I Don't Own Fnaf

Devon was nervous, it was stupid to be nervous, what was there even to be nervous about? It was some kid's play place or whatever, the only thing to be nervous about was if someone from his class year saw him and made fun of him when school started up. It was the start of Summer though, even if they did, they'd just forget by that point though right?

Yeah... Yeah, nothing to be nervous about.

Still, the sixteen year old, shifted awkwardly, suddenly aware of the holes in his pants, the way his hair felt weird on his head, the teeth in his mouth that weren't quite straight enough to be comfortable with smiling, not like he smiled much, but still... Like some invisible force was judging him and pointing out all the little things that felt weird or off on or just about him.

This was dumb, he felt like an idiot, he shouldn't even be here, that weirdo had left that card months ago and he hadn't even thought twice about it until he accidently found it when he had been going through his dresser, trying to figure out what pants just weren't big enough for him anymore to wear without looking like a complete dork, his ankles out in the wind. He had taken to scouring through the pockets of those and had stumbled upon it last week.

School had only been out for about two weeks now and already his dad was getting on his case about finding another part time job to keep him 'occupied' while the man worked. The weird dude who had given him the card hadn't really said anything about pay, honestly the whole thing sounded like one of those things were small businesses tried to get some free labor out of dumb kids, but it hadn't sounded difficult, and if he was being honest, it had nothing to do with his dad wanting him to make money, just to be out of the house with something to do that wouldn't land him in trouble.

So, here he was... Better than running around trying to find some new place he could convince that he wanted to be there when he really didn't.

The cartoon fox on the door looked goofy, what was the point of it anyways? Why a fox? Wolves were cooler.

Still, pushing past the door, letting it close behind him, his eyes roamed around while his ears were assaulted with sound, most of it was screams or cheers of overenthusiastic kids, a pair of which rushed by him as he moved further in, nearly stumbling over the brats, as he gritted his teeth and shot them a glare as they rushed on without even noticing he had been there. Story of his life.

The rest of the sound was mostly music, some overly electronic mess of sounds that probably just riled the kids up even more, while to his left was the music from what looked to be two dozen arcade machines all tightly crammed up into the left side of the building against the back wall ending at the end where a bathroom sign hung. Almost all of them were being manned by a kid or parent trying to show off their skills.

The center was filled with tables, about half full and most of the rest showing the occupants were up and about doing something to distract themselves, leaving their food behind to waste space.

To the right was a sign and a doorway that had a starry curtain hung up with it pulled back to allow anyone to just wander on in. He couldn't see what was on the sign itself from where he was standing, but he could make out the design of some kind of gift box on it covered in black and white spirals for... whatever reason.

The whole place was noisy and loud, and he waws already regretting this. If he asked nicely, he was sure he could get Misses Flint to let him work at her bakery for the Summer, where it was nice and quiet... As long as she had forgotten that time at the end where she learned he had been sneaking about four chocolate muffins from the display weekly for the entire summer...

Ugh, he'd just get used to the noise. Better than having to apologize and then have to deal with the old bat staring down the back of his neck for the next two months.

"Yar everyone! Welcome yah all the afternoon show! I'm sure it'll be right savvy eh scallywags!" Devon jumped, though he didn't want to admit he did, as his head snapped up as about half of every person below the age of ten rushed to the back of the room as the music faded into something more muted, where a large backdrop of a purple fabric covered in white stars had been, he had just thought it was some weird background choice, but instead only watched in shock as the curtain pulled away to reveal...

A... Fox with a hook for a hand, and a bright yellow bear with a purple bowtie? Devon found himself moving before he could help it, getting closer to the two... machines? Had to be, the way they moved was janky and the voice, thick with that stereotypical pirate accent had a tin quality to it that came from old speakers. The fox was going through the motions, hands moving all around with sharp overextended movements that helped keep the kids by the stage engaged.

The bear in contrast, as Devon moved closer, staring up at the stage still confused as to what he was watching but unable to really find himself looking away, barely moved at all, but his voice, a deep kind of warm tone that would have sounded friendly if not for the constant dry delivery that was used to seemingly heckle whatever the high energy fox was saying, as the two robots broke into an back and forth argument after the third time the fox had been interrupted.

The kids just ate it up, giggling and laughing and pointing, Devon just kept staring, the lines were somewhat clever, witty but still kind of dull in that way they had to be for kids to understand them. A few adults were around as well, probably there just to keep an eye on their assigned brat, but they to seemed to be vaguely interested in whatever tall tale was being spouted out, so maybe Devon just didn't really get the material.

It did kind of explain the thing with the fox being outside.

Shaking his head, he turned, with a mild amount of reluctance, mostly because he still couldn't get over how weird it was to see animal robots moving about than actual interest in the show, and moved on. With how many people where in here, it was hard to figure out just who was an employee.

Thankfully, after a minute of slowly moving around he managed to spot someone who looked dorky enough to work here, at least he hoped there was some weird adult who was dressed in the place's seemingly theme of purple and white stars, who didn't actually have anything to do with the place.

The man was a bit on the shorter side, to the point Devon was around the same height, though he bet the man had about a decade on him in age. Messy blonde hair sticking out from under a ball cap which had a pair of fox ears sticking out the top of it and a tail hanging off the back of the hat making it look like there was a fox laying on his head, like the shirt hadn't already been nerdy enough for this place.

Moving over quickly, he spotted the man's name tag, marking him as 'Jeremy', as he moved over and managed to just perfectly get himself in the way of the man who had just turned away from a kid who had probably been asking him a question. Devon just barely managed to back up enough to not be ran into as Jeremy paused just at the same time, his eyes going wide as he stared at the kid for a fraction of a second before saying as his face broke into that cheesy overindulgent costumer service smile.

"Oh! Sorry about that, didn't see you there" Devon held back from snipping that he was the only person in this place wearing all black, he was pretty sure not being able to spot him was like not being able to see a hole missing from a picture. Being snarky didn't work anywhere but with his friend, and it really wouldn't help here, so he just bit his tongue and managed to say after a second.

"U-uh, it's no big deal. Is, uh, is there a Mike here? Mike Schmidt?" The man's eyes widened a bit, surprised apparently, before quickly nodding.

"Yeah, he's here, somewhere. I think in the kitchen helping out with the orders. What did you need to talk to him about?"

"Uh, well, he's the boss here right?" The blond man's face kind of went weird for a second before saying with an almost huff.

"I- Well, yeah, I guess he is" What was that about? Isn't it kind of hard to forget who's in charge, especially when they're the one who pays you? Devon decided to just ignore that for the time being, if this was to weird, then he'd just leave it alone and find somewhere else, or just maybe say he got a job, his dad never usually checked.

"Great, I wanted to see if I could, get, like, a summer job here? You know, work a few hours or something a week" The spiel was more well rehearsed than the awkward explanation he just gave, but he wasn't trying to sell it on some waiter, he just needed the man to know to be able to get the person that was actually in charge around here.

Still, the man looked almost stumped about what Devon was asking, and just great, he had to find the one employee who seemed to need a five second delay before being able to reply, but soon enough he thankfully gave a quick nod, looking around for a moment, seemingly deciding he had a minute to burn, and turned back, saying quickly.

"Right, sure, I don't think it's going to get any quieter for a bit, but it shouldn't get busier... See over there? To the right of the stage? There's a door to the back office, go wait by that, I'll send Mike to go talk to you about it" Devon just gave an uncomfortable nod and ended up walking back to basically just where he had been not even five minutes ago. This time though instead of walking along the left wall to get to the stage, passing by and looking at the arcades to see if there was anything interesting there, he went through the other wall.

Passing by, he stopped for a second by the only open doorway on that side, the rest having some overexaggerated images on them marking them as some kind of private party rooms, whatever that meant. It was the door that had the giftbox on it.

Peering inside, it was much more decorated than the walls of the main room, there was about a dozen pictures of child drawings covering the back wall which happened to have a large counter blocking off multiple shelves that were covered in just about every kind of merchandise that Devon could imagine, from pencils and easers, to plushies and toys. Even some candy, though there was no branding on those, just normal treats, like the kids didn't get enough sugar here.

On the far right was a few coin hops that seemed to be where the kids were getting their arcade tokens from, and on the ceiling hanging down where some extra large fox plushies, one or two ones of the bear, and another one of... some kind of weird black and white sock monkey? A bit of a stretch on the animal theme, but... Sure, why not.

The last thing he noticed was a large white gift box with black accent marks to give the illusion of ribbons, that was resting in the room as well, as he glanced about for a second, not really moving fully in, before moving away as a few kids rushed by him, someone would be by to deal with them in a second, and he already had one talk with an employee, so he just moved on, missing as he went the sound of a faint chiming count down from the box that had started as soon as the kids had rushed past the threshold, as he moved to the back of the restaurant.

Standing off to the side, in the back, where he couldn't even see the stage properly was a bit boring, it felt a lot like he was creeping around somewhere he shouldn't be as well, as he shifted back and forth and debated the merits of just leaving around the time the ten minute mark had passed. If this Schmidt couldn't even give him the time of day, then why should he hang around? He had stuff he could be doing.

..Okay, he didn't, but the point felt justified enough that he still built up the idea that he should go marching off when suddenly someone cleared their throat as Devon looked over to who it was and nearly flinched back.

Standing in front of him was a man that must have been at the very least a foot taller than him, wearing a dark purple uniform like the man from before, but this one wasn't the same, it was very clearly a security outfit. But that wasn't what really caught his eye, though it did make him nervous, not knowing why the hell a place like this needed a mountain of a man to be security, or why there was security in the first place, no, it was the thing attached to the man's face, as he peered down at Devon, who had to crane his own neck up to try and meet the man's eyes.

A set of eyes that were darkened into looking more like pools of blue from where they were behind a large mask that looked eerily similar to the head of the fox that was on stage, more rounded at the top and the red tuffs on the cheeks were a bit longer, but still clearly the same design, and on a human body that looked to him to be just as big as the fox on stage... Well, a robot was hardly scary, a giant person in what could easily be a prop in a murder mask movie on the other hand? That was a bit more intimidating.

As such, Devon ended up blurting out the first thing that came to his mind, thankfully it wasn't something stupid.

"A-Ah, I'm waiting on someone! I'm allowed to be here" He winced at himself, okay, that did kind of sound a bit stupid. Thankfully the man just huffed, it was hard to tell, but Devon thought he was... amused maybe? As he walked past Devon as he walked into the room that the teen had been standing next to, saying as he went.

"I know, Jeremy told me you were looking for a job?" Devon gaped a bit as he realized with a sudden rush that this was Schmidt, and then feeling himself flush as he quickly rushed in behind the man.

"Y-you're, uh, I mean, I didn't expect you to be wearing... that" It felt lame, but he had no idea what he was suppose to say, as this time Schmidt actually let out a small laugh, as he closed the door behind Devon and walked around, while the teen himself looked around the office.

it was fairly spacious, a couch against one of the walls, a set of file cabinets against another, a big desk in the back corner and a table with some chairs around it in the other. A hat rack as well, for... some reason. On one of the walls was some posters, one or two drawn pieces, and even a few polaroid pictures, not framed, just taped up and held there, though Devon didn't spend long trying to figure out what was on any of them, instead rushing over to take the seat that had just been moved from the table to be in front of the main desk as Schmidt sat down on the other side of the desk after gesturing for Devon to do the same.

Devon himself just watched, in faint confused concern, as Schmidt reached up and casually plucked the mask off his face, setting it down off to the side on the desk, as the teenager got his first proper look of the man. If he was being honest, those months ago, in October, he kind of didn't bother remembering what the man had looked like, he had face paint on at the time, probably from getting ready to go to some early Halloween party, at least Devon thought that was his assumption back then.

The man in front of him was definitely not wearing face paint this time, as Devon found his eyes stuck on the greyed out skin of the man in front of him. Was he... sick or something? Or just... weird looking. If it was that, it would explain the mask he guessed. Schmidt seemed to know what Devon was thinking, the teen apparently not being subtle in his own gawking, as he said with a faint humor to his voice.

"Skin condition, something about low blood oxidation. Heart's a bit to slow to keep it normal, but it's nothing that's dangerous" Devon was pretty sure being grey was concerning, adding an apparent heart condition made that doubly so, but he wasn't here to stare at the man, he was here to try and get a job, and it felt like it would get pretty hard to manage that if he couldn't stop staring, so he managed o wrench his eyes down and say.

"Right. Um, so... I wanted to see if I could get a job?" Schmidt nodded, his eyes roaming over and studying the kid in front of him in a way that made Devon want to squirm, he had an intense kind of face. Honestly, Devon wasn't even sure the man remembered him, it was one interaction months ago, Devon knew he barely remembered it a week later, yet it felt like nothing he said wasn't being studied. It was almost kind of embarrassing this was the most intense interview he's had, and it was from some child restaurant and the questions hadn't even started yet.

"So I was told, any reason why?" Why? Because it was this or be stuck with his dad for the entire summer. It was that or... He gave a smile, it didn't feel right, he withheld the urge to run his tongue over his teeth, didn't want to feel the way the uneven ends poked awkwardly at the muscle, but the habit of doing so anyways nearly had it happen anyways, causing it to come out awkward and forced and quickly gone as he went for the words anyways.

"Oh just want some easy cash for the Summer, I got some friends looking into part time jobs as well" That was a good line, not even false, well, maybe a bit false, he only had one friend, but Mick really was looking for a job this summer... Every other time before it was just a convenient way to make interviewers think they were helping out more than they were, but Schmidt didn't need to know that.

The man in question seemed to be deep in thought about something, staring at Devon, then slightly above him as the man considered something to himself, before finally speaking again, his eyes momentarily flickering to the side where the door leading back to the rest of the building stood.

"I see... We could use the help, the turn out this summer has been a lot more than the last one. First off, before I get to the questions, I should tell you, if you're hired you're mostly going to be doing grunt work, bringing food to tables, bussing them after the customers leave, taking orders, that kind of thing. That sound alright?" Devon... did his best to not grimace, he kind of expected that, but it wasn't the first time he's done something like this, last year he had worked at a small little diner, it wasn't as intense, and he might have lied about his age to get the job because of the grumpy old guy in charge, but...

"I mean, if I wasn't working then it wouldn't be a job right?" He used that line before, Schmidt's lips twitched up a bit, so he assumed it worked, he wasn't really looking forward to it, but he was sure there would be times he could manage to get away for breaks or just find a spot to be ignored if he didn't want to work.

"Alright, then let's get through some basic questions..." The interview for there had been quick, and Devon had the faint impression that Schmidt might have been the boss here, but he wasn't... good at it. Or at least, not this side of thing, most every other time before the questions had been almost routine, from years of having employees come and go. Here it was more like the man was trying to remember his own interviews and spit balling the questions he thought would be applicable to this place.

At least it went by fast, then again there wasn't really many things he needed to know how to do, and the rest were just mostly about when he'd be available, which was frankly more embarrassing to admit was basically all day than any of the other questions had been hard to answer. By the end of it, he had gotten the job, the pay wasn't great, and he was told he'd be working the afternoons, so no opening and closing, which was fine by him. That's when he was suppose to not be home anyways. He was asked to come in that Wednesday for general on the job training, apparently Sundays were they're busiest day, and the day he had come in on without realizing, hence the madness outside the office.

By the end of it, Devon still wasn't really sure just if this was a good idea or not, but at the very least he wouldn't be bored... Now he just had to find out a way to sneak away a few slices of pizza away occasionally, now that would be a nice bonus from working here, apparently that was the main menu's item. So with that, he stood up, accepting a handshake from Schmidt and did his best to ignore the kind of awkward feeling that came from his hand being dwarfed by the man's, and said with as much appreciation he could muster.

"Thank you Mister Schmidt" It was interesting to see the way the man's face sort of twitched at that for reasons that escaped him, the man just nodded back, welcomed him to the crew, and with that Devon was gone out of the doors and back onto the street. Well, that was one thing off his list of things to worry about...

"So... We're employing kids now?" Michael Afton, nowadays more commonly known as Mike Schmidt, let out a huff at Fritz's question, as he gestured up towards the stage where Foxy the Pirate was currently resting after a very busy day. The Cove had just closed it's doors and he had immediately been swarmed by the living staff of the place, Fritz, Jeremy, and Janet, all of who had varying reactions.

"What do you mean now?" Fritz, the technician of the place, grimaced, before having to begrudgingly concede the point, as almost on cue from the stairs off to the side of the stage came the sound of fairly sharp squeaking metal, rubbing against each other, as from the stairs out came Goldie, the golden bear, quickly followed by Foxy himself, the latter of which called out, his voice losing a fair bit of the over the top pirate accent that had been on display previous in the day but still maintaining a portion of it.

"I won't be some little kiddy for much longer you know" Mike waved that point off.

"Eh, seventeen for a few more months" The fox just pouted, crossing his arms with a huff as the bear at his side shot the fox a look before rolling his eyes, turning back to Mike before speaking as well, the almost deep warm timber from the stage vanishing completely to a fairly more lighter young voice, though the dry and unimpressed tone of voice stayed the exact same as before.

"Don't change the point Michael, are you sure that's a good idea? Especially with everything going on" Mike... had to admit, Evan, his brother, had a point. They weren't exactly staking by at the moment without any hurdles.

Not financial ones, no, the Cove, if anything, was doing better than ever, the summer season that been a boon in terms of cash flow, maybe not so much in everyone getting enough rest for the eleven hour days they were putting in, but they were solidly in the green and they were finally able to rebuild the business's savings after the mess that had been last Summer, the company van had finally been paid off, and Mike himself was finally, for the first time in a bit to long, out of debt himself from the hospital.

No, income wise they were going smooth, but that wasn't the issue. It was with the police, or rather, one policeman. Chief of Police Clay Burke, who was more than certain of Mike's involvement in a building fire that had happened only two months previously. A fire in a building that would have been opened up as a Freddy's, and a building that held the dead bodies of four people, one of which Mike himself had been close to.

They had been keeping their heads down since, and while nothing had happened yet, Clay Burke was a stubborn man, and Mike was under no disillusion he was still looking for anything to pin to Mike to drag him in for questioning. It wasn't a great situation to be in, and with the reputation of Freddy's, a place known for the deaths of children, being pressed down onto the Cove in the chief's own mind, as well as Mike's own father, who had been the prime suspect to the police, and to Mike the known killer... He was under a lot of security that migrated to the Cove itself.

Hiring a kid, even just for a summer job, might not be the best look, but, frankly, Mike didn't find it in him to care, as he said back.

"We all read what was posted in the news the weeks following, it was ruled a tragic attempt at insurance fraud" Which was about as good as a guess they could come to given the building had been built to burn itself to the ground. Most of, if not all the evidence that Mike and the others had been there had burned away... Charlie, her body being discovered outside had been a snag but another report came out saying it had just been a tragically timed robbery.

The suspect was still being searched for, but they'd never find the person responsible, he was already long past gone, Mike himself having been responsible in making sure Henry never would be able to hurt another person again. That didn't stop Burke from showing up occasionally, stalking about like some kind of creepy, though he hadn't gone as far as to question anyone yet, Mike knew it was probably only a matter of time.

Still, he needed to be confident in his decision, as he turned to his brother.

"Us hiring someone isn't going to be the end of the world, honestly, we've always been on the low end for staff, and if it keeps going this way, we're going to work ourselves into the ground, we need more people here. And if we can get someone who'll only last the Summer, and only works in the afternoon when you and the rest are in showtime mode, then we don't have to worry nearly as much about them figuring something out" The bear just frowned, not that Mike could blame him, this whole thing was a bit of a mess, but there was a line between being careful and hefting on more work than any of them could reasonably handle.

"So you hired him without talking to any of us?" Mike grimaced, okay, that one hadn't been his best moment.

"I-... If it was a permanent staff spot, I would have brought it up to everyone, just like we did when Janet joined us here" Janet, who had been leaning against Fritz as Mike had been speaking, blinked, speaking up quickly.

"Wait, was I voted onto the island?" Mike nodded, as she just hummed, "Huh, I- That actually makes a lot of sense, it took like a week after I asked before getting an answer and being shoved into the kitchen, and that was before I knew about the rest of what was going on here"

"I think it'll work out fine, it'll only be for a few months, and if worse comes to it, then we can just let him go" Everyone's eyes shifted over to the side where from the Prize Corner, pushing the now closed curtain to the side to let himself out, came the marionette, floating through the air without issue, the track above his and everyone's head made just for him to move around during the day, being completely ignored, as he stopped just by Mike's side, who tossed the puppet a grateful look at being backed up, turning to the others.

"See, even Mari agrees it's a good idea" Mari suddenly let out a short huffing chime like sound as he rounded about just enough to look up at Mike with something of an unimpressed look, as he asked dryly.

"And what does 'even Mari agrees' mean mister?" Mike immediately sensing his mistake just grinned and said.

"Nothing, just complimenting your judge of character" The puppet just kept staring at Mike who was doing his best to ignore the look, while Evan just huffed, dragging everyone's attention back.

"If you two are done looking longingly into each other's eyes, can we get back to the conversation?" Mari let out a not so quiet flustered sound, but before he could defend himself, Mike was already speak, glancing over to the bear.

"Hey, I get at least five minutes a work day to look longing at Mari, I put it in everyone's work contracts, and with how much time I spent in the kitchen today, I still got some to get out of my system" And with that he turned back and made a show of staring a lot more obviously enamored at the puppet who was actively covering his face and letting out a low embarrassing humming sound.

"You dork" That got Mike to break, snickering to himself, before finally sobering up after a second and said to the group.

"Listen, if something happens, which I have no idea what with how careful we've been, then we just kick the kid out. But we really do need help, and this is about as riskless as we can get it, unless we hire more kitchen staff and just keep them locked in there at all hours they're working" No one had anything to say to that, because Mike was right, they were slowly but steadily being overwhelmed here, and any amount of extra hands would be nice.

For the first time Jeremy found himself speaking up on the topic.

"I think it'll be alright, I mean, as long as he's not here for opening and closing, then it's not like he'll see anything that could get us in trouble, and even then, it's not like people are going to believe him if he says that the animatronics here are alive somehow, much less realize what's actually happening" Janet spoke up next.

"Yeah, I think it'll be alright, I mean, I worked here for months and I still had to be told what was going on... I wouldn't say no to getting some more help in the kitchen though, Mike and I both were only just able to keep up with the orders, if these rush days keep going like this then we're going to have to start making a que for when people can order" Mike just hummed, thinking for a second before glancing first at Jeremy, then to Fritz and Janet

"I mean, I don't suppose Bonnie knows how to cook? Or Lolbit?" About three matching grimaces came from them, as Jeremy said quickly.

"Ah, Bonnie's not really... a fan of this place still, I don't think he'd be liable to help"

"And Lolbit... I don't think them being around an open fire would be a great idea, without even getting into the... safety issues" Safety issues being that William Afton, Mike's father, had designed the body that Lolbit now resided in to be down right murderous when left unattended with children present, and given the Cove's business model... That wasn't a risk they could take. Coding was a part of an animatronic down to their very core, it wasn't something that could just be taken out, not without any number of potential consequences.

"Still haven't made any progress?"

"Some, but it's not easy. Lolbit knows a lot more about coding than I do, but even this has got him stumped, mostly because it's kind of dangerous for him to mess with his own coding when we don't know what the end result will be, and we don't have any templates to work with after he transferred himself into funtime foxy's body. We can't just go poking and prodding" Mike just nodded, most of that went over his head as to why it was dangerous, but he'd just assume they knew what they were talking about.

"Right, guess we're still stuck on kitchen duty then" Janet laughed at that at least.

"We, at least you get to play guard too, I'm stuck in there all day" Yeah that was fair.

"We can switch out Wednesday if you want, you can be the one to show the newbie the ropes and I work the kitchen"

"Deal" Mike had no idea if that was a good deal for him or not, but at least Janet seemed pleased with herself, as he looked to everyone else.

"Anything else we need to talk about or should we get to actually closing this place up?" Apparently nothing that had to be a group effort, as everyone split off to get the place cleaned up and set up ready to go for the private party that they would be holding here tomorrow. It was for a girl who's parents were bringing in the entire extended family in for, apparently turning ten was a very special occasion for them.

Mike admittedly rushed a bit through his own closing side of things, but everything still got done and by ten thirty he was in the car, heading back to his house. Mari had already gone ahead of him, probably already half way through mixing the batter together for the cake for said party. Custom order, it was going to be a big one from what he remembered and how excited the puppet had been. Mari didn't get to flex his baking skills much beyond simple treats and fueling Mike's sweets addiction.

Pulling into the driveway and quickly getting into the garage, Mike trudged through the door that lead him into the kitchen, and sure enough, there with that goofy chef's hat that Mike had recently bought mostly as a joke, and yet Mari adored, resting on the puppet's head, was Mari, sliding two large sheet cake pans into the oven, one chocolate another looked like vanilla, as he slide over to the side as Mari quickly stood back up straight and sent Mike a smile.

"Welcome back!" Mike felt a smile pull on his face as he said back.

"We saw each other ten minutes ago" Mari waved him off, saying as he closed the oven up and set a timer.

"Yeah, but now we're seeing each other at home" Mike couldn't deny the logic there, so instead he moved over, sliding up against the puppet who eagerly leaning into his side as the two stood against the island in the middle of the kitchen, as he asked.

"Two cakes?" Mari nodded excitedly.

"Yeah! It's going to be one when I'm done though, or, well, kind of. I'm going to cut them all into individual squares and stack them up on each other, and then cover them all in frosting, so it's like a bunch of individual little cakes! Cause who doesn't love more frosting! I'm also going to spell out the birthday girl's name by putting one letter on each and then arranging them!" Mike hummed, listening to the excited ramblings from the puppet as they two stared at the oven, before he smirked, tilting his head down and saying casually.

"Sounds cute" Mari just nodded, pleased with himself, as he said.

"That's the plan!" Mike's smirk grin just a bit as he replied.

"No, you, you sound cute when you're excited about stuff" His smirk broke into more a grin as Mari let out that little warbling noise he loved before pushing away from him, but still saying playfully.

"You've been awful lately you know that" Mari didn't sound at all like him minded, even as he floated off towards the living room, Mike following behind saying as he went.

"What? Something wrong with me being appreciative?" Mari just chipped out a happy response.

"Nope! Just maybe a little heavy handed, someone might think you wanted something" Mike sped up just a bit as Mari was getting to the couch.

"Well maybe I do" Mari had time to turn around, hearing how suddenly close he was to be able to watch as in real time Mike reached out and snatched the puppet up, as he let out a sharp chiming noise of surprise as he called out-

"Wh- Ah! M-Mike!" As Mike pulled him down onto the couch, the puppet laying over his chest as Mike found himself grinning again to himself as Mari's body twisted about before somehow ended up laying properly on Mike's chest. Looking up at the man, his masked chin propped up on Mike's sternum, Mari gave the grinning Mike a short look before breaking into a few giggles himself before saying as he adjusting squirming about as Mike move a bit as well to actually get comfortable from where he landed.

"What's up with you today? First hiring someone after a five minute talk, and then getting all flirty, usually I'm the one who's hanging off you, you know" Mari was teasing him a bit, but Mike just shrugged, or, tried to, the position he was in crammed awkwardly on the couch with half his legs hanging off on end, and his shoulders bunched into the arm of the other made it a bit hard. The puppet had a point.

"Don't know... Just... It's been a good day" The puppet's little grin faded just a bit at that at the almost wistful tone in the man's voice. Mike... Hadn't had a lot of good days recently. Plenty of normal ones, a painful amount of bad ones, but good ones? Those had become somewhat rare to find after the fire. Mari found himself laying there for a moment before saying softly.

"Want to complain at whatever's on tv while we wait for the cakes to come out of the oven so we can go to sleep?" Mike's chest trembled with a small repressed laugh telling the puppet all he needed to know about how he felt about the idea, before listening to Mike say gratefully.

"You know, you make it hard not to compliment you all the time"

"Dork... So?"

"Yeah, that sounds nice"

WE'RE BACK!

Ah... Good to be here... Been a while hasn't it everyone?

Oh, who am I kidding, you know the drill, I've written this before the other story is even done being posted yet, but that doesn't mean I'm not excited to official start writing this! We're in a whole new land of opportunity here. A whole cast of characters to be reintroduced to, moments to have and exciting- cough, Traumatizing, cough- adventures to be discovered!

I actually have a full blown plot ready from the start this time! Isn't that a miracle with Welcome literally only having a fifth of it planned before I started writing that one. Hopefully it means this time around it'll be a lot more smooth sailing on writing my plot ideas now that we're in charted waters.

It's going to be great, starting off strong with a new/old face. Devon! Yeah, that random one off character from the last story that appeared for less than a dozen paragraphs which probably no one remembers even meeting, because I refuse for anything to not be called back on at a later date. Because, I, am a writing psychopath who thinks Chekov's gun should have been a firing squad, but that's unimportant... Anyways, Devon leads us off, letting us strangers in on a look from the outside in to the Cove and it's inhabitants, and then shifting to see what goes on behind closed doors.

It seems like everyone's doing pretty well, which is good, Mike and Mari are being adorable, because damn it, I waited, like, forty chapters last time, I am not going to waste any time now, but it's also clear the events of the last story, which in case anyone is wondering was about two months before this one takes place, is still something that is being recovered from. We got to lead off with the good things and have a hint of trauma in the background, that way we're all ready to go for the horrors that await!

Oh, I am so excited... I hope everyone's ready for the ride! But in the mean time, I got to get going on the other chapters so I'm once more ridiculously stockpiled ahead of the curve, so... See ya!