A/N: I goofed and wrote 7 children adopted by Mike for some reason instead of 5 (not including the Marionette). Whoops, I was really tired last night XD
The ghosts are not just simply "wisps of air". They do have some degree of power, and are capable of interacting with the physical world. Otherwise there's not much they would be able to do besides watch and talk, and that would get boring real quick.
Do you want me to write all the ghosts' lines in Italics or only the Marionette's? Let me know in the comments.
Chapter 2 – Catching up on Childhood
Seeing that there was no way for Mike to realistically try and track five ghostly children as they explored the entirety of his house, Mike decided to just sit in the living room and wait for them to find everything on their own. It took about 30 minutes for all the ghosts to return, having satiated their curiosity enough to return to their surrogate father. Once they were all back, the Puppet got up and left the room, wanting to leave the ghostly children with some time to bond with their new "father" by themselves.
"All righty, then," Mike said once they were all back. "Since you haven't been able to really live out your childhoods on account of, well, you know…" they all shuddered, "I've decided that the first thing we should do as a family is to re-acquaint you guys with things that most kids enjoy this day and age."
"Please don't tell me you're going to make us watch the Care Bears," Jeremy deadpanned, "we're not THAT young."
"Oh, nah," Mike shook his head dismissively, "I'm not gonna disrespect you like that. I was thinking we could start with some of the Harry Potter movies. Which one do you want to watch first?"
The ghosts all stared at him in silence. "Uhm…Mr. Mike?" Susie asked hesitatingly.
"Yeah?"
"We don't know what you're talking about," she explained. "Who's Harry Potter?"
Mike's eyes widened in horror. These children had never heard of Harry Potter? He started fidgeting in his seat, but quickly forced himself to calm down. That wasn't entirely abnormal when he thought about it – the kids had already been dead by the time the first book came out. "It's a great set of books for kids to teens like you guys, but that came out like almost a decade after my shift. It's…perfectly fine that you haven't heard of it. Anyway, no problem. How about Star Wars? The original trilogy is a timeless classic. Man, I remember seeing A New Hope for the first time, oh, it was amazing!" he smiled fondly at the memory.
The ghosts looked at each other, confused. "We don't know what that is either," Fritz replied.
Crap. NOW Mike was starting to get nervous. His new family hadn't heard of Harry Potter OR the original Star Wars? Just how much of their childhood had they missed out on? He searched his mind, desperately trying to think of something that there was absolutely no way that the ghosts could possibly have missed out on. Ah, there we go! "How about we watch a Disney movie?" Mike asked, triumphant. There was no way these children hadn't heard of the classic Disney films.
To his horror, however, Cassidy started crying. "I don't remember!" she whimpered, trying to hold back her tears. "I don't remember what those movies were like! I don't remember the good parts of my childhood! All I can remember is being stuck in the Golden Freddy suit for years and years!"
Mike swore he could feel a part of his soul die as he realized just how much the ghosts had been deprived of anything good in their lives. The only thing they'd ever had was their early childhood, and thanks to that bastard William Afton, they now had next to nothing.
But now, things were different. Now, he was here. He had the power to fix all of this if he just put his mind to it. Projecting an aura of confidence, he got up onto his feet, surprising everyone in the room. "You guys need your childhoods back even more than I thought," he declared. "And it is my solemn duty as your parental figure to un-fuck this situation as fast as humanly possible."
He felt a small sliver of relief as some of the ghosts giggled. "Un-fuck? That's actually a word?" Gabe asked incredulously.
"It is in this household," Mike retorted, earning more giggles. "Kids, you're about to have the best movie night of your entire afterlives!"
The ghosts murmured excitedly as Mike rushed over to one of the shelves. "It's always a good idea to hit as big of a target audience as possible," Mike said. "Some of these were meant more for either girls or boys, but the REALLY good ones are ones that anyone and everyone can and should see. So let's start with two of my all-time favorites," he took out several DVDs. Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog, the Lion King, among others. "I can't think of a single person who doesn't like any of these.
Mike placed the first DVD, Aladdin, into the DVD player, and the ghosts all fell silent and watched with rapt attention. Mike leaned back into his couch, his face the perfect example of relaxed satisfaction. Unbeknownst to his new family, however, he was paying very close attention not to the movie, but to the children themselves and their reactions.
The truth was, he didn't know exactly how well they would react to anything related to a normal childhood. Of course, Mary had told him the full story about their tragedy, but he had no idea just how resilient or just how broken these children were on the inside. If they reacted to a timeless Disney movie the way most normal children would, then he knew he was on the right track. If they didn't…he'd have to find some other way to restore their happiness, and he was starting to run out of ideas.
If anything, however, the children seemed to be even more entranced by the movies than normal children. They all gasped in awe at Jafar's first intimidating appearance, and cheered Aladdin on as he made a fool of the royal guards with Abu. They expressed sympathy for both Aladdin and Jasmine as the movie progressed, and as much as they wanted Jafar to get what was coming to him (especially after Jafar tossed Aladdin back into the Cave of Wonders at the end of the chase scene), none of them could deny that as far as villains were concerned he was pretty damn cool. They were so engrossed that at one point in the middle of the film, Mike had to pause the DVD to stop an argument that had broken out over which character was the best.
"Genie is the best character ever!" Gabe exclaimed. "I mean, look at everything he can do! It's so amazing! And he's so hilarious, too!"
"No way," Jeremy countered hotly. "Aladdin's the best! You saw how he messed around with the guards earlier! And then he tricked the Genie into breaking him out of the cave without taking up a wish!"
"Aladdin couldn't do half the stuff he's doing right now without the Genie!" Gabe shot back.
"He didn't need them to keep those kids safe from that asshole prince!" Jeremy retorted.
Susie turned to Cassidy as the two continued their argument. "I can't be the only one who likes Princess Jasmine the most, right?" she whispered.
"Guys, guys, guys!" Mike finally interrupted. "They're both awesome characters in different ways, all right? Let's just calm down and finish the movie, you guys are gonna love how it ends."
And he was right. As the movie progressed, the ghosts all gasped in horror at Jafar's victorious takeover of Agrabah, and encouraged Aladdin on as he made his way back to the palace and dueled with Jafar. All of them cheered when Aladdin sucked the Genie Jafar into his own lamp and expressed approval at the happy ending he could now have with Jasmine. All of them looked very satisfied and content by the time the credits started rolling around, with Gabe even conceding to Jeremy that Aladdin was the cooler hero between him and the Genie. All in all, Mike thought, a resounding success.
"That was amazing!" Cassidy exclaimed. "I finally feel like a normal kid again!"
"That was the plan," Mike responded with a smile. "I'm glad it worked."
"Can we see another one?" Fritz asked. "Please?"
Mike grinned. "Why do you think I took out more than one?" he asked as he loaded in the next DVD, this one being The Princess and the Frog. The children watched the movie with the same enamored gaze that they'd given Aladdin, but this time their opinions on certain aspects were somewhat different. All of them pretty much unanimously approved of Tiana and their opinion of Dr. Facilier was essentially the same as the one they had of Jafar, but on the topic of Naveen…
"I'm not sure I like this guy," Susie muttered. "Honestly he seems kinda full of himself."
Fritz wasn't all that impressed either. "Not to mention he seems pretty lazy as well."
Jeremy shook his head. "I don't think they'd introduce a hero in a film like this if he was just going to be a lazy jerk," he argued. "I think he'll get better later on."
Mike's face betrayed nothing, but he smiled inwardly. Jeremy had hit the nail right on the head, but he wasn't going to spoil that for them. Sure enough, as the movie progressed, Susie's and Fritz's opinions of Naveen softened as the best aspects of his personality started picking up and his worst qualities dropped.
The other thing that the ghosts paid particular attention to was, all of things, the supernatural elements. As much as they enjoyed the "Friends on the Other Side," all of them couldn't help but shudder at his invocation of the dark voodoo gods and the unholy powers that Facilier displayed. "Voodoo can't be that bad, can it?" Cassidy asked Mike.
"Nah," Mike answered nonchalantly. "I did a little bit of research on voodoo after I saw this movie once, and it's a legit religion in and of itself that has nothing to do with what's been going on here. All that scary stuff associated with Voodoo is pretty much a pile of meaningless movie nonsense."
The ghosts took his word for it and continued with the rest of the movie. They reacted with joy and wonder at the Mardi Gras celebration and Mama Odie's benevolent magic, but the light-hearted tone wouldn't last forever. Towards the end, all of them cringed as Facilier brutally killed Ray with his cane, and watched in transfixed horror as Facilier was dragged into the mouth of the head Voodoo mask upon the destruction of his talisman. This time, there was no satisfaction upon the villain's defeat – the scene was much more horrifying than anything that had been shown in Aladdin, and it left an impression upon them even after the movie ended on a much happier note.
"Mr. Mike?" Susie asked quietly. "Did Dr. Facilier get dragged off to Hell?"
"Yep," Mike replied grimly. "It's a classic Deal with the Devil story. People are stupid enough to try and make deals with demons or Satan or whatnot, and that's what they get for being a schmuck. I mean, I used to think this was just a plot element, but after Mary confirmed that Hell exists there's been a lot of things I've been forced to rethink."
"We won't…we won't ever have anything like that happen to us, right?" Cassidy nervously asked.
"That won't happen," he asserted. "From what you've told me, you've been cleared for eternal peace, you just gotta hang around with yours truly for a couple of years. At this point, I'm pretty certain that the only way you have any danger of going to Hell is if you start murdering innocent people again, but we all know that's never going to happen again."
"Not a chance," Gabe firmly declared. "We left that behind a long time ago. You don't have to worry about a thing."
"Right!" the other children fervently agreed.
Mike smiled back at them. "Glad to hear that, kiddos." He absent-mindedly picked up a DVD, but when he realized what the title was he hastily put it back down. "Nah…maybe I shouldn't show this to you yet," he mumbled. Unfortunately for him, the ghosts heard what he said.
"Why?" Fritz asked. "Is it not a good movie?"
"That's not it, the Lion King is one of my favorites," Mike hesitantly answered. "It's just that…this one isn't all upbeat, sunshine and rainbows. Actually, there's parts of it that can get pretty dark and depressing, which is something that I'm trying to avoid."
"That part with Ray dying was pretty sad," Susie pointed out.
"True, but unlike in Princess and the Frog, tragedy is fairly integral to the main plot of The Lion King," Mike explained. "And it might hit you guys harder than I'm comfortable with."
"Show it to us, Mike," Jeremy insisted. "It'll be a good reminder to us that we're not the only people in the world who had terrible things happen to them." All of the ghosts agreed with Jeremy, and Mike knew he couldn't refuse them.
"All right," he reluctantly agreed, "but if things get too dark for you, let me know and we'll stop." He put the DVD in and started the movie.
From the very beginning, Mike could tell that of all the Disney protagonists he had shown on the screen so far, Simba was the universal favorite of all the ghosts. And, in hindsight, it made perfect sense. He was a kid like them, with all the childhood innocence and aspirations that the ghosts once had before it had all been taken away from them by the Purple Guy. They also showed a great deal of respect for Mufasa, and even before Scar would commit his atrocities later on in the movie, they were already eyeing him with a deep distrust. But while the ghosts enjoyed the light-heartedness of the early stages of the movie, especially "I Just Can't Wait to Be King," Mike was on edge through the entire thing. He knew what was coming, and that the ghosts' reactions weren't going to be pretty. And a few minutes later, he was proven right.
"That son of a bitch!" Fritz howled furiously as Simba tried to nudge his father's body. "He killed him! He killed his brother!"
"If I ever get my hands on that bastard…" Jeremy snarled, forgetting that Scar was a fictional character.
"Poor Simba…" Susie whispered sympathetically as Scar approached him from the mists. The ghosts' distrust had evolved by now into outright hatred, and they watched murderously as he ordered the hyenas to kill Simba. None of them relaxed until Simba escaped into the desert, at which point all of them sighed in relief.
"Mike…" Cassidy turned to her new father. "I know I shouldn't be asking for spoilers, but…he'll be all right, right? Simba will be fine, right?"
Mike sighed. "He doesn't have an easy road ahead of him, especially since he thinks he killed his dad. But yeah, he'll get better. All Disney protagonists do. If only real life worked that way…" he added the last few words in his head.
Thankfully, the mood lightened again with the entrance of Timon and Pumbaa, who swept away all the negativity of the past few minutes with their zany antics. "Timon kinda reminds me of you, Mike," Gabe said with a smirk as Hakuna Matata played, to which Mike only rolled his eyes in response. But the good times couldn't last forever, and soon it was time for Simba to return to his rightful place in Pride Rock.
Of all the movie moments the children had watched so far, this by far had the most intensity for them. Simba had a chance to claim his life back from the one who wronged him, something that they never could, and all of them wanted him to win more than ever. And Mike knew that the climax they got would not disappoint.
"Yes!" Fritz cheered as Simba leapt from where he dangled off the cliff edge, pinning his uncle down. "Make that bastard pay!"
"This is so exciting!" Cassidy exclaimed as the hyenas and lions lunged at each other, fighting for the fate of Pride Rock. All of the ghosts held their breath as Simba battled his uncle face-to-face, and they all burst into cheers as he hurled his uncle off the cliff into the rocks below.
"Wait a minute!" Jeremy pointed out. "Why didn't he kill his uncle? Scar ruined his life, and Simba's just going to let him live?"
The ghosts turned to Mike for an answer, but to their surprise they could see a smirk on his lips that was borderline sadistic. "Simba doesn't need to do anything," he pointed at the TV. "Funny how evil tends to screw itself over in the end."
Scar was busy getting up onto his feet, only to see his three hyena subordinates glaring down at him. "Oh, my friends…" he breathed out a sigh of relief.
Shenzi sneered down at him. "Friends?" she questioned, her voice dripping with hatred and contempt. "I thought he said we were the enemy."
"I know where this is going," Gabe realized.
"That's what I heard," Banzai agreed, lips contorted into a snarl. Both of them turned to the final member of their trio. "Ed?"
Ed began to laugh menacingly, and the ghosts all watched with a combination of dread and vengeful satisfaction as the flames reached into the sky and the hyenas leaped at the fallen usurper, destroying him once and for all.
"It's over," Cassidy breathed. "Simba's finally won."
"Not quite yet," Mike interrupted. "There's one thing left for him to do."
The family watched in silence as Simba greeted his friends and family members, before making the slow climb all the way to Pride Rock. The young cub that had once boasted about being king had finally earned his destiny, and the ghosts cheered as he triumphantly roared and Pride Rock returned to the lush and beautiful land it had once been before Scar's rule.
"And that's the Lion King, kids," Mike sighed as the movie concluded. "What did you think?"
"That was amazing!" Fritz exclaimed with a silly grin. "I didn't realize kids' movies could be so deep!"
"Simba is awesome!" Jeremy added, and all the other ghosts agreed enthusiastically.
"He is, isn't he?" Mike agreed calmly. He suddenly yawned and rubbed his eyes. "Ugh…marathoning three movies in a row is never a good idea when you're still alive. Especially at my age."
Susie gave him a concerned glance. "Are you going to be all right, dad?"
"Yeah, Susie," he gave her a tired smile. "Just gimme some time to nap and I'll be fine. Until then, you can keep watching whatever Disney movies you want, okay?"
The ghosts all rushed to the shelf to pick out another movie, leaving the older man to make his way to the bedroom and get some rest.
/
Ah, there's nothing that represents childhood quite like classic Disney movies XD
Mike never had any practice with parenting normally, let alone for five ghost children with incredibly horrible pasts, so he's just trying to take things one step at a time. I think he did all right considering his lack of experience.
I originally imagined this fic to be light and humorous, but now I see that this isn't really the best way to go. There will be some humorous chapters, absolutely, and the fic is meant to give the ghost children the true happiness they've been denied for so long, but I feel like it needs a healthy balance of seriousness mixed in as well (more than I originally intended) for me to tell a good story. After all, most of the characters are the ghosts of children who have been traumatized and tortured for a very, very long time. And as for Michael? Well…all I'll say for now is that his past isn't much happier than his new family's, and I'm not talking about his shift at Freddy's.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! I tried to shorten the events of the Disney movies themselves so that the fic wouldn't end up being repetitive and dull. Don't forget to review! :D
