Author's notes: Hope you all enjoy the new chapter! And thanks so much to Ghost for all her help with it!
Chapter 202
Regrets
Later the next night, William Afton stood outside the front doors lost in thoughts that threatened to devolve into debilitating depression and panic.
Will stared at the front doors. He was already late. What did a few more minutes matter?
He considered turning around and calling another late-night taxi to take him back to the motel where he was staying.
No. No! You've done enough avoiding. You are showing up. Every night. Every day. Until your children know that you're here for them. Until Michael, Elizabeth, and Timmy are at peace. Until your animatronics are safe. At peace. Somehow. What does peace even mean anymore? You aren't abandoning them. Not again.
He didn't deserve to be "here for them." Not anymore.
He did not want to be there. Not after what he did the previous night. He wasn't even sure what he did. He hurt Baby, he knew that much. But it was all a blur. Like a dream he barely remembered after waking up. The guilt ate at him, leaving him feeling empty and like he was at risk of collapsing in on himself. He failed. He attacked one of his children, and it hadn't been the first time. He had reacted poorly all those years ago and he was having trouble identifying which of those memories was from back then, and what was from the day before.
Either way, he was horrible and he wasn't sure if his apology to Baby, and Ballora, would help anything. They would accept it too easily when part of him wanted them angry with him. Whatever he did was unacceptable.
The others didn't even want him there.
Goldy does, that tiny part of him that wasn't completely self-loathing reminded. And Spring was open to spending time with him and asking the occasional question about the past.
Will sighed harshly, his lungs aching from the force. It was the same crisis every night but tonight was just so so much worse. Just go inside, you bloody idiot.
He was just feeling sorry for himself instead of actually fixing anything. It was pathetic. He wasn't the one hurt.
He yelped and almost fell backwards as the doors opened on their own accord. He stared, expecting someone to be on the other side, but the front lobby was empty. He could faintly hear the others chattering in the main room nearby inside, but out of sight.
The door waggled expectantly, as if waving him in. When he didn't move, they waved a little more impatiently and the entire entryway creaked ominously.
Will stared. Even after bringing animatronics to life, he didn't think he was going to get used to a living building. Ever. His living building, technically. Legally. As soon as he was done suing that damn board to hell and back.
The doors waggled a bit harder and he finally stepped through.
They closed softly behind him.
The mood in the main room plummeted as soon as the bots noticed him.
Freddy dutifully stared at the movie that was playing. "Mr. Afton," he greeted neutrally.
Will caught a glimpse of and heard Puppet slam his box closed right as he came in. He heard Mangle quietly growling but didn't make eye contact. That might set her off more.
Goldy was looking at him in worry, as was Bonnie surprisingly, although he looked away quickly afterwards. Chica was anxiously copying Freddy while Foxy's expression was more conflicted and hard to read. He just stared.
"Hi," Hedy said, cutting through the awkwardness as she paused her conversation with Alex who was sitting next to her as they lounged on beanbags beside the projector, Mike on Hedy's other side. Alex had been extremely excited to learn she was semi solid to furniture, including bean bags. "It's movie night, Mr. Afton. Sorry, I forgot to remind you."
"That's quite alright. Sorry I'm late," he said, standing there awkwardly for a moment. He glanced around, not able to look at the Funtimes. "Where's Ms. Ruby?"
The mood in the room plummeted even further if that was possible.
Ballora whimpered.
"She needed some alone time," Goldy said calmly.
Baby flinched.
Alex winced. Baby could make all the assumptions she wanted about the teen's opinions, but Ruby had all but told the ghost it was Alex she needed a break from, not the animatronic. Ruby hadn't been rude nor did she mean to be hurtful about it, but her bluntness still stung.
"I'm not used to sharing Hedy," Ruby had said when she pulled Alex away literally, startling the ghost with the touch. "I'm a bitch like that. So until I get over it, we can take turns. You can have her tonight. After yesterday, I think I need some time to myself anyway." The teen had seemed frustrated with herself. "Don't take it personally. I have issues."
Alex knew Ruby didn't like to be in the same room as her, but the teen still didn't stop Hedy from including her friend's ghost in group activities. And Alex didn't exactly want to stop. She didn't like being alone. She liked being treated like she was still a person while she sorted through the whole being dead thing. She didn't want to end up wandering the hallways talking to herself like Andre. Her being around didn't seem to be the problem for Ruby either.
She could take several guesses on what the main problem was and they all made her cringe.
Will nodded. "I see." He patted his (empty) briefcase. "I'd join but there's a few things I need to poke around in the manager's office for."
Hedy frowned and resisted the urge to give a "look" to the more hostile bots, recognizing Will just didn't want to make the bots uncomfortable by imposing, especially with the awkward air that was hanging over the pizzeria. She expected a little more empathy from some of them. She nodded instead. "Just ask the building to unlock it for you."
She was not sure how to address how automatically the Building accepted the man. Then again, he was the original 'owner' she supposed. It remembered him. Liked him even. And yet somehow he never noticed its presence for years? Well, it certainly hadn't always been so obvious…
"...uh… alright..." He answered her hesitantly.
That would never not be strange.
As he left, he thought he heard Baby try to call out his name hesitantly, but he didn't stop. He couldn't face her yet.
Coward. Fucking coward.
Will passed Andre as he went, the ghost not noticing him and caught up in his own head.
"Evening, Andre," he greeted, more out of habit at this point.
He didn't get a response although Andre nodded but continued muttering engineering equations to himself. It was depressing, but Will wasn't about to leave the poor man to just waste away until he was nothing but echoing emotions.
He nodded to the couple of ghost children who had taken to keeping an eye on the man. It disturbed them, and no one asked it of them, but Mike said they also felt bad about just… ignoring him.
The fact that Andre was just losing himself scared the hell out of the children, and Will could understand why.
Still, he thought it admirable of the little ones to keep an eye out instead of avoiding the discomfort. Unlike him…
Usually Will would try to snap Andre out of it, drag him back to reality, just for a little while. But tonight he felt the need to see how someone else was holding onto reality. There was a list of people he desperately needed to apologize to, and a certain someone seemed easier to approach first than his bots.
Benji watched him for a moment. Mike, and later Ruby, had told them some of what happened. How Mr. Afton acted was eerily similar to how Andre was all the time, in a sense of not understanding where they were, and the boy wasn't sure what to think about the dissociation.
Predictably, Will found Ruby in the Cove. It seemed to be her chosen safe space and favourite place in general. He was surprised to see her hair much shorter than he remembered it being.
"Ms. Stone…" he called to the teen cautiously, not wanting to startle her. "It's… uh… Will. Mr. Afton. May I come in, dear?" He cringed a little. Being polite and using old fashioned endearments with younger people was something Scott had always teased him for. He just never broke the habit. Now he figured the familiarity one could assume from the endearments might not be welcomed. Plus after the last night, he wouldn't be surprised if she wanted nothing to do with him.
Ruby glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and shrugged. She was sitting on the stage, legs hanging off the edge. She didn't seem to be doing anything in particular and didn't have anything in her hands.
He took the (somewhat vague) invitation against his better judgment. He stopped a few feet away from the stage. "May I join you?"
Ruby shrugged again and he hopped up on the stage an arms length away from her, wincing as he pulled something and his knee popped.
"Ugh. Shouldn't have done that. I'm getting too old," he joked.
She didn't say anything in return, instead only gazing at the ship play set in the middle of the room.
Will was desperate for something to break the tension.
"Foxy spent a week picking a ship from a catalog after my wife suggested he decide how his room should be designed," Afton said conversationally. "I'm glad they kept this one when they moved locations." He frowned, still upset he hadn't been aware of the last couple of closings.
"Probably because it was cheaper," Ruby muttered.
"Perhaps," Will admitted with a similar resigned bitterness. He sighed and stared at the ship. "I'm… I'm sorry about yesterday…" He blurted out. "I don't know what happened…" He flinched when Ruby glanced at him out of the corner of her eye with a frown. "B-but I gather I might have confused you with Elizabeth…"
"You were somewhere else," Ruby interrupted bluntly as she sat up a little straighter. "You weren't in your right mind. I'm guessing you saw Baby like that and something snapped."
He nodded uncertainly. "I… I hurt Baby. That part I'm sure of. What… did I do?"
"You tased her." Ruby watched the man's eyes widen in horror. "She understands. She's not hurt or upset that you did it." Ruby pulled out that very weapon from her pocket and inspected it, pausing when Will stiffened and leaned away. "This is one of mine. Have you been carrying it around this whole time?"
"I think you or Hedy gave it to me… back there. I don't recall. There was quite a lot going on. I… I don't know why I kept it on me."
"Trauma," Ruby shrugged, holding it out to him. When he refused to touch it, she tucked it back in her new jacket. "Sometimes we unconsciously hang onto anything that could be a weapon when we go through something straight out of hell, like what happened at that location."
"I'm… so sorry…" Will said. "I don't know how to make it up to you all. You or Baby or Ballora. That should never have happened. I never intended to frighten anyone. It's… it's been a very long time since something like that happened to me. I thought… I thought I was okay." He swallowed. He should have known better. He should have known he was slipping after the mess tossed on him along with the existential dread and guilt of learning ghosts were real and his human children suffered as ghosts for so long alongside the bots. And Michael? He still wasn't sure how to address Michael.
He fought down the nausea and put the thoughts of the children he had passed in the hallway out of his mind. Just for the moment, or else he would start to spiral again.
Ruby's frown deepened and she straightened and turned to stare at him fully. "Wait. Do you think I'm over here moping because I'm mad at you? Or scared?"
Afton stuttered on his words for a second. "You aren't?"
"No!" Ruby snapped, throwing her arms up as she looked at the man incredulously. "You had a fucking mental health crisis, Afton. Probably worse than even me or Hedy, and let me tell you, we are pretty fucked up in the head. The bots have seen us have a few panic attacks but even the two of us never lost…" she waved her hand. "Consciousness? We never dissociated like that." She narrowed her eyes as she thought, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, Jeremy said I shut down after facing that bastard traitor, Black. But I just shut down. I wasn't reliving anything. But you? I read that stuff like that happens to soldiers after they come back from war. I've never seen a flashback episode that bad in person before. It was like you were sleepwalking through a nightmare."
Will could just nod. "H-how long was I like that?"
"A few minutes. Ennard talked you out of it." She tilted her head as the man stiffened in shock. "You don't remember?"
"No…" he whispered, stunned.
Ruby hummed as she turned to stare across the room again. "I didn't really expect her to go for it. I guess there's some hope for her after all."
Will wasn't sure if he was well enough to think of the alternative just yet. He looked at the pirate ship. "If you aren't here to–"
"Avoid you?" Ruby finished with a hint of amusement.
"That. Then what is bothering you? I can't help being concerned you've elected to come in here instead of speaking with Hedy or Foxy. I haven't been here long but I've gathered you usually talk to one of them when you're bothered." He winced. That was definitely overstepping.
Ruby deflated and scoffed as she slouched. "Right. Talk to Hedy about seeing her dead friend's corpse. Or talk to a bot who already has trauma centered around corpses."
"Oh." Will nodded, understanding the issue now and guilty that he had almost overlooked such a thing, too selfishly caught up in his shortcomings. "I would likely do the same," he admitted with a slight flinch. It was quiet for a moment. "I wasn't exactly shell shocked, when I saw their bodies. I didn't shut down like I apparently did yesterday. I went through the motions of getting them down and you and Ms. Hedy out of the way." He stared at nothing, some haunting memory making his eyes shut for a moment. "Are you aware… of what happened to my daughter? To Elizabeth?"
Ennard, some cruel little voice chirped.
Ruby tilted her head but still didn't look at him.
"The basics."
Will hesitated. "I haven't had a good night's sleep since then," he admitted in pain.
Ruby did not look surprised in the slightest and he worried what sort of things he might have said during his episode.
"Even now..." He closed his eyes, pushing through. "I see it so clearly. It's burned into the back of my eyelids." He shuddered. "What was left didn't look like my little girl anymore."
She'd tensed up next to him. "Why are you telling me this?" She asked in a tight voice. No wonder his mind broke a little.
"Because I… am ashamed of my actions yesterday," he whispered. "I… hurt my daughters because I… I don't know what happened yesterday. I left them in a mess of my own making like a coward and I don't know how to atone." He chuckled bitterly. "Just because they can't be physically hurt in the same way as a human does not excuse attacking one of them in a haze. If my life was any sort of normal and Baby was human, I'd have gone to jail and deserved it. But because she's not human, did some part of me think it was acceptable to abuse her?" He sounded so utterly disgusted with himself.
Ruby pursed her lips. "That wasn't abuse, that was you, in the past, as a dad trying to keep one kid from hurting anyone else because he didn't know what caused the situation. She's a nine foot giant robot.-'
"Little over seven…" he mumbled but she spoke over him.
"And like half a tonne. Not like you could have restrained her like a human until you got answers." She glanced at him, briefly before returning her gaze to the pictures scattered on the far wall. "The bots are very bad when it comes to, well, boundaries. If one of them hurts the other, it's not a good thing, but it's not necessarily absolutely awful like it should be. Hedy's been trying to break that mentality. But even if that wasn't the case, they can't be mad at you about this. If they try, I've got some fantastic hypocrite call out material."
She stretched her right arm out in front of her.
"Foxy almost ripped Toby to pieces when he accidentally broke my arm. Hedy had to literally trigger his light glitch to get him to stop. Both groups have been at each other's throats many times, usually over either me and Hedy getting hurt or almost getting hurt. They don't have a leg to stand on.
Will felt the urge to argue against himself, only slightly reeling from the story of Foxy attacking Toby. He found himself not very surprised about that… "I still– "
"Let me put it into a different context," She dropped her arm. "When I was younger, right after my parents died, I was a proper nightmare. There were several times when I had to be either restrained or sedated because I was hurting someone, or seriously threatened to. I quite literally shoved a social worker into the street in front of cars. Being restrained left bruises and needles often had me sobbing and screaming. Was that abuse?"
Will hesitated to answer. He thought so, but…
"I'm grateful they stepped in, every time," she continued when he stayed quiet. "Looking back on it, if they'd just stood by a lot of people would have been hurt. Kids and adults alike. They didn't enjoy doing what they had to either, but in every situation they were protecting someone. Whether that was another kid, an adult, or even myself. If someone had been seriously hurt that would have been on my conscience in the end. And after all the awfulness, when I was a bit more stable, I didn't resent them for it. I wasn't angry or scared of them for stopping me. My guardians are two of the kindest, most loving people I've ever met. And they were the first to grab me when they saw trouble."
She looked at him at last. "There's a difference between abuse and protecting people. And there's a difference between what happens when you're in your right mind and when you're not. You weren't in the present in that moment, and you reacted according to that. Baby is grateful to know that you'll protect people from her. She doesn't want to hurt anyone. She was relieved when I said I was going to carry at least a taser on me from now on."
Will was also guiltily relieved to hear that. "The things said to Baby…I-I can't remember but I remember not knowing she was just as horrified and confused as I was. She… wasn't even conscious when it happened and she woke up to me screaming at her. How can I possibly excuse that?"
"We can say some truly horrible things when we're scared or hurt," she sighed, tilting her head back. "The bots are just as guilty of it as people are. Did you say those things when you were calmer? When you realized it wasn't her fault?"
"Of course not…" Will whispered.
"You said things you're not proud of, hurtful things. But they weren't said intentionally. You were in a panic, you were dealing with a kind of horror and grief that not many people ever have to experience. You know, as humans, we have a lot of nastiness in us. Anger and other negative emotions, they drag it up to the surface and when we're weak or vulnerable, it can spill out. We try to keep it in but when you're hurt… a lot can slip out in a few seconds. When you're hurting that bad, sometimes the only thing that helps is to hurt someone else so you're not the only one in pain."
She seemed to get lost in thought for a moment before shaking it off.
"That's what my therapist says anyway. Basically, none of us are perfect. But we always need to try to be better."
Will turned her words over in his head. He wanted to argue. To list the myriad of reasons why she shouldn't be so understanding of him.
"The bots aren't any different either," she chuckled to herself. "They've said some wild things before. The Toys are terrible at coming up with creative threats but I give them A for effort. They've been hurting for a long time though. I never held it against them. Much."
She gave him a smirk after a moment.
"You should ask Hedy about some of the stuff I said to her at the start. I was a bitch. But I was also being protective over my bots with a new mechanic arriving." She shrugged. "Honestly, the only ones in this place that haven't said something hurtful are Spring and Mike. Spring's too much of a sweetheart and Mike just genuinely doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He's such a weirdo."
Her tone at the word was enough to startle a laugh out of him, though strained.
Her smirk widened before falling away as she spoke again, voice softer now. "The fact that you feel like shit after what happened… that proves that you're a good guy. In my opinion at least. You're not trying to make excuses. You knew you were wrong. I've probably only felt genuinely remorseful of about twenty percent of the stuff I say. You should speak to Baby before you beat yourself up anymore. You're not going to do anything but spiral until you do. Besides, she's worried that you're mad at her so you should probably fix that too."
He winced and hesitantly nodded. Then he frowned, pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at her. "I had a point to bringing my anxieties up but you successfully derailed whatever I intended." He held up a finger to interrupt. "Hold on .."
Ruby snickered at him, looking entirely too amused by that. He was curious to know what happened to her hair but he didn't want to go on another tangent again.
"Ah," he let out a heavy sigh. "I abandoned my children and ran away. I felt alone. I wanted to be alone. My responsibilities fell by the wayside and I was so deep in despair that I wouldn't even cope with the guilt of knowing what I was doing, yet so desperate for some semblance of peace."
"You're here now," Ruby said airily. "What's your point?" She swung her feet so that her shoes knocked into the stage, the epitome of a child losing interest in the conversation. Probably because he was trying to pivot it toward her now.
"My point is I don't want you thinking you're alone," Will said, "Even if you have good reasons for not wanting to hurt Ms. Hedy with what you're going through. I'm not her, nor am I Foxy. I won't judge and it would be laughable if I dared."
Ruby hunched in on herself unconsciously and he could practically see her bristle. It reminded him of an angry hedgehog he saw once.
"I'm fine," she muttered.
"Possibly the oldest lie invented by someone hurting," Will countered, "I can't see any world in which you would be 'fine'." He paused. "It's extraordinary how a human can still somewhat function through trauma, though not well I'll add. Especially not in my case, I suppose…"
He was very quiet for a moment, clearly struggling with whether to say what he wanted to say next. "I-I managed to get through cleaning Baby out myself." He suddenly looked sick. "I didn't let anyone else help me after the police did what they needed to and I did everything possible to make sure they didn't take Baby away. Marionette tried to help me, but I kept him out of the workshop. Thankfully. He couldn't… I couldn't let him see that. He was fragile enough at the time…" He looked pained at the memory, missing the flash of concern in Ruby's eyes before she covered it up to just listen. "I remember every hellish minute of that. I wish I didn't. I wish I woke up as if from a dream I couldn't quite remember. Like yesterday."
There was an even worse silence that stretched between them
"That took more than everything from me. I couldn't bring myself to work on any of the animatronics or even turn any of the Funtimes back on for years. Michael had to take over maintenance for me, which was a terrible mistake in hindsight although others were supposed to help him. Watch him. I was able to function just long enough to do a horrible job that needed to be done, but when it was over, my soul felt empty. I shut down. And the Funtimes stayed shut down literally with me. I left, even if I was physically there for the time being. And I left my wife, my sons and daughters that were still alive behind. I had other people to take care of and I failed to pull myself together enough to do that."
"I'm not new to trauma," Ruby snapped bitterly. "I'm not going anywhere regardless of that." It wasn't meant as a jab at him and he knew that, but it still stung, even if he deserved it.
"I suppose not," Will agreed. "I'm just saying, this time around is fresher and there's specific reasons why it is awful. It's not necessarily any worse than whatever else you've gone through. We can't compare trauma like that. I'm just saying I understand it's probably difficult and strange with Alex and Andre around." He huffed. "I feel… like I can't really comprehend that they died, not with the two of them… here. Walking around and talking with us… It's not fair to either of them. Their lives are gone, figuratively and literally. They've lost everything."
She stubbornly kept her head turned away, drawing her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "They're dead. There's no going back from that. I just don't think it's clicked for Hedy yet."
Will wasn't so sure about that. Hedy seemed more than aware of Alex's situation.
"Alex is her friend. Not mine. But it's partly my fault she died."
Will was quick to argue against that but Ruby spoke over him. "It is what it is," she shrugged. "I've told Hedy we can't be focusing on those what ifs, but it's harder in practice, I guess. I know who's fault it really is." She didn't say Ennard, though they both knew what she meant and Will flinched at the horrible reminder. "I'm not good at focusing on the past. I don't work like that. I never really saw the point obsessing over something that can't be changed. But I can't help it now. I just keep thinking about every mistake I made. Every dumb decision. This is new for me and I don't like it." She huffed and glared at a wall. "Fact of the matter is that I got overconfident. I beat every game and I figured we'd beat this one too. But Hedy and I never had to deal with bots who wanted to kill both of us together before. We trusted each other too much and were too comfortable. We never had to survive together or with other people to worry about. We… I was out of my depth and didn't even realise it."
Will looked at her, pained with his sympathy. He didn't feel comfortable with someone he still saw as a child in this much anguish. It wasn't fair that she had to come in and clean up what amounted to his messes. "I'm sorry I can't make this go away," he said. He looked at the ship again. "There's a lot of things I wish I could fix. But I think I might be too late."
"There's no changing what's already happened," she murmured, frustrated as she tried to remind herself of that fact as well.
"Doesn't change that it shouldn't have happened at all," Afton countered bitterly. He was still struggling to grasp everything. "You're being too hard on yourself, dear. You can't possibly tell me you really expected El…Ennard, of all things."
"We knew there was something," Ruby said. "Timmy said he sensed something. We should have listened more. I should have scoped out the place by myself. I would have handled everyone fine if I wasn't worried about Hedy or the rest of you." She picked at her sleeve. "I'm better when I'm reckless. When I can tuck my self preservation away for a minute." She ignored Afton's alarmed expression. "I never used to hesitate as much as I do now." She wasn't sure why she was opening up to the man.
Will paused before he made a guess. "Now… you know someone will care if you get hurt and you don't want to upset them."
Ruby glanced at him in surprise. "Yeah. I guess…" She frowned. It was the same realization that made her stop wanting to hurt herself years ago. She thought she was over that.
Somehow, Afton seemed to know what she was thinking. "Everyone seemes to think that being suicidal is active. A desire for self harm. But that's not quite true. You don't have to go out of your way to be suicidal. It can be passive, like simply not caring what happens to you. It can be doing reckless things or something quieter and secretly risky. You don't want to die or do such a thing to yourself, you just wait to stop existing. Either way, before, if something happened to you, it wouldn't be as bad for others because you didn't mean for it to happen. Accidents happen. It wouldn't be like you hurt yourself, after all. You tell yourself people would grieve or blame themselves less if they thought it was an accident. You didn't leave. You were taken and that makes a huge difference in some minds."
"...Speaking from experience?"
"Somewhat," Afton said. "Losing your mind a few times tends to make you a bit introspective. Although admittedly, I'm still not sure what I'm doing here."
"Trying to fix your mistakes."
"Trying…" he agreed and they lapsed into silence again.
Michael, of course, wasn't making it easy. He had shown up several times that week, just to torment Will. He wasn't permanently deterred by Ruby or Goldy putting him in his place. Will was unsure if his eldest was aware of what transpired the previous night. Will had run out before Michael had that chance to express his opinions.
The rest of the bots weren't really helping either, and Will couldn't blame them, much less expect any help. He was an absent father. One who abandoned them because he couldn't pull himself together when he was needed. He needed to be held accountable for that and all the horrors they went through.
The only reprieve was really Timmy, and even then it was difficult to speak to his youngest human child.
Weirdly, Spring was a welcomed, although depressing help. It was so disheartening that the rabbit had no memory, but at least he treated Will as more of a blank slate, reserving his opinions until he got to know the man better.
Ruby and Hedy at least forced some normality, somehow. They were acting as the anchors.
It was so unfair to them.
Ruby shrugged again.
"Life isn't fair. That's a lesson I learned a long time ago."
Will paused. "Did I say that out loud?" he asked.
Ruby glanced at him. "Yep."
"Ah..."
He looked at anything but her for a while. "Thank you, Ruby. For saving the animatronics. The ones here. I wish there was more I could do to help you. All I can offer are my ears. If you need someone else to listen to you, I..." He trailed off. "I don't think I'm a very quality choice, but I'm here nonetheless."
"I don't talk," Ruby muttered but there was no hostility now.
Will nodded and tried not to laugh as Ruby grimaced, both of them aware that she already broke that little rule of hers. She might have been a little embarrassed actually.
He tried to think of something else to say but he didn't want to push the teenager. He could tell she was done and he overstayed his welcome. With a grunt, he got down from the stage.
"I have some… blackmail… I need to gather on the manager before I approach him and the board," he said. "Hedy said I can ask the… building to open the office door, but I don't feel comfortable asking it for things just yet. Can you show me how to pick the lock?"
"I can just give you my file on them," Ruby deadpanned. "It's heavy though. I've been very thorough."
Will looked excited. "Please," he said emphatically, "However I do want to do some poking of my own."
"Sure," she shrugged and jumped off the stage. "I break in regularly for fun."
"Not surprised in the slightest, my dear," Will huffed in resigned amusement.
It didn't take long before Ruby picked the lock (with a stern warning to the building not to make it easy since she liked the challenge) and allowed Afton into the office. She muttered something about the lock being new and seemed strangely pleased about that, patting the wall absently.
He thanked her. "Would you like to assist me?" he asked, surveying the room with distaste. "Or I'm sure the others would love to have you join them for movie night."
"I'm not in a people mood," Ruby wandered into the room and started rearranging the items on the desk.
They settled into a comfortable silence, shuffling through papers and various receipts (and breaking into a few filing cabinets). Will wasn't exactly keen on joining the others either. He still wasn't quite ready to face Baby or Ballora, although he knew he couldn't avoid it forever.
It was peaceful here. And peace was something that was in short supply lately.
Of course, it wasn't going to last long. Will didn't speak, but Ruby noticed he was getting more agitated as he looked at more papers, receipts, employment records, bills, etcetera. She was switching the ink in the different coloured pens and replacing their caps by that point and she kept an eye on him while she worked.
He muttered what she could only assume were threats under his breath and tilted her head curiously. What piece of information had he found? She was going to have to bring her Board Blackmail file the next night since she didn't keep it in the pizzeria but she was curious over what he'd find on his own.
She'd gathered a lot of information herself but there were still things that went over her as a teen. It wasn't like she had ever filed taxes before.
For example, she knew what sketchy bank accounts looked like, but she hadn't exactly gone line by line through what was being spent with company funds. There was a special account under "Facilities" that the cleaners were paid out of. And lawyers. And a special amount set aside for news stations, labeled under "PR" although there was a whole separate account set for PR and perfectly innocent advertising in a less sketchy account. Oh, and a horrendous amount set apart for "legal expenses" that most certainly weren't being paid to lawyers. That was another separate account.
William Afton had actually seen those numbers before, when Jeremy was explaining what happened with the company, bribing police officers. And what happened with Ruby's father. Some numbers were upsettingly matching up.
He just about had an aneurysm when he found some printed memos and emails exactly detailing how they were going to cover up a particular night guard's death. They used code though, so it was possible Ruby missed it. They called the guard "pizza boxes" and described how they needed to dispose of the "pizza boxes" then wait at least six months before reporting them missing, after they "signed receipts" to buy a "another location" and clear it out. He took that to mean they forged documents to buy the guard's place of living so they could remove anything incriminating and make it seem like he had just left. Then they sold that "other location" to an unsuspecting young family.
What guard would they have put that much effort into making disappear?
Now he was curious.
He regretted his curiosity when he found the address for the "other location." It wasn't a business location, or even a house. He knew that address. That apartment. Even after decades.
Scott was never fond of change in his personal life, despite how easily he adapted to the strangest of situations.
Will cross-checked those emails with the employment records. Sure enough, they listed "Scott Cawthon" as "retired" right around the time those memos started.
Will had to put down the things he was reading. He was sitting on the floor, documents scattered around him. He leaned back against a filing cabinet, staring at a framed food service license on the wall.
Feeling like he wanted to cry, he pressed on—for about five more minutes.
He then found the work order for Goldy to be "remodeled."
"What the fuck is this?" he asked, holding up the piece of paper to Ruby, already stressed by what he learned about Scott.
He was already angry and on a mission, but he had resolved to keep his temper for the bot's sakes. He didn't want to risk the place actually closing or the board to try something underhanded. He was going to be calm. Methodical. He wasn't sure he could anymore.
Not after they treated one of his best friends as literal garbage to be disposed of. Not after what they did to his bots. Goldy was the final straw, but Scott would have been if Will had let himself keep thinking about it.
Goldy hadn't given him a straight answer explaining why she was in such a strange otherwordly state. He knew why now.
Ruby glanced over from where she was doing something to the office chair involving both gum and a screwdriver and scowled.
"Their order to the mechanics to strip Goldy down."
Yes, he knew that, but he had been hoping it was some sick joke.
"What?" he hissed, his hand clenching a bit and crumpling the note. His other hand was still holding the files about Scott's death. That seemed like something too painful to address just yet. Scott was dead. Goldy wasn't. Sort of. He wasn't sure anymore. In some strange way, he felt like he was allowed to be enraged about Goldy. Because she was there. She was okay. He could still protect her. Anger didn't feel as productive with the other issue.
Screw it, he might just send someone to the hospital in his rage. That was a mercy compared to what they did to one of his best friends or his kid.
All his bots had been treated horrifically, but the fact he had one specific instance that might have amounted to literal casual murder set him off.
"They must have thought me dead if they thought they could get away with this fuckery," he snarled, slamming the paper down on the floor. He picked it up a second later, scanning the document for names.
Ruby watched him with sharp eyes as she absently played with her tools.
"How did you think she ended up a ghost suit? She didn't work again after what happened with Timmy."
"I didn't know," Will said, not sounding like he was making an excuse. He sounded too angry for that. "I had no idea how that could have happened to her. She just… pop! She showed up and the only fucking thought that's occupied this foolish head this last week is 'what the bloody hell?'" He sobered and swallowed as he looked down at the paper again. "We closed the diner and focused on the next location. We moved her, Puppet, and Spring there. She didn't want to work for so long and I didn't want to pressure her. We had her in a sort of… retirement. She'd help keep the place running at night and make guest appearances for shows with the next group every so often. She didn't want to interact with children for a while right after Tim died. She was too scared. Last I heard, she still wasn't leaving the back rooms even after Michael got out of prison."
Ruby went back to messing around at the desk, not really wanting to pour fuel on this particular fire but knowing that everyone else was going to sugarcoat it.
"The management wanted to squeeze every last cent out of this place. They saw an animatronic that wasn't working and thought they could at least make some money off her parts."
Will was about to break into a rant about just how much he was going to make some people pay when he trailed off, staring at a section of a document.
"You haven't shown this to Ms. Hedy," he stated knowingly, in a distant tone. At Ruby's silence, he glanced up. "It says the work was paid to Joseph Fitzgerald."
Ruby refused to look at him.
"No," she answered in a clipped tone. "Goldy hasn't either and it's her decision in the end. Why tell Hedy something that will do nothing but hurt her?" She hesitated. "And she never asked... I think she might suspect..."
Will nodded stiffly. He stared at the paper. "I don't think Ms. Hedy appreciates things kept from her..." he said cautiously.
He didn't exactly have a frame of reference, but he got the sense Hedy had been a little distant with Ruby lately, based on a comment Goldy had made about how quiet they had been.
He noticed the girls were staying close, physically, when time allowed. They took comfort in each other's presence. Especially with Hedy unable to work with her broken hand. However, they didn't seem to be talking much and Ruby was busy with the repairs, repairs that quite a few of them actively kept Hedy away from.
Will couldn't help but sense a bit of resentment from Hedy for how he and Ruby hadn't let her see Alex or Andre's bodies.
She never said anything. Maybe he was imagining it.
Goldy had told him that Hedy hadn't known about the ghost children for a long time either. That must have been a shock for the young woman.
He held the paper for a moment, wondering if this was one of those things that Hedy would want to know, even if it did hurt her.
It was a dilemma. Will didn't regret not allowing the young woman to see her friend's body, but he only wished he had been fast enough to stop Ruby so there wasn't this odd tension between the two girls.
And he doubted that Ruby's suspected nightmares didn't feature that particular scene depressingly often.
"We weren't as close," Will said. "But I still considered Joseph one of my friends. He was Scott's brother-in-law. They stayed close even after Maren died. For Hedwig's sake… "
"It's not my secret to tell," Ruby murmured. "It's Goldy's."
She stared at the floor.
"He hurt the Originals. And Hedy didn't react well to that. I think Goldy doesn't want to make her more angry with her father."
Will frowned. "What did he do to the Originals?" he asked, not completely sure if he wanted to know.
She flicked a glance back at him and away.
"Started stripping them for parts."
Will was silent. His eyes glazed over. "Hedy never mentioned where he is these days. Where can I find him?"
Ruby's movements stilled.
"Dead," she answered after a moment.
"Oh," Will said softly. He didn't know how to feel about that, given the recent news.
Ruby shifted. "Joseph was forced to do all that by the company. I don't think he was hurting the bots because he wanted to. Not at first at least. They used Hedy and Jeremy against him." She glanced at the door before continuing with something she'd never say to Hedy. "But he's still a coward in my book. He never tried to refuse or find another way. And he didn't try to help the bots when they were hurting. The most he did was drag his feet with the job. The old manager got pissed with him taking so long but by the time the company was ready to reopen, Joseph took his kids and got out of town to hide. The Toys were already gone and they lost the records for where they were. It was cheaper to fix the Originals up than spend more money tracking the Toy's down."
"I see," Afton said. It didn't make him less angry at the man but he appreciated the context.
Ruby shrugged. "Hedy and Jeremy don't really talk about him much."
"I don't suppose they would after what happened," Will said. He was still staring at the paper, processing it. "I don't suppose the animatronics or Michael and Timmy liked to talk about me much at all before I called Ms. Hedy."
"No. They made references to their creator but not much else. I'm the one who brought you up first and that's because I was doing research into Michael." She paused. "Timmy mentioned you a couple times, but not in detail. Talking about the past hurts him. When the ghosts hurt… they can spiral very easily." She paused. They both saw a bit of that. "He mostly focuses on the present. Says it helps him stay sane."
Will nodded again. It wasn't anything he didn't already expect. He was a mystery to most of them in different ways and he was aware of that. Those "mysteries" were not for the better.
"How have my sons been?" he asked softly, ashamed he even had curiosity about Michael. "Obviously, Michael has not been having a peaceful afterlife and after what he did to those children I don't even think he..." he had to stop before he got too sick thinking about it. After a breath he kept going. "How has Timothy been? Honestly. I've… been too scared to ask him." He couldn't even look Ruby in the eye as he asked.
Timmy had been too obviously vague when Will attempted to ask. He didn't want to upset his dad.
Will might have found it almost endearing if it didn't terrify the shit out of him and go against the fact he wanted to know everything. Everything. Even the worst of the worst.
All of them, his bots, the night shift, had been slow to tell him the whole story. He wasn't sure if it was for his sake or theirs. It was probably a mix of spite from the bots and fear from the others.
Ruby looked up at him, gaze steady as she finally set her tools down. "I'm only going to answer that because you're his father," she told him. "Timmy... was alone for a long time. Only the other ghost brats knew that he was here and they didn't like each other. Not even Goldy knew he was here. I caught vague glimpses of him and I knew there was something else in this place watching us. In the end, he only showed himself to me because he learned that Springtrap... Michael was coming. He was afraid for me. He's been isolated for a very long time and that wasn't good for him. He loves you though. Misses you. He's been better lately, despite all the drama and Michael being around. He talks to us more now. Hedy sort of followed my lead and pseudo-adopted him. They get along and I guess he risked showing himself to Hedy when she was a kid. They were friends, although Hedy doesn't remember that time anymore."
She looked away.
"As for Michael, I can't even pretend to be neutral for your sake. He's a bastard and was given so many chances to make the right decisions. But he kept on making the wrong ones. He still is."
Will tried to hide the flinch. He had... complicated… feelings about Michael. Feelings that were frustrating and tore at him with guilt and anguish. Feelings he was not in a place to discuss with everyone else just yet. Maybe never.
Oh, he hated what Michael did. So very much. What he became. It filled Will with an almost indescribable rage that he didn't know how to process and not all of it was toward Michael, because somehow-Somehow!-He still loved Michael. Dearly and no more or less than the others. And that made him nauseous. He should hate Michael. Disown him. It would be so much easier. No one would blame him. Most probably would even expect it. And yet...
He wanted to hate his son and somehow that hurt more. He both wanted Michael to atone for the horror he inflicted, but at the same time he loved his first-born? How did that even work? How was that fair to the children that man hurt? What kind of monster did that make Will?
So Will resolved to never bring it up. He dearly hoped no one asked that dangerous question of if he still loved Michael. He wasn't sure he could lie convincingly.
And Timothy...
He couldn't imagine Tim so utterly alone. It broke his heart to pieces. Those feelings made sense. He could focus on those.
Tim could never stand being alone, no matter how shy he was. He always followed his siblings around. How did he not...
He thought of the other children and felt sick again.
"I don't know what to say to Tim. I don't know how to help," he admitted softly, his voice low because he was genuinely concerned about throwing up if he talked too much. He had started carrying ginger candy with him since it helped with the nausea. He ran a hand over a pocket but it was empty. Damn.
He stuck by his questions. He had to deal with the answers he got, whether from Ruby or the papers scattered around him.
Ruby gave a slight shrug. "Sometimes there are no 'right words' or that kinda thing. Sometimes you just need to be there. Sometimes that's all you can do."
She fiddled with some papers on the desk and sighed.
"Look, I'm not the best at this whole... being kind or gentle thing," she sighed. "You fucked up. There's no way around it. But I think the fact that you're trying now does mean something. I don't know. I'm pretty biased when it comes to parents. But Timmy wants you around. Goldy wants you around. So... even if you don't know what to say, say something. Because they need something to show that you won't leave again."
It was blunt and harsh but not said maliciously. She seemed to be trying to give her honest advice at least.
"Timmy needs you," she said softly. "He's both a kid, and not a kid. But he still needs you."
Will nodded stiffly. "Being stuck as a child seems like its own brand of hell," he said in pain for his son and the other children. He glanced up. "Tim… would be 28 this year. He's only two years older than Marionette." It was a strange thought.
Ruby nodded. "It's not easy on them. It's a crappy situation. But there's nothing we can do until Timmy decides to move on."
Will swallowed thickly. He just got his children back, even if Michael and Elizabeth were twisted into some things he couldn't recognize in different ways. He wasn't ready to think about saying goodbye again, even if it was what he knew needed to happen eventually.
He thought of Andre wandering the halls, confused and delusional. Will couldn't wish that existence on anyone and Tim had suffered for years...
He frowned thoughtfully at the papers he had laid out around him on the floor, latching onto the distraction.
His other children–his animatronics mainly– had made it very clear he wasn't welcome. Anything he tried to say would be hollow for the rest. But there were still a few things he could do. Especially now that he was angry and had motivation, if only to put off thinking about too many difficult things at once.
"Does the management know I'm here?" He didn't think Hedy or Ruby would announce his arrival and he had been careful not to come during the day, but it couldn't hurt to check. He hoped the few day shift he met weren't too suspicious of him.
"No," Ruby answered, glancing at him. "We don't really tell them anything and they keep their noses out of our business unless they want another visit from me. They don't like me much."
Her smile showed too many teeth.
"Good," Will said. "I never gave up my piece of the restaurant franchise. I just stopped making any decisions and let the board handle business things. And I sure as hell retained all the ownership of the robotics company." There was an edge to his voice that wasn't there before. He stared at the papers and receipts related to the 'pizza boxes'. "Scott had shares too. He still technically does if he's not legally dead yet," he said. "They would go back to the board automatically if he died and didn't leave a will. But they can't do anything about that until he's declared dead. They made a mistake by having him missing." He looked at Ruby seriously. "Between the two of us, that's nearly majority ownership if I can get control of Scott's portion somehow. I would rather not sue the restaurant if possible. I want to take full ownership and kick that muck out."
"They might try and off you if you're not careful," she warned him mildly, grabbing a pen and starting to doodle on the papers. "I wouldn't put anything past them."
Will gave her a wry smile that seemed more like a grimace. "The element of surprise is in my favor. I got a very interesting email today giving me a very pleasant and very fictitious report of how well the inspection at Circus Baby's Rentals went," he deadpanned, but there was irritation in his unamused gaze at the food license on the wall. "They clearly didn't expect me to go myself and also apparently assumed I would take their word and would not check with the engineers I personally hired." He looked guilty. "I admit I have done something like that before, so I can see why they risked bluffing me."
"They're very confident," she shrugged again. "And arrogant. They still don't know what to do about me after I kicked them down a few notches. They can't touch me legally and, well, their other methods have proved rather ineffective so far." She looked faintly amused as she said that.
That sounded far too concerning for him to address immediately. "Hm," Will said. "If Scott's documents are out there in some capacity, do you think you can find them?"
He started gathering up the surrounding papers, trying to remember where everything went.
"Ms. Hedy said you tracked down Toy-" He cut himself off. "Toby's guitar."
"If it exists, I can track it," she told him. "You want me to?"
Will nodded. "We need to know where those shares are. He would have done something clever with them."
Ruby nodded. "Got it. Jeremy is coming tonight, so you know. He said those detectives in that other town are throwing a fit because we took the Funtimes from a crime scene." She paused and rolled her eyes with a grimace. "Maybe hold off on mentioning yesterday. I already got a lecture from Hedy…" She counted on her fingers as she listed. "Foxy. Freddy. Chica. Bonnie knew better. Mike." She didn't mention the look Puppet shot her. That didn't count. "Even Teddy. What is the world coming to?"
To be honest, she'd tuned out of everyone's but Foxy and Hedy's.
"They have a right to be worried," Will said. "And from what I understand, Jeremy might not appreciate being kept out of the loop."
"I'll tell him when he trusts the Funtime's more," she said. "He's focused on dealing with those detectives. Probably going to ask you some questions."
"Whatever he needs, I'll do my best to help," Will said.
She waved a hand. "It'll be fine in the end. He's just doing the official stuff that he's got to do. My lawyer is handling it otherwise. If they want the Funtimes, then they've got to take on the responsibility of millions of dollars of property. They'll bluster and huff about it, but they can't take that monetary risk. Jeremy will have to mention it though, so don't be upset when he passes on the message from those guys."
Will understood, somewhat disturbed at Ruby's mention of her lawyer. Things were still a complicated mess.
Hedy and him had already been questioned a few times over the phone, but nothing came of it except a general sense of unease from the man they never met.
Hedy knew not to speak without a lawyer, besides that initial report at the scene.
Will hadn't even the chance to arrange his own lawyer before he got a contract at his motel basically informing him he was already represented. Ruby told him to sign it and she mailed it for him the next day.
Ruby stood up and stretched. "Are you avoiding everyone?" She asked casually.
"I won't leave," Will said. "But I rather think my direct presence spoils the mood in the room."
So that was a yes.
"Probably a good idea," she agreed. "In the beginning. Give them space to process that you're back. But still hang around and, you know, be seen now and then. Else some of them will try and ignore you. You know how stubborn they can be."
Will nodded. "Will Chica tolerate me sitting in the kitchen with some tea?" He had some documents to look over more and didn't want to do so in the Manager's office.
"She'll probably give you the cold shoulder but she won't kick you out of the kitchen," Ruby told him. "If she starts cooking, she'll be very aggressive with her mixing and cutting though. Chica is 'quiet angry' like Freddy. They both tend to try and ignore you if they're mad."
"Yes, I remember," Will said wryly. "Once when they were little, the two of them were so upset with each other that they didn't speak for a whole week. Spring was visiting at the time. He couldn't stand the tension. His jokes were terrible. Poor boy."
Ruby looked at him with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
"Oh I'm going to get all the embarrassing childhood stories from you," she snickered.
"I think I have a few," he chuckled as they left the office. "By the way, what were you writing on those papers?" He couldn't help but ask.
"I like to leave ominous and vaguely threatening notes in the manager's documents sometimes, along with incomprehensible doodles. He obsesses over them for hours trying to decode my 'threat'. It's usually just movie quotes though. 'The call is coming from inside the house', 'It was just the wind'. That type of thing. It really gets to him and keeps him distracted for a while. I swear he's never watched a horror movie in his life."
He huffed out a laugh at that. Ruby enjoyed a bit of psychological warfare apparently. He wasn't sure if he should be concerned about a sixteen year old doing that for fun, but it couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.
They parted ways, Afton heading to the kitchen while Ruby decided she was in enough of a stable mood to join the others again. She noticed that Alex wasn't there, which she was guiltily relieved about. Seeing the ghost always reminded her too much of blood and that sucked for both of them.
"Alex went on a walk," Hedy explained when Ruby threw herself in Foxy's lap. "The Funtimes decided the movie was too loud for them."
Ruby nodded and smirked as she looked at the movie. "So what did I miss? Rewind it."
"NO!" half the room yelled at her while the other half made a variety of complaints and shushes.
"Oh, did she figure out the dad of the guy she's dating was her old boyfriend yet?"
Foxy snorted while Hedy sputtered in horror and Mike groaned.
"RUBY!" Chica wailed in exasperation.
Ruby cackled while Puppet opened his box enough to snatch Mike's shoe from off the floor where he and Hedy had discarded theirs to throw the sneaker at the teen. He missed and it clonked Foxy in the head instead but Foxy was laughing too hard to really care.
"Hey."
Alex yelped and covered her mouth. She almost hit the ceiling as she floated away without meaning to.
Vixen's ears folded back and she stepped back. "Sorry," she said, looking away.
Alex swallowed, struggling to get her feet back on the ground like the kids had shown her. She stayed well out of Vixen's reach though. "Um. I'm just walking around. Hedy is…"
"I don't need Hedy," Vixen interrupted.
"What?" Alex noticed the laptop Vixen was holding, Hedy's extra one that she kept in Parts and Services to look at sketchy coding. Poor thing had probably been wiped several times over its tragic lifespan. It looked very small in the large animatronic's hands. She also held a cable that looked very old and had a very strangely shaped plug at one end.
"I need your help," Vixen said bluntly.
"I don't—"
"I killed you," Vixen said.
It was silent for a second and the fox saw the panic flit across the human's transparent face.
Her voice shook when she continued. "I-I killed you. The scooper got the other guy. A-Andre. And because I killed you, you… you shouldn't care if I get hurt."
"That's not…"
"I know you can't touch anything," Vixen said. "I know how to work a computer without breaking it but I don't know what to look for. We can't tell anyone. They'll just freak out." She shifted. "And I don't really know how all this ghost stuff really works but maybe… if finishing your job as a technician counts as that unfinished business crud, then maybe this will help you. Win win really. The risk is all on me and if something goes wrong, I left a note with Fred saying it's not your fault. Fred won't give it to anyone unless I get hurt and he never breaks his promises."
She kept going when Alex didn't respond. "The longer we put it off, the more we risk something bad happening. Ruby messed up yesterday with Baby and Ballora. She got lucky. I don't want that happening again."
The fox stared at the ghost. "So?"
"Do I have a choice?" Alex choked out, a surprising bit of sarcasm in her tone.
Vixen frowned. "If you don't want to do it, you don't have to. I can't really ask you for anything." She turned to leave. "I'll figure it out myself."
"Hold on, I'm sure Hedy would like to help."
"You heard her," the fox retorted. "She doesn't want to touch anyone's code. She's scared of hurting us. We're too complicated."
Complicated was a goddamn understatement.
"What the fuck…" Alex muttered in stunned shock as she stared at the constantly changing file system. She was staring at an unfamiliar OS that seemed to be rewriting over itself constantly. She couldn't tell if there was anything static because things were constantly moving around.
"What?" Vixen asked and Alex watched as a few lines wrote faster and created a new file before slowing again.
"Say something else," Alex said hurriedly.
"Like what?"
The weird command prompt whizzed through a bunch more lines again before slowing to something readable again.
Alex scanned the words on screen as fast as she could. Some of it was recognisable, like this custom OS had been built on a Linux base but modified so much it couldn't even be classed as that anymore. She was immediately curious as to if Afton had built this whole OS himself as well as the physical parts of the animatronics, or if he'd had help. It was a monumental task for one person.
More lines flashed on the prompt as Vixen heard something from outside the room and flicked her ear in that direction.
"This is so cool," Alex murmured, more to herself than Vixen, then looked up at the bot and flinched a little at the realisation of how close they were to each other.
"I have no idea how to read it though. It updates so quickly every time you move or speak. I'd maybe need to take a copy…" Alex trailed off as her brain ran wild trying to come up with solutions. "I don't even know if that would be possible." She looked at another window she had asked Vixen to leave open from the laptop as it tried to estimate how much space the other computer it was hooked into (AKA Funtime Foxy) was taking up, but the number kept climbing.
She hesitantly reached out to the keyboard. Her fingers dipped into the plastic and she yanked her hands away at the slightest buzz of electricity.
"Fuck," she cursed, the despair a little too palpable as she remembered that she wouldn't be able to type. Oh no, did she mess something up interacting with the computer at all? The processes were still running and Vixen seemed fine, just staring at her awkwardly.
The fox tilted the laptop a little towards her and lifted her hands. "What do you need me to do?" she muttered.
Alex still hesitated. It made her nervous to want to type anything into the terminal in case the simplest attempt at writing a command did some kind of irreversible damage to the fox. But she was itching to see if there was anything at all here that she was familiar with.
After another moment, she looked back up at Vixen. "Can… can you type in the word "top" for me? And hit enter?"
Vixen nodded without complaint and with surprising dexterity, delicately used her claws to do as Alex asked. She didn't even scratch the keys.
The screen was immediately full of information, and Alex couldn't stop the grin spreading over her face as she realised it had worked. She was looking at all the processes that the fox was currently speeding through in her processor. They changed so rapidly, and nothing seemed to be named sensibly, but the information was there.
"Say something?" Alex asked, staring at the screen.
Vixen paused and even her thoughts seemed to write something. "Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's," she said after a moment with a note of sarcasm. "Where fantasy and fun come to life."
Alex's smile grew wider as a new process suddenly popped to the top of the list, then vanished once Vixen stopped talking. "I wish I could write this shit down," Alex murmured. "It's amazing."
"Are you actually understanding this?" Vixen asked. She wasn't trying to be rude. She eyed the screen. "It makes… sense to me. I can see my thoughts." The concept was clearly strange to her. "But do you think you can actually help?"
Alex grimaced a little. "I mean… I kinda get it? It's similar to stuff I've seen before. And that command did what I expected it to do. But it's like someone's put a million layers of obfuscation over it."
"Hm. It didn't used to be this… crazy," Vixen said as her eyes flicked across the screen. "Will used to be able to stop a process and write something. It felt weird when he did that. Like going to sleep for a second without even noticing."
Alex frowns as she looks up at the fox, it suddenly settling in just how much power anyone with this code would have.
"I'm not going to try that," she said immediately. But her mind was racing. If Vixen was speaking, and Alex had been able to stop that particular process, she could stop Vixen from talking mid-sentence. And that would only be the start. This was dangerous. But if there was a certain process that ran when the Funtime animatronics were counting people… maybe she could find it. Maybe.
"Can you see the counting thing?" Vixen asked, unintentionally guessing Alex's own thoughts. "I can't see anything…" Her eyes flicked around the screen, tracking the processes with an ease that Alex envied.
Alex shook her head. There were so many processes running at once, and none of them were named sensibly or even to give an indication as to what they did. "It's probably here somewhere. I just don't know which one it is. I mean, maybe if we got someone else to walk into the room… but then someone else would know."
Vixen nodded. She shifted uncomfortably. "When Will added a program patch… like the anti-swearing thing, it took a little while to start running. Then it got in the way of my words. I can swear now but every time I do, I can still feel that code telling me I shouldn't. But I can ignore it now. I can't ignore the virus." She spat the word with guilt and anger. "It just… I'm gone before I even notice something is wrong. Then I wake up and…" She glanced down at the claws that had scratched Ruby. She looked at Alex for a second. "I… I don't want to involve Will. Not yet. Not after yesterday. He… he already tried to fix us. And it worked for a while. Then it didn't and he's beating himself up over it. I don't want him involved yet. And I don't want to have a little kid walk in just so we can test whether you can see something happen." She spoke firmly. "Figure out another way."
Alex nodded immediately, backing off a little at the stern tone in the animatronic's voice. "I just can't promise I'll be able to figure it out quickly," she said placatingly. "I have no idea how long this could take, and it's going to be difficult to get time when the two of us can be absent and not have people wonder where we are."
Vixen nodded moodily. "Speaking of… I need to go check on the others soon." Yesterday was still weighing on her and she worried about Baby especially. "But I can come back. No one bothers me when I want to be alone. Foxy claims it's a fox thing. I guess Toy Foxy sneaks off on her own a lot too."
"If you need to go and do something that's fine," Alex immediately agreed, thinking that some space from the fox might do her some good as well. Being alone with the animatronic was making her think about things she really didn't want to, as interesting as the code was.
Vixen might have picked up on the tone because she got up, eyeing the laptop's cord that was suspended precariously between the table and the nearest wall socket. She unplugged the weird cord that went to a port in her head and the little access cover clicked closed. "I'll find an extension cord on the way back," she said gruffly as she left, pausing to listen for Ruby's voice and checking the hallway was clear first.
Vixen was gone for almost an hour, possibly caught up with someone wanting her attention. Or she just forgot about Alex and their little project. Either was possible.
Alex decided to stay in the room a little longer. She didn't like to be alone all the time but she needed a while to decompress. Every part of her resisted being around the fox. Every movement made her flinch and she was sure a part of her heard every neutral word as a snarl. No matter how caught up in the computer she became, every movement out of the corner of her eye brought her back to reality.
She was slipping a little too close to memories just out of reach and she was too scared to let them go and too scared to actually go searching for them. She stared at the laptop, its screen still.
How was she supposed to do this? Hedy was right. It was overwhelming. She wanted to try and do a copy of Vixen's OS, but doubted the poor laptop would even be able to index the whole thing. She was sure it was more than whatever the terabyte hard drive Hedy installed would be able to handle.
A worrying thought crossed her mind. If she was even successful at such a thing, would that copy of Vixen be alive itself? Would it become alive?! Would it even be ethical to study it?
She could practically hear Hedy now, amused at the unintended consequences. "Congratulations, Alex. You're a mother."
She shuddered and shook the thoughts away.
So she'd avoid jumping into that idea until she was sure she didn't find herself responsible for something she didn't even understand. But she didn't want to give up. Not yet.
"There's an easier way, you know."
Alex felt something like a stomach hit the floor as she jerked away from the voice. When had Vixen come back?! She didn't hear the door…
Ennard stared out from the vent, eyes glinting. The mask/face couldn't really move but Alex still got the sense Ennard was amused.
"Leave me alone," Alex demanded, backing up. "I'll tell Ruby you were bothering me." Ennard was more responsible for Alex's death than Funtime Foxy was, she reminded herself.
"Tattle tale. Running to Ruby? That's embarrassing. Aren't you a grown up?" The voice switched to hers for a second but childish and mocking. And cruel.
"Go away."
"Fine," Ennard made a weird shift that was something like a shrug and shimmied further back into the vent. "Just wanted to help." She switched back to Vixen's voice and kept it.
Alex knew Ennard was playing with her. She knew it, but curiosity got the better of her. "Help how?" You idiot. She was leaving!
"You could possess her," Ennard replied with far too much casualness.
Alex recoiled in shock. "I-I–What?"
Ennard looked around the room, pretending to be more lazily interested in the party favors scattered on the tables than the distressed ghost. "You'd be able to look at the code really closely. And you'd be able to understand it. It's just thoughts and feelings." She nodded toward the laptop. "The computer doesn't know how to translate that stuff into numbers or words in a simple way. They're stupid like that. You need a person to understand another person."
For some reason, Alex had thought that Ennard didn't think of the bots like people. Alive. Did that make Ennard's years of torment worse? The mess of parts was admitting to hurting the group of animatronics.
Alex vaguely recalled Hedy mentioning Ennard was in denial, refusing to acknowledge the Funtimes and the mini bots as anything more than toys to play with. Ennard certainly hadn't seen the little ones as children.
The implication Ennard presented disturbed Alex.
"She killed you," Ennard continued, taking a little glee in interrupting Alex's thoughts. "All that blood getting into every little crevice?" She giggled a little and crept out of the vent slightly. "Ms. Hedy can't clean it all out. There's a little bit of you still stuck inside Funtime Foxy."
Alex just stared, not even noticing her lack of breath for once. Usually it was a constant discomfort. She couldn't think and just stood there frozen.
Ennard continued. "Maybe in the joints of her hands. Under the plating of her claws. Maybe a bit of your meat in the teeth." She paused, leaning just a bit closer to Alex, looming just a little. Then she backed up, settling back into the vent like a cat. "And there's an emotional tie, of course," she said, tone lighter. "So if you wanted to, you could definitely possess her. It might be fun. You'd get to have a body for a little bit. Before the others got upset, of course. You'd be able to touch things. You'd be able to actually be useful." The eye narrowed and the way Alex flinched confirmed that she had hit the nail on the head regarding a particular frustration of the ghost.
"How do you know how possession works?" Alex asked. "That body you're in isn't someone…is it?"
Ennard shrugged a little and snickered again before slipping backwards into the vent.
Alex huffed in frustration, not wanting to go after the creepy "kid" at all. The room was feeling too dark and oppressive so she decided to leave. Quickly. Vixen was taking a while to find the extension cord. Alex figured she should at least check that the fox hadn't been dragged into a distraction by the others. They were probably done for the day anyway.
She was getting better at passing through doors if she was quick but she still hated it. She'd barely had a week of practice for fuck's sake. She still got stuck half the time and the kids weren't around to help if it happened again. Maybe if she just didn't think about it…
She almost got stuck and she nearly ran into Vixen on the other side, the two of them jerking away from each other, afraid to even risk touching the other.
"Shit," Alex breathed as she ducked to the side and put distance between them, Ennard's disturbing suggestion at the front of her mind. "Sorry—" She cut herself off at Vixen's expression and swallowed.
The fox stepped away from her and wouldn't look at her, her jaw locked tight. She was trembling slightly, clenching her hands at her sides.
The fox robot must have overheard everything. The door was not that thick.
"I'm… I'm not going to do anything like that," Alex stammered hurriedly. "It… it seems… horrible."
"Foxy described it as 'violating'," Vixen said, struggling to keep her voice neutral. "He hasn't forgiven that Felix kid for it." She sounded a little afraid but she wasn't asking Alex not to do such a thing.
"I…" Alex realized that Ennard's little visit wasn't for her. Ennard didn't care about Alex. The mess of parts had known Vixen was outside the door. "Um. Foxy…"
"'Vixen' is growing on me," the Funtime admitted, shifting but still not looking directly at Alex. "'Foxy' always felt like Foxy's name and I was just borrowing it…"
"Oh. Vixen… I'm still scared of you. A-And I wouldn't call us friends…"
Vixen nodded slightly.
"…but I would never do anything like that to you," Alex said.
Vixen nodded uncertainly. She glanced at the door. "What if she's right?"
"What do you mean?" Alex was a little alarmed by the lack of relief from the animatronic.
"What if… that's how we fix this?" The fox pointed at her head.
Alex shook her head sharply. "I don't think so. I think she was just messing with us."
"Ennard lies," Vixen agreed, lowering her voice as if still afraid of angering the ghost or whatever Ennard was if she was still listening. "But she likes to wrap it up in truth. It hurts more that way."
"… Let's…" Alex rubbed an arm. "It's not going to happen anyway, so let's just keep this to ourselves."
"Good idea," Vixen said, finally looking Alex in the eye if only for a second. "The others will just get paranoid. Hedy trusts you but the others don't know you."
That hurt to hear but Alex couldn't argue the truth. "Right…"
"Do you want to keep going today?" Vixen asked, gesturing back at the room. She lifted up the extension cord she had found.
Alex hesitantly shook her head. "I… I think we should try again some other time."
"Okay, I'll go put the laptop back before Hedy notices it's missing."
Alex moved out of the way to let Vixen by as she nodded. She doubted Hedy would notice.
Michael slipped away further down the hall, glad he didn't fuck up the invisibility thing for once. It was a frustrating coin toss for him most of the time.
Freakshow Foxy hadn't noticed him and he made sure to put some distance between them when Wiggy's friend came out. The dead chick probably sensed him subconsciously, but she was a little too distracted trying to hold a civil conversation with her murderer without melting into a puddle of pathetic sobs.
He heard what Ennard said. It wasn't exactly news to him. He considered the possibility the first night he realised the building was a little more supernaturally populated. He was just surprised the thing pretending to be his sister brought it up before he could. He needed to be careful when deciding how to use this tidbit.
So many options, so little time.