I Don't Own Fnaf
Charlotte Emily never had a... great life.
To be fair, Charlie's life wasn't horrible either. Just harder than some of the other people around her, not that she could blame them, there weren't many people she could blame that she could find. The monster that had taken Sammy, the uncontrollable circumstances around the death of her father. The moving around and being batted about it felt like between the few remaining family she had that even wanted her to be hurt. But she had survived, and even understood, just why it was the way it was. She had her brother's face after all, and she was her father's daughter, she knew it was hard for her mom to see her.
She just wished that it didn't mean that she couldn't see her mom either.
But it was fine! She was fine! Aunt Jen was great, but she couldn't just stay with her though, so after a lot of convincing, she was back in Hurricane.
It was strange to be back in those first few days, everything felt the same but nothing at the same time was quite... right. Buildings she had once walked past daily now had paint that was fading, overgrowth was growing over certain abandoned lots that she had been told as a kid to never go play at because it wasn't safe. She remembered only listening to that half the time, and now the idea of trying would more or less be a one way trip to a clinic to get a few hundred thorns out, not to mention she was just too old for something like that as well.
She didn't feel that old though, even if sometimes Charlie wasn't sure when the last time she felt like a kid was. Living on her own was a... struggle, she wasn't used to it, so many small things that she hadn't known to expect; keeping the fridge full, doing all the dishes, cleaning and organizing everything. Everything was the exact same as it was when she felt that morning, and that was somehow unnerving in itself, in the simple way of showing she was alone in the place that had once been home, but she adjusted, the first week passed, she managed to get a fairly simple job so she wouldn't have to rely on her Aunt as heavily.
Then she saw a poster.
It was too new and not nearly destroyed enough to be one of the ones from years ago, the art style itself was much different as well, less... Off putting, more welcoming. She loved the old Freddy's before everything had gone wrong, but even she could admit, the old adverts weren't always the best. This one though... It wasn't for a Freddy's. It was... Foxy's?
The idea that there was some off-shoot from the company that had dragged her father back into the animatronic game made something in her chest hurt, as well as make her more curious than she knew she should have been. It was in her past, she should just leave it be, but Charlie had never quite managed to figure out how to do that, and as such, in the middle of the afternoon, when she should have been on her way to get some groceries before the start of one of her afternoon to evening classes, she moved in the direction it listed as an address, something about it nagging at the back of her mind, and only realizing what it was, once she turned down a familiar street and saw the sight of the Diner.
It was like her heart just stopped for a moment, as she moved forwards and stared at the sight of the place, a fair number of cars parked out in front. The front sign had been replaced with a rendition of a familiar pirate fox. She hadn't seen Foxy in years, he had been a favorite though, maybe that was why that one had been picked for this... reboot? Why here though? It was that question that made her move to walk through the doors of the new pizzeria and have a look around.
She never expected to find Michael.
He was much bigger than Charlie remembered him being, her head didn't even go up to his shoulders, but it was obviously still the same man, the same mask, the same eyes, even if he looked so much older than before. She didn't know how to handle everything that came next, didn't know how to handle talking to the man after so many years, and she had the feeling it was the same for him, didn't know how to handle the place she had spent her childhood in being so different, seeing Foxy on a stage meant for her dad, or that there was a prize corner here... That might have been the hardest part to swallow, she left soon after that.
But even then, even if she had no idea just what she was feeling as she made her way to her classes, Charlie felt just a bit more like she was home afterwards, even if it was faint, it was something.
She kept in touch with Michael, Mike now apparently but Charlie knew she'd never truly be able to get that name to stick in her head, though she only visited the pizzeria once or twice more, that was fine with her, and Michael never seemed to push. They caught up, vaguely, Charlie telling the man about her life, though not with too much detail, and Michael told her about his, with even less detail. The stories of what happened to their families seemed to be the main thing on each other's minds.
Charlie hadn't known William had died, hadn't known Lizzy had gone missing, had barely known what had happened to Evan, and only knew Michael had needed to leave. To hear it all, being vague as it was, to what happened, it made something in her from her childhood, before everything had gone so wrong, twist and burn in pain to hear. She offered her sympathy, Michael just shrugged and nodded. And they moved on, it was too painful for them both to stay on the topics.
She could admit she was curious about her old childhood... friend? Babysitter? Sort-of-used-to-be-older-brother figure? It was hard to think just what she thought about the man. He was different now, calmer, wiser perhaps? But he never really mentioned anything, he talked a lot but to her it never felt like much was being said, it was off putting just a bit, even if she occasionally used him as the adult figure in her life that she could call for advice without feeling too awkward about it. Michael never judged, and while she knew her aunt wouldn't either, Aunt Jen was no doubt much more likely to worry about her and try and talk her into coming back or something than Michael was.
Time passed, she slowly but surely got more and more reacquainted with her old friends, Jessica and John mostly, the others were busy with their own lives, some had already moved away, other's simply just weren't interested in resparking a friend that had been out for at least half a decade, if not more. After Sammy, she had shut down for a long while, long before she had moved away and everything had gone even more wrong. And they had been his friends too, she knew it had to be hard for them, she reckoned they saw him when they saw her. She couldn't see how they couldn't, He was all she could see in the mirror too.
She talked to Carlton occasionally now, he was the same jokester as ever always complaining about his strict policeman dad, Lamar when he wasn't busy, Marla, apparently in the last few years her dad remarried and now she had a step brother who was barely half her age named Jason. It was strange, they all were technically adults in a way, though none of them seemed to feel like it at times. They all were just in that space it seemed, unsure of what to do next, but unwilling to really press just yet for what they thought that they might want as adults.
Charlie herself was in that mold, she kept going to classes, she enjoyed them, though they were tough, being a sped up summer course, and with her job in the mornings and afternoons, it felt more like she was just bulldozing through nothing it felt like at times, doing the same routine one after the other over and over with only few interactions in between them all. Jessica was trying to get her out more, John was awkward and Charlie was half-sure that every time he asked to hang out with her, it was supposed to be a date, but he never really managed to say that and Charlie had no idea if she was suppose to bring it up or not, so she's just sort of... Stopped thinking too hard about it. It was too awkward otherwise.
Months seemed to blur on by, it was getting near the end of her Summer courses, and then suddenly she had something that broke the routine. Michael came over, gave her a frankly incredibly scary wake up call about how easy it was to break and enter, made her incredibly more curious about just what kind of stuff he got up to in the last few years before he opened his own pizzeria. She wondered mostly though in that moment just what he was up to, what the pizzeria was up to, why he needed the plans for Toy Bonnie, one of the last vestiges of her father's work.
In the end, she mostly wondered about the dread that came from seeing a bit of remains from Michael's own.
It made the questions begin, and she wasn't good at keeping them from rising from there.
Searching through the remains of the office hadn't truly given her much, there were notes, a strange folder buried at the bottom of one of the drawers to the desk, filled with things that didn't make sense to the woman. Designs that she was sure were originally a part of the Toy animatronics that her dad had built, but different, the one for Toy Freddy was... wrong, the dimensions didn't make sense to her, but she put them away and left them alone fairly quickly, they weren't anything she was looking for, robotic notes weren't much.
Next was just trying to remember the history at Freddy's, she had known about the deaths, it was hard not to, with the reputation it had gained back when she spent every moment she could with her father. But there were other things, things that never had quite lined up to her, why the pizzerias had kept being made, why it seemed like tragedy just kept happening, why was there still one now? Why would Michael start one even though he had to know everything that she did. What was the secret behind those walls that kept the business, in any form, still running.
But the second she looked into it... It was awful, and eventually she had to give up on trying to sort through the answers, and instead went to the closest thing she had to a source about it all, or at least someone who she could ask to look into it and trust to give her a straight answer. It went... worse than she was expecting given she had only just finished asking the question, the young adult not needing any time to look into it before answering casually.
"Michael? As in Michael Afton? Why are you hanging around that psycho?" Charlie needless to say wasn't expecting that from Carlton when she had asked if he might have heard anything from his father, the current police chief in Hurricane, Clay Bruke. She had known Mr. Bruke since childhood really, given how Carlton had been a childhood friend of hers, but it felt too... much to ask the man directly, now she felt it might have been a mistake as she asked slowly to Carlton.
"What do you mean?" Carlton just gave her a look.
"What do you mean, what do I mean? Michael Afton? The criminal? My dad's been keeping a close eye on him for, like, years now, after he got released from prison. It's probably because of his dad or whatever, apples and trees and all that" Carlton waved his hand about like what he was saying made perfect sense and therefore didn't require anymore explaining. Charlie heavily disagreed with that estimation.
"I'm sorry, criminal?" The teen grimaced.
"Oh, shoot, you really didn't know? Uh, yeah, he's kind of, like, really bad news Charlie. Like, only reason he isn't in jail again is because he got a lot better at hiding the evidence after the first time he killed someone, at least, that's what dad thinks, not that he knows I know he thinks that, but that's just semantics"
"I- What?" Charlie was quickly getting overwhelmed with this information, Carlton just kept on speaking.
"Yeah, like, he was definitely in a gang for a while and all, or maybe multiple? I don't know that much about it to be honest, but I do know he's, like, the worst. So, you should probably not hang around him anymore" Carlton had said it fairly flippantly, but Charlie could tell he was more than a little serious about what he was saying, while on the other hand, the young woman was just dealing with what she had just been told.
In some ways, it made sense, after all, Michael had made a point to mention that he had kind of done some shady stuff, or at the very least he had alluded to something like that when he mentioned trying to get his life back on track, but at the same time... If even half of what Carlton was saying was true, then Michael was not just a bit of bad news, he was a career criminal!
That was about as hard to understand as it was easy to envision. It was Michael, the man who not even a few weeks ago had casually bypassed a locked door in seconds, but at the same time, it was the Michael that picked her up after elementary school with Sammy, who also not even a few weeks ago had helped her without a second thought over a question she just hadn't known about. The man literally brought over food for her occasionally.
...Did he really try to turn his life around when she had talked to him a few months ago? Or was that just to get her to not think too hard about why there was what was basically another Freddy's? A place only known for over time with... death...
Before that thought could fully form into something else, she found herself catching something she had heard earlier, as Charlie asked.
"Wait, what do you mean the apple doesn't fall far? What did his dad do?" Charlie would never forget the look Carlton gave her.
"My dad arrested him over suspicion that he was the one that had been... you know, making the... kids go missing" The pause was obvious, it was clear what Carlton wasn't saying, if what he was saying was true, then Mr. Bruke had thought that William had been the one who... who took Sammy along with all the others that had vanished.
"Are... Are you serious?" Carlton just nodded, reaching up to scratch awkwardly at the back of his head as he looked away.
"Uh, yeah, nothing was ever proven, but... Dad thinks Michael's bad news needless to say the least, he's been keeping a close eye on the guy's pizzeria, but he can't really snoop. Bad blood and all that" Charlie didn't want to think about a lot of things in that moment, about how the police chief could have enough bad blood with Michael, or about the horrors that had apparently been leveled against her father's best friend without her ever knowing. Her dad must have hidden it from her, he had always been so... secretive in the end.
But then a real painful thought occurred to her.
Michael killed Evan, and now he had opened up a pizzeria of his own, with the remains of a company that had a long bloody history. It was like Charlie's stomach twisted up in such a painful way that it nearly had her double over with the weight of the thought.
The two didn't speak much more about it after that, instead moving on to other conversations, ones that weren't quite as heavy, but that didn't mean that they were easy to have as her thoughts stayed on the idea of what all she had been told.
Eventually over the next few days Charlie would gather her courage to head back to the pizzeria, The Cove as it was known. The destroyed state of the front of the building wasn't one that she would forget anytime soon. The window that she was used to being able to see through the few times that she had wandered around the parts of Hurricane that would have her walk past the old diner was gone, replaced by a thick curtain, the lack of cars out in the front and the clear artistic rendition of a closed sign on the front made it felt like lead was in her gut.
Something had happened.
All Charlie could hear was rainfall, the party that never got to be, her dad's scream of grief, the feeling of her own tears, but she managed to stutter out a conversation with Michael, who looked exhausted and more than a little worn down, lying through her teeth at points, just trying to find something to be able to get in the door with a reason to make him to suspicious, but she didn't think she had managed a great job of it with how casually he dismissed her prompts. But with how genuine he sounded, maybe it wasn't a lie?
Still... It all struck her wrong, something was wrong, something had to be, it always was, and this time it was Michael that was at the center of it. It was hard, but she managed to leave the conversation without making any accusations, making some excuse of why she wanted to look around, even if she had no idea what she wanted to see, and being shut down by Michael. So Charlie left, without any idea of just what she was supposed to do next.
The next few days had passed on by, nothing was reported, she had kept a fairly strict eye on the news, to the point it felt like all she was doing was waiting to hear of something horrible, something to give her an idea of just what was happening, so she could... Could do what? Charlie didn't really have an idea of just what she would do once she knew for a fact something was wrong at the newest Freddy's, but she had to do something right? She just... Didn't know what she could do, or what she wanted to do.
She never really got the chance to figure out just what she was thinking, what she was feeling, or even hope to come to a plan for what she was supposed to do going forwards when, not really if Charlie was too certain something was wrong, she got her proof.
Because before she could get any of that sorted out, she got a call from a only slightly familiar voice. One of Michael's employee's, Jeremy Fitzgerald, he had named himself.
He told her in an exhausted and pained voice that Michael was in the hospital.
And that they weren't sure if he was going to make it.
Goldie hasn't felt as much fear as he did in the moments that the sound of the warehouse door being slammed open in the very early hours of the morning, startling him awake as he rushed out, half expecting a lot of things, but being completely unprepared at the sight of Fritz, holding onto and carrying a broken and beaten Marionette in his arms, arms that were covered in blood.
"What happened" Marionette let out a dull chime, it sounded so weak, Fritz didn't answer, just moving to a near by work station that had been set up by the same man months ago, as he set the puppet down. Already moving to the side to grab a few tools. Goldie felt something in his chest, his springlocks, tense and tighten in a way that bordered on painful and possibly dangerous as he moved forwards with lumbering feet as he called out again.
"What happened! Where's Michael?" Fritz just flinched as the sound of a pained chord came from the puppet as the animatronic nearly seemed to curl in on himself before the pain was too great for him to manage. The agonized sound seemed to snap Fritz out of his thoughts, as he moved over quickly, looking around frantically for a moment before anxiously pulling up and tugging harshly at his hair for a moment, clearly overwhelmed, before finally saying.
"Hospital, Mike's at the hospital, something happened. Jeremy's with him. Mari, I'll be right back, I'm... I'm going to grab the music box alright? You'll wake up just fine" The puppet just let out another low croaking sound of pain, and Goldie couldn't take much more of this, as he watched as his chest began to actively let out creaks as he looked at the long trails of messy purple tears that were rolling and seemingly have been rolling off the puppet's cracked mask for a while now, pooling slowly down the mask before dripping onto the desk.
"M-Mask... Do-... Don't need a new mask" Fritz only paused for a moment, looking confused for a moment, before seemingly giving into trust that the puppet knew what he was talking about, as the man rushed off. Goldie just stumbled over to the sight of the broken down puppet, he could feel the shock flooding through him at seeing the animatronic in such a state. Out of all of them, Marionette had been the one that had never really been out of order in any real way. Casual maintenance sure, but even that was fairly rare back in the day.
It showed whatever had happened was more than a little serious.
"Marionette, what happened? Is Michael alright?" The puppet just let out another set of agonized chimes as Goldie let out a frustrated tone of his own, as he bent down lower, making the animatronic see him, "What happened?" He knew just how much pain the puppet was probably in, but the idea that something had happened, that it was so bad Michael wasn't here, that they weren't telling him something... He couldn't lose his brother, not now, not ever if he could help it. They had too much to talk about, too much they hadn't said, too much he needed to say.
He hated the feeling of powerlessness, the fear that came with it that he wished more than anything he was over, but it was there, and he couldn't ignore it. And it seemed Marionette could see that. He almost hated it more than the animatronic, even in the state he was in, thought Goldie needed the comfort as with a broken faint static to his voice, Marionette spoke weakly.
"H-he... He was hurt, Goldie, I-... I gave him a gift" The sound of creaking metal bending near its breaking point filled the air as the bear half stumbled for a moment, his legs going weak on him in a way he was only vaguely familiar with as he used one of his hands to keep himself standing. The puppet let out a faint pained sound, but continued, "Not a suit... He didn't... It's up to him now"
Goldie just felt his insides pull and snap from the stain of the weight of those words, to the point he was sure a springlock failure was going to happen, but instead he just said finally.
"He'll make it" The puppet just curled up a bit more in pain as Goldie continued to speak, "It's Michael, he's-... He's not going anywhere anytime soon, he promised" Goldie felt like a naive kid, the words felt childish, he knew they were, but he had to say it, because if he didn't… If he entertained the thoughts of something else, he was probably going to be on the table next to the puppet for Fritz to fix. Fixed up or not, his suit was old and worn down, most of the parts could only be treated, not truly fixed, and he...
Evan couldn't take it if he physically broke down.
And he certainly couldn't take that right now on everything else, even as it felt like the world was ready to fall apart around him again.
So he just focused himself on the form of Fritz returning with a strange device with a speaker attached to it, Marionette let out a faint whimpering chord at the sight of the thing as Fritz just grimaced in turn, but said quickly.
"You'll be awake before you know it, don't worry alright?" The puppet didn't answer, seemingly almost willing the man to hurry up, Goldie didn't know if it was to escape from the pain in his body or the panic in his mind, but the bear found himself concerned all the same as the tunes of music filled the air as the puppet's slightly trembling body stilled into motionlessness.
That wasn't the same for Fritz, the man's hands were slightly shaking, as he seemed to simply just stare at the puppet for a moment before leaning in, until his hands were gripping onto the table as he put his weight on it. Goldie could see the way the man's body shook with nerves for just a moment, before not being able to keep himself from asking.
"What happened?" The man's body tensed for just a moment, his eyes snapping up to look at the bear, like he had nearly forgotten he had been standing there, before he looked away quickly, just staring ahead for a long moment before finally saying.
"I-... I don't know all the details, but Mike and Mari went back to Afton Robotics tonight, and something was there waiting for them... I- I... I got a call from Mari, he managed to get them out I guess but Mike... I got there a bit before the ambulance. I-" Fritz paused, his words catching in his throat like they were too difficult to speak, as his eyes lowered back to his hands, which Goldie found himself mirroring his focus to them.
They were caked with a dried red. After a long moment of silence, Fritz seemed to gather himself together as he said with a thick voice that came from grief and stress.
"I called Jeremy to go with him, he's up in a hospital in Saint Georges' right now, it was closer. He'll call when we get news, but I had to get Mari out of there and..." He trailed off again as Goldie just... He didn't know what to do, didn't know what to say, he never did, with all the ability in the world to make any choice he wanted now, and he never seemed to know just what to do with it. He was regretting that more and more, as eventually he spoke up as he saw the eldest of their strange group move to pick up a tool.
"They'll be fine, both of them... Marionette won't notice if you clean yourself up first, he'll need as much sleep as he can get to recover" Fritz simply paused, before letting out a heavy sigh before finally nodding.
"Right. Yeah," The man tried to crack a grin though it was painfully forced, "Besides, from what I know, Mari'll get on me if I don't make sure I'm at least wearing gloves before I do any work on him" He moved away for a moment, before heading where Goldie knew some cleaning supplies could be found, before pausing, just for a moment, to look back at the bear, saying simply.
"And you're right, they'll both be fine Go-... He'll make it through Evan, he's the most stubborn person I know" It was simple, it was probably naive, and it was also true, but the hardest impact of the basic comfort came from the name Fritz had called him.
In that moment, Evan never felt more human than he had in a long time, and with it came the fear of what could happen. It also made him feel something else, hope, and belief that this wasn't what would be the end of his brother, not after all of this. Not yet, not when they still had so much left to say.
Because Fritz was right, Michael was the most stubborn person Evan had ever met, and there was no way he'd let something like death stop him from keeping his word.
AHHH! This chapter kicked my ass for how short it ended up being! But that's boring, so let's talk about the chapter itself instead then.
Charlie Chapter! I actually wanted it to be at the end of last chapter, after the Mike fading out scene to really nail home the dread, but that chapter already was much longer than I thought it would have been by the time I ended it so I scrapped it. Still she's been showing up more and more huh? Almost like she's now plot relevant, I honestly fucking love the start of this chapter with the parallels to chapter one of this story, but that's besides the point. Charlie's on the hunt for answers, and the answers she's getting aren't... the best. But, I mean, Mike kind of incredibly suspicious so... Like, she's completely within her rights to think Mike could possibly be a psycho murderer, and to be fair... she wouldn't be to far off from the truth.
The there is the rest of the cast, man... Poor Evan, poor Fritz, and just poor Mari, I'm back in my 'everyone must suffer always' style of writing that I did throughout the entire first twenty chapters, but it'll get better, at some points, and then it'll get worse again at other points, cause, you know, life be like that sometimes. Right now we're just still riding down that path down, honestly we've been on a decline for the last, like, fourteen or so chapters, so I hope it hasn't been that bad to watch, we still got a bit more to go before we get back to the wholesome, but I figure it's important to know that there is always going to be a light at the end of the tunnel, set backs and hardships are only there to make the relief feel just that much more earned. Just... well, the group's really going to be earning it soon. Anyways, See Ya!
