend more time together, even if it was just a day thing. Tomorrow they would be returning to the work, so it wasn't as though tonight could run on indefinitely. That being said, it was obvious that something was still going on. Mike just continued to drift off into these odd moments of silence, as though he was distracted. His hand tightened, the one that Mike had squeezed, and he felt tingling along his body. Perhaps this strange behavior wasn't necessarily a bad thing…

It didn't take Mike very long to return. He came in with a bag of movies and two boxes of Chinese takeout. In the short drive, Mike had managed to return to his earlier, upbeat self. It was as though nothing had ever been wrong. "They were pretty cleared out," he raised a plastic box, "but I still managed to find a movie about evil puppets, so you asked for this." His smirk was obvious as he handed over the tape. "If that jester isn't in this movie, I'll be mildly surprised and at least a little disappointed."

Marionette looked over the tape curiously with a hum as Mike opened one of the boxes. "I'm impressed! And curious; let me put it in," Marionette volunteered and headed into the living room. It seemed like things had returned to their previous normality. Hopefully, the night would continue as expected.

The movie went over well. While not especially scary, Marionette had been especially interested in it. Mostly because the movie dealt with living toys, souls in living toys, and a rather happy ending- putting aside the darker fates of the movie's antagonists. Mike decided to not voice this opinion as Marionette was clearly happy with the movie. While he was switching out for a second one, Mike considered using this time to ask about the bite or something. It was the perfect segue; the story was literally about people turning into puppets.

…But he couldn't do it. He couldn't risk it somehow arriving at Phone Guy's theory. Even though it had to be wrong, as Marionette knew the difference between his father and the Purple Man, he worried it would bother him. Asking about the bite, about Foxy, was also entirely out of the question. Mike didn't want to ruin this; he had somehow managed to secure a successful evening.

"Which one next?" Marionette casually asked, gesturing to the video stack on the floor. He didn't care which one came next after that one; it practically sated him for the entire evening. "The vampire one?"

"Sure, why not?" Mike casually remarked. "I'm not really into vampires, but there's always a chance it'll be good." It couldn't be as bad as the soap opera that occasionally ran reruns on TV, so he was willing to risk it. As Marionette slid the tape in, he found himself slipping and asking. "So, you liked the movie."

"I loved it!" Marionette chirped in response.

"Good. The last thing I wanted was to end up offending you or something," Mike admitted as he stretched out on the couch. "Are you happy?" He expected a chirp of a reply, a smile, and for the animatronic to continue setting the movie up. Instead, the puppet hesitated, and then softly asked.

"You don't mean with tonight, do you?" Mike didn't respond as Marionette had seen right through him. "Mike, don't think so much into my feelings for the movie. I enjoyed it because it's a horror movie, because of living toys and childhood wonder, not because I see myself as a character." He turned back to Mike. He was smiling differently than usual and it was slightly hard to make out the smile with his mouth closed. Still, it was there in full. "There's been some tough times, but I feel like I'm right where I belong. That you are right where you belong as well."

It was very honest and open. Mike tried to ignore the incessant pounding in his chest trying to rat him out for what he knew. "Glad to hear it… If I wake up tomorrow morning in a doll body, we're going to have a few problems," Mike joked to ease the mood. It didn't work on the agonizing tension inwardly. "But in all seriousness, I just was thinking about it."

"Keep in mind that I'm not a human in a puppet's body," Marionette reminded, "but a puppet who used to be a human. I grew up just like I would've before, I just did it differently." He said all of this so easily. As though he held no ill will again his brother who savagely murdered him.

"Keep your cool, Schmidt," Mike mentally reminded himself. "Look, Mari's happy. Let's not ruin that with a bunch of garbage from years ago. We've got something better going on." With this confidence boost, Mike slid onto the floor beside Marionette. "Well, I nearly killed the evening."

"You couldn't be further from the truth, Mike. I'm stillhappy… Although," he to face the floor, so Mike couldn't see most of his face. He still detected a smile. "It's not as though you asked me to dance tonight."

"I guess there's that…" The awkwardness from the morning returned with a vengeance, but Mike still gave a teasing smile, "I seem to recall you asking me to dance, not the other way."

A moment passed before Marionette coyly offered, "We could slide the couch forward and then have more than enough room between it and the kitchen." He then looked to Mike with a smaller smile. It was full of suggestion and pleading, and Mike couldn't say no.

While Marionette was happy, so was Mike. That's all he needed.

Mike awoke abruptly to knocking on the front door. The room was dark, the TV was stuck paused on a movie, and Marionette was standing in the entrance to the hallway, standing in his default stance as a reaction. The security guard straightened and looked towards the front door, as though he would be able to look through and see the person who was knocking on the door. Staggering to his feet, Mike waved Marionette to move back down the hall, then directly pointed towards his bedroom door. With further explanation unneeded, Marionette vanished.

"I'm coming," Mike called as he made his way over and unlocked the door. He checked his wristwatch on the way; it was twelve twenty-five. Regardless, he opened the door, and his blood went cold. There stood none other than Phone Guy and Mike knew he was on thin ice. Marionette wouldn't stay in the other room forever and he couldn't imagine what would happen if he saw the man. "Uh, hey…" He also had no idea what his name was. "Didn't expect to see you. Especially not after Midnight."

"Sorry. I didn't realize it was that late…" the Phone Guy already looked uneasy. "Can I come in?"

Mike inhaled, considered his options, and then opened the door. "Yeah, sure. Come in." Hopefully, Marionette would keep inside his room. He let the older man in before shutting the door back. "What's going on?... And I should probably ask how you got the address," he asked. That was a good question and he continued by asking, "Was it Fritz?"

"No, no. He left hours ago, I just… I've been here before, and Fritz did mention you inherited the house so… Yeah…" Suddenly Phone Guy was a lot more reserved than he had been earlier in the day. Mike didn't take this as a good sign. "We're… We're being honest, right? We're not just saying we're being honest and covering ourselves, yeah? Because I was thinking about some… Some things after you left…" He looked to Mike, who sent a confused look in return. "And, uh, I was thinking that there was something a little too… Coincidental."

"What do you mean by that? If you mean me showing up at your place, Fritz gave me the number, and if you mean what I know about what happened to you, I got that all from your tapes. I got a lot of what I know from your tapes. Like the Springlock mechanics," Mike tried to change the direction of the conversation. "Now maybe I'm hearing this the wrong way, but you're sounding like you suspect me of something… Which is fine." Mike shrugged casually enough, "To be honest, I thought you were the murderer for a while."

"I was just thinking- What?!" Phone Guy's face suddenly contorted in shock. "I- Why would you think that?! I-I would never hurt children!"

"It was literally just a 'right place, right time' sort of thing. I didn't start suspecting it until I realized you and the Springlock- It's a long story." The last thing he wanted was to talk about Golden Bonnie. "It was a working theory. You suspect everyone until you can start disproving things."

"I get it… I guess, when you think about it, I was a candidate. I was there a long time a-and I knew the ins and outs of the company, but believe me, the only thing I'm guilty of is keeping quiet so long," Phone Guy swore. Mike believed him as he sounded extremely convincing. Though Phone Guy continued, "But I was just thinking- after you left- that something didn't add up right." He looked directly to Mike, the suspicion becoming a little more visible in his eyes, and Mike challenged it with a raised brow.

"You were close to Fredrick, you inherited his house, you know all about the business… I just had to wonder why you'd be so interested in this whole thing, like Freddy's and the accidents… And then I thought, maybe, William once mentioned that his son- I think it was the oldest one, but I don't remember if it was the one at the restaurant- that his son's name was something like Mick or Mathew… Or Michael." The other brow raised abruptly and Mike looked completely dumbfounded. "And it started to click that maybe-."

"Whoa, whoa, wait!" Mike raised his hands in defense. "I hope you're not implying what I think you are, but I'm just going to say, flat out, that you're wrong."

"You know about Afton's, you know about Baby's," Phone Guy pointed out, "you know about Baby in Afton's. You're in this house. It just all makes sense."

"No, it doesn't!" Mike protested further. "William's kids are all dead, we literally had this talk a couple of hours ago, and you think I'm- related to him?" That left a sour taste in his mouth. Just saying it made him feel filthy. "Alright, forget it, I'll fix this right now." As he delved into his wallet, Phone Guy continued.

"I don't even know how many children he had, but his oldest son, the one I did know, went 'missing'. Just around the same time that William himself left the business…" He exhaled slowly, "I'm- I'm not trying to accuse you. And, hey, even if you are it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make you him or anything, or involved in anything shady, it's just- And then you were so upset when we were talking about the bitten child. When I mentioned he was William's son."

"I don't need that stigma attached to me. It's bad enough that I still got a screwed up back from falling through his shoddy floor," Mike pointed out as he viciously dug in his wallet. "And yeah, I was upset. Nobody told me about- Here, look at this." He handed over a photo; childhood him with his parents. "Those are my parents. If you don't believe me, I can go find my birth certificate, and if you don't believe that, then I can call Mom and she'll tell you herself. I'm not related to Afton at all." He couldn't help but be overly defensive about this.

Phone Guy looked to the photo and, seemingly, believed it. He looked a bit flustered afterwards. "Oh geez… I'm sorry, I didn't- I just thought with the name and the information-."

"It's fine," Mike started to calm back down, waiting before getting the photo back. He glanced at it before sliding it into his wallet. "I thought you were the murderer, you think I'm Afton's son, we still have no confirmation on Fredrick; it happens." An awkward silence filled the room as he put his wallet away. "And to answer your question, I don't know why I got so wrapped in this Freddy's thing. I needed the job to pay off medical bills and just… I don't know; Fredrick gave me this place because he liked me, probably because I kept coming back to work."

"That's, uh, that's an appreciated trait at Freddy's," Phone Guy pointed out with a strained smile. Mike got one as well. The room felt a little too heavy. Mike felt like he needed to say something, but he wasn't sure what exactly to say. Then something that Phone Guy said came back to mind.

"I'm in this house…" he murmured as Phone Guy looked to him. "I'm in this house; what does that mean?" When Phone Guy didn't immediately respond, Mike fell to his own conclusion. "Don't tell me. This wasn't always Fredrick's house, was it?" He didn't even need confirmation before raising his hands, again almost defensively, and turning to the fridge. "I should've expected that." He opened the fridge, glancing around for something to ease his dried throat, and was stuck between cold, leftover coffee and overly sugary soda.

Then it suddenly hit him. Mike felt a flinch; it was hard to describe, but he literally felt something in the room twitch. As though something had suddenly changed and- He slammed the door shut and turned towards the Phone Guy. "Look, I don't want to rush you out of here, but you have to go." Phone Guy looked surprised as Mike moved in. "I'll tell you later, you just need to get outside now and-." But it was too late.

Mike could barely remember the last time he felt so much dread from hearing 'Pop Goes the Weasel'.

Mable: Mike gets a little too comfortable at night, you see. While Phone Guy's suspicion is seemingly dealt away with, a new problem literally just popped in, and this one won't be brushed off with simple words of explanation… The next chapter will be posted next Saturday- though Phone Guy might be no more by then- I hope you enjoyed!