Chapter Text
“So Vlad is definitely the baby’s father.”
“Of course he is. And Clara’s trying to get him to pay child support.”
«Why doesn’t he do it?»
“Cause he’s a cheapskate, probably. Or maybe he’s just that crazy.”
The situation on the other side of the screen was its own brand of crazy. Their merry band of misfits’s version of a normal movie night had ended up as a sentient animatronic, a possessed animatronic, a double possessed animatronic and three ghosts marathoning through Mike (the plain possessed animatronic)’s impressive cartoon VHS tape collection. Oh, and Jeremy.
Now, Jeremy’s life had never been normal by any means. After Arnold Fitzgerald, his workaholic dad, had vanished off the face of the Earth, Jeremy had become the man of the house. His mom, Ellen, did have a job, but he still took on odd jobs around the neighborhood and helped her out with chores whenever he could to make it easier on her. He didn’t have many chances to do fun things like going to Fredbear’s, so he’d always cherished them.
It was on one of those rare occasions that he’d met Mike. Michael Afton was a creative, adventurous kid, though maybe a little too sarcastic and aggressive. Still, he knew quite a bit about the animatronics and was fun to be around, so they’d become fast friends.
Their duo had later been joined by Fritz Smith, a down-to-earth boy who’d been held back a grade and usually kept them from acting on their dumber ideas, and their merry band had been completed by Trish Warren, a smart, snarky teen that matched Mike in sass and determination. They’d become “the band”.
It could’ve ended there. They could’ve been just four friends that stayed together, or at least in touch, their whole lives, having occasional arguments about dumb things and fondly reminiscing about the past. The matching masks Mike had insisted on winning for the four of them in the arcade could’ve just been a happy memory.
But then the Bite happened.
If there was one downside to being friends with Mike, it was that he was always busy watching his little brother Evan. The kid might have been cute if he wasn’t so whiny, or fun if he wasn’t so much younger, but he was. Jeremy was an only child, and didn’t like younger kids, so he couldn’t imagine dealing with a brat at all hours. And Mike had to deal with him at all hours, because even though he had both parents around, his dad was always busy managing the coolest business ever, and his mom was busy taking care of his actual baby sister, so if anything happened to him it was Mike’s fault.
Mike would try really hard, but they could all see it weighed on him. Evan was a pretty high maintenance kid, complaining about lights that only he was bothered by, loud noises that only he paid attention to, food textures that only he couldn’t stand, hell, even fucking schedules. What kind of fucking six-year-old complains about schedules? And Mike had a lot of good qualities, but patience wasn’t one of them. So, he’d lock the kid in his room or the maintenance so he’d be able to hang out with them. He’d leave him in the restaurant to make his own way home sometimes. He’d scare him around with his mask to toughen him up a little.
And Jeremy and the others would join in from time to time. Jeremy didn’t really care much for the kid, and it was the only way to pass the time with Mike sometimes. If being with his best friend had to involve a whining crybaby, they could at least make it fun.
It was supposed to be harmless. It was supposed to be funny.
It was just a prank.
At the age of fourteen, Jeremy Fitzgerald became a murderer.
It was the second time Jeremy’s world fell apart, but unlike with his dad, it was his fault this time. Guilt became a sort of second limb for Jeremy, with night terrors of a kid that would never grow up, or of Mr. Afton following through with his threats of shooting him down like a rat. Unlike with his dad, it wasn’t just his world that crumbled. Trish punched Mike in the face, and within two days, enacted their long-time plan of running away from home. Fritz made ignoring and avoiding Mike a sport, and tried to pretend everything was fine with Jeremy when it so clearly wasn’t. And Mike…
It was like his joy and life had been sucked out of him, like he was little more than a walking corpse. Mike had never been overweight (how he did it was one of life’s biggest mysteries, since his dad literally owned a junk food company and pizza joint), but he lost so much weight over the next weeks, one could see his bones. He developed night terrors worse than Jeremy’s, and huge eyebags to match. He rarely smiled, and never laughed.
Through it all, Jeremy did his best to stand by Mike. They’d meet almost every week by Evan’s grave, and while sometimes they’d talk, most of the time they just stood there and regretted, together. They never agreed on dates to visit; almost half as many times as Jeremy had encountered Mike there, he’d ended up there alone, apologizing to someone who probably couldn’t hear him. Reproaching Trish and Fritz for abandoning Mike, abandoning him. Yelling into the trees and the sky, for a dad whose voice he could hardly remember.
Then his world fell apart a third time.
Jeremy sat on the old playground’s swings. They certainly weren’t built for someone his size, and they groaned under his weight, but held, for now. He wondered what kind of injury he’d get if the metal chains snapped and dropped him a foot and a half into the ground. Then he shook his head, trying to get rid of those thoughts. Think of Mike. We have a not-suicide pact, remember?
Crunching footsteps in the gravel made Jeremy startle. Think of the devil and he shall appear. Mike was there, wearing a plain long sleeved purple shirt and jeans. He looked uncomfortable, nervous. Jeremy smiled and gestured to the swing next to him, but Mike shook his head.
“Mike? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Mike looked stubbornly at the ground. His usually pale face was growing an ugly shade of red, almost purple. He didn’t look like he was breathing. Jeremy stood up, and put his hand on Mike’s shoulder, but froze when he flinched away.
“I can’t do this, Jeremy.”
Now Jeremy was confused. “Do what? Is it the park? You’ve never minded childish things-”
“No, you!” snapped Mike angrily. “This- going to college and- and animation and- the grave and- I can’t keep seeing you, Jeremy! We can’t do this anymore!”
“Do what? Talking, being friends? What’s gotten into you, Mike?” He couldn’t be serious, right? Jeremy was misunderstanding. Mike was kidding. He’d had a bad night, it had come out wrong and he’d apologize. This wasn’t Mike.
“Yes! We can’t be friends anymore, Jerry!” Mike breathed, and it was like a mask fell into place. The red receded, and his face went slacked. His heated voice became a monotone. “You’re a bad influence, Jeremy. You… You’ve been trying to convince me it wasn’t my fault and… and that my family was bad. Driving me away from them. Making me into someone like you.”
“Like me?” What the fuck was Mike going on about? Was this one of his only-my-fault guilt things? He’d gotten angry and yelled at Jeremy about it in the past, but it was always aimed at himself. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? What are you on about, man?”
“You’re… you’re a nobody, Jeremy. You’re never going to amount to anything, and if I stick around you I won’t either. You’re a child who won’t grow up and- and won’t take responsibility for his actions.”
“Take that back.” Mike wasn’t thinking straight. He couldn’t be thinking. His friend would never say that stuff to him. “This isn’t you, Mike. Take it back.”
“I won’t.” Mike almost looked afraid, but he didn’t back down. “I won’t, because it’s the truth and you need to accept it.”
“We both know that’s bullshit, Afton,” hissed Jeremy. “I’ve been providing for my mom since I was ten, and you’ve been living off of your daddy’s money.” Low blow, but Mike had earned it. “You’re more of a child than I am. You’re even three months younger. You’re just throwing some- some tantrum!”
“You’re the one who’s throwing a tantrum! You- you-” Mike bit his lip. “You’re jealous of me because I do have a dad and- and you’re trying to get me to leave him like your dad left you!”
Jeremy reared back like he’d been slapped. That would’ve hurt less. No one brought up Arnold. No one. Not Mom, not Jeremy. Mike knew about him, and knew not to. But now he had. Mike looked a little sick himself, but didn’t apologize. Instead, he turned around and ran as Jeremy tried to blink back tears.
Jeremy wasn’t sure how long he stood there, silently crying in a lonely children’s playground. Lost in memories of him and Mike hanging upside down from the monkey bars, of Trish taking advantage of still fitting on the slide, of Dad pushing him on the swings and him having to learn how to swing himself. Eventually, he managed to unfreeze, and yelled at the space where Mike had left.
“That’s right! Run away, you- you coward! Run before I beat your ass!”
The fight had left Jeremy confused, angry and devastated, all at once. Trish’s betrayal after a year of friendship had hurt. Fritz’s abandonment had been painful. But Mike had been his only constant for the last nine years. His best friend. The one he trusted more than anyone and anything. His everything. This wasn’t a knife in the back, it was a chainsaw meatgrinder through his soul.
The first semester of college had been spent trying to pass his classes, and stitch his heart back together. The courses on robotics, electronics and machinery had (shockingly) not been the best distraction either. He tried to make new friends, maybe even get a girlfriend, but his heart wasn’t in it. And when he came home to his mom that November, he had another problem.
Ellen was an adult, and she could take care of herself, but when her boss had laid her off out of the blue, there wasn’t much she could do. She’d gotten a job as a cashier at the nearby Walmart, but she was behind on rent, and the landlord was a dick. So Jeremy set out to do what he’d always done, and help his mom. But, in a stroke of the world’s worst luck, or of God’s worst joke, the only job available was at the new and improved Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
Ralph, the manager, had recognized Jeremy instantly at the job interview. He’d been very familiar with Mike and their little group, and was happy to hear Jeremy would “rejoin the Fazbear family”. It had been a tense moment, though it was made a little less tense with the reveal that William Afton was no longer a part of it.
“We’re not family, Mr. Scott,” said Jeremy, trying to stay polite with his new boss. “I doubt Mr. Afton’s orders of making sure his kids stay out of trouble extend to me.”
“They don’t,” confirmed Mr. Scott with a shrug, “and it doesn’t matter anyway. Mr. Afton and Mr. Emily had a… disagreement, and let’s just say the company got a divorce!” He laughed at his own joke, and Jeremy gave him a strained smile. “I haven’t heard from the Aftons in almost a year.”
“I haven’t heard from them in six months now, either,” said Jeremy, going for levity but falling short.
Mr. Scott frowned. “Not even Mike? You two were really close, if my memory serves me right. Attached at the hip, one would’ve thought you were twins!”
Jeremy wrung his hands and glued his eyes to the desk. “Not anymore. We had a fight.” He saw Mr. Scott reaching a hand to him out of the corner of his eye, and gently pushed it away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Mr. Scott pulled his hand away, and gave Jeremy a sad, empathetic look. “Hey, no shame in feeling bad about it, sport. Friendship breakups can be just as bad as romantic ones. Hell, sometimes even worse!” Jeremy pursed his lip. Friendship breakup. That was what that had been, right? Jeremy had never gone out with anyone, but even if he did, he couldn’t imagine any separation that hurt less than what Mike had done. “You and Michael lived through so much together, more than even I did with my Coppelia’s mother.” Jeremy almost gasped. He hadn’t known Mr. Scott had a kid. “When I called you a part of the family, I meant that in this company? We’re a family. At least, that’s how I feel. And even if you’re not perfect, I’m glad you’re a part of it, sport.”
“Thanks, Mr. Scott,” said Jeremy quietly.
“Don’t thank me yet, kid,” said the man drily. “Let’s see how much of that respect is left when you’re done with your first week in the night shift.”
And Ralph hadn’t exaggerated. If anything, he’d downplayed the nightmare that was that week at Freddy’s. The animatronics had made it hard from him, insisting on coming to the office, and staring at him with those haunting eyes. They seemed aware, almost too aware. Especially the Puppet, and the originals. Jeremy didn’t believe they were actually evil, or that they’d kill him, but he knew how dangerous it was to have animatronic parts too close to the face.
Maybe it would’ve been a little easier if he could keep the mask on, but A) it obscured half his face, B) he hated wearing masks, and C) you try wearing a heavy bear mask that barely lets air in or out of its stupid snout, while having asthma. But in the end, it didn’t even matter. The one animatronic that got him was the one who didn’t care about the mask.
When Jeremy woke up in the hospital a month later, he didn’t instantly recognize his mom. He couldn’t feel or move his arms, and he slurred his speech as he called for someone to help him, to tell him who this woman was. It had been one of the most frightening moments of both their lives. He’d freaked out really bad, kicking desperately, and had to be sedated.
When he woke up again, he did recognize the weeping lady at his bedside as his mother. His left leg worked fine and his left arm and right leg sort of did, but his right arm could only twitch. He and his mom got a whopping three minutes of tearful reassurances when a Fazbear representative showed up in the hospital room, and basically shoved his spasming right hand into signing an NDA and ignoring Ellen’s outraged complaints. Naturally, the next person in a purple uniform to approach the door got a faceful of Angry Mother, until Jeremy recognized him.
“CAN’T YOU SEE MY SON IS IN PAIN HOW DARE YOU GET THE FUCK OUT-”
“Mr. Scott?” Jeremy’s right eye was a little blurry, but he was pretty sure it was him. “What are you- Mom, that’s my boss!”
Ellen whirled around, incensed. “If you think you’re setting foot on that establishment again, Jeremy Fitzgerald-”
“He won’t, ma’am, I assure you,” said Mr. Scott in a small voice, and he flinched back when Ellen glared at him again. “That’s not what I’m here for, Mrs. Fitzgerald. I know it isn’t much help now, but I did send out a strongly worded petition for corporate to… revise security measures for employees. The new line of Toy animatronics is being decommissioned, too.”
“How does that help my boy?!” snapped mom. “Your stupid ‘corporate’ isn’t even covering his medical bills! Those stupid robots have more insurance than my son does! How would you feel if your child was in that hospital bed?”
Mr. Scott was grim. “I don’t want to imagine. My daughter just turned six years old this month and- I know what it’s like being a single parent, ma’am. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. So much has happened in that restaurant and… well, I suppose as the manager, I’m partly responsible.”
Mom softened. She knew how sore a subject the tragedies were, and, as scary as it was thinking about it, Jeremy had been close to becoming one. Maybe Mike’s “the place is cursed” theory had merit.
“What’s the other reason?” asked Jeremy. He’d never had much of a relationship with Mr. Scott besides the latter’s enabling of the former’s bullying, and a short conversation in an office. Mr. Scott may feel responsible for Jeremy’s plight, but that alone couldn’t have brought him here, right?
Mr. Scott gave Jeremy a thin smile, and pulled an envelope from his coat. He gave it to Ellen, and she stared at it like it was from Mars.
“Fazbear Entertainment is, sadly, not covering your medical bills, Jeremy. I’m not here on their behalf, as I’m sure they’ve already contacted you and your mother recently. But this envelope was mailed to my house recently, with a check for a considerable sum and very specific instructions on how to spend it. It said, and I quote, that ‘this money is to be used exclusively to aid and further the recovery of one Jeremy Fitzgerald, as compensation for all damages sustained directly or indirectly because of this company, and all previously or currently affiliated with it’.”
Most of that went over Jeremy’s head, legal jargon had never been his strong suit and he was exhausted and doped. “Wha- english please?”
“It means the company is paying for your recovery. I noticed a strange word, however. Affiliated, not associated. Makes one think of a child or someone dependent, rather than business partners.”
Jeremy felt like his brain was about to explode. “What company? Not Fazbear, right?”
Mr. Scott smiled, and shook his head. “Not Fazbear. The letter and check are from Afton Robotics.”
That money had been more than enough to get Jeremy through his medical bills and pay his mom’s rent for the next few months. It had also been enough to get him back on track at college, and at his mom’s insistence, getting him therapy. He’d been hesitant about it at first, but now he saw it as the best decision of his life. The bite had been awful, and had majorly screwed him over, but what came after had made his world slowly put itself together anew.
Therapy had helped him come to terms with a lot of things. The bite and the changes it had brought to his life, yes, but also the things that had come before it. His feelings towards his dad. His responsibility for the Bite. His lost friendship with Mike.
“It wasn’t your fault that Michael pushed you away,” his therapist had told him once. “From what you tell me, it’s more than likely that he was in an abusive situation with his father. It’s common for abusers to isolate their victims, or to manipulate them into self-isolating, to make them more vulnerable and dependent on them. To put it from Mr. Afton’s perspective, you were a threat, because you were offering Michael a way out of this relationship.”
“But shouldn’t I have stood by Mike, then? Couldn’t I have, I don’t know, forced him out?”
“No,” said his therapist sternly. “You were a child, much like Michael was. He may have been your friend, but he wasn’t your responsibility. He purposefully hurt you, which is a valid reason to pull away. And now that you’re both adults, it’s his responsibility to ask for help. And if he ever does ask you for help, it’s your choice to accept, or refuse.”
Asking for help had never been Mike’s strong suit. They did things together, but he never asked for it. He didn’t have to. Something about his snarky yet soft self drew people in. He wasn’t one to help other people overtly either, and he probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Still, every time he imagined Mike apologizing and asking him to get him out of his father’s house, he thought of the Afton Robotics letter that he always carried with him, and had practically memorized by now.
If Mike asked Jeremy for help, it wouldn’t be a question of if, but how.
Another thing that had come of that letter was its messenger. Ralph had stood by Jeremy throughout his recovery, because of a sense of responsibility at the beginning, but he and the Fitzgeralds had grown to be friends over time. He’d helped Ellen find a job at the nearby Walmart, take Jeremy to and from his doctor’s appointments, and visit for dinner regularly. Ellen, despite not being interested in Ralph as a partner, did help him take care of Coppelia whenever she could. Ralph had been serious at the job interview: he did view his coworkers, and his employees, as family.
Jeremy had gone back to Fazbear’s for a few months after finishing college, to work as a technician, but it just wasn’t good for him to be there. Ralph was a little sad that he and Jeremy wouldn’t be coworkers anymore, but he understood, and his attitude towards both Jeremy and his mom didn’t change. He found work at the local mechanic’s repair shop, and though his right hand would still twitch and he’d often forget things from two seconds before, he was doing well. He hadn’t reached out to Mike, but he did hear from Ralph that Elizabeth Afton had gone missing in ‘87, and Laurel Afton had taken her own life shortly after. He felt sorry for his old friend, he knew how hard it was to lose a parent.
And Jeremy had never really wanted a replacement for Arnold. He hadn’t been too present in his life in the first place, and the thought of his mom dating anyone was horrifying. But when Jeremy had gotten his driver’s licence after years of frustration at his right hand (that still occasionally twitched) and Ralph’s patient instruction, when Ralph hugged him as soon as he left the DMV and said “I knew you could do it, son!”, Jeremy, while shocked, didn’t really mind. Ralph wasn’t his dad, but he also wasn’t that far off.
Then, in 1993, Jeremy’s world fell apart a fourth time.
Jeremy had spent most of his teens visiting a grave. While they didn’t make him happy, being full of memories of abandonment and regret, they did bring him a sort of bittersweet comfort. A reminder of the good times with Mike, of his childhood best friend. But Ralph Scott’s grave brought him no such comfort.
He didn’t know what was worse. The ridiculously small number of people at the funeral (Coppelia, the Fitzgeralds and a technician from Fazbear’s), the fact that it had happened at fucking Freddy’s just as he was on his way out, or the fact that as soon as it was over, a social worker took Coppelia away to an orphanage, because Ralph had no living family and apparently the Fritzgeralds didn’t count. Jeremy cried at the grave, at the decomposing remains of his only father figure, at the memory of his birth father and the childish hope that he’d come back one day, that he didn’t know he’d still had. Those were some of the hardest days of Jeremy’s life, right down there with Evan Afton’s death and the fight with Mike.
And then Mike called him a month later, took the broken pieces of Jeremy’s world, and threw them into a furnace full of molten glass.
Because Freddy’s was actually haunted. And ghosts were real. And Mike was one. And William Afton was a mad scientist murderer.
November went in a haze of keeping his friend company, covering the house in air fresheners and making Mike a new, non-organic body. There was no apology, not right away, but Jeremy found he didn’t need it. It had been three days since they’d reunited when Mike said it.
“I’m sorry,” said his friend’s voice from a radio on the bedside. “For what I said when we saw each other last. It was cruel, and I meant for it to be. I just wanted to get you away from him.”
“From your Father?” Jeremy phrased it as a question, but it wasn’t that. Mike’s… Mike spasmed, which could mean a shrug or a flinch.
“I guess even then I knew he was dangerous. You have no idea how much he hated you, Jerry.”
But Jeremy did. In trying to figure out how the Scooper thing worked, Jeremy had read what Afton referred to as his “experiment logs”, but could be more aptly described as serial killer diaries.
I’d never felt as truly alive as I did when I killed those children, read one of the entries, it would hardly surprise me if the sweet rush of taking a life and the powerful, almost palpable agony that permeates the room when it left their eyes is enough to create, or recreate, life itself. The first one wasn’t so satisfying by herself, but the tears of her mother as she wept for her youngest more than made up for it. She won’t get her child back, not any more than I will. The second was rowdy, more of a challenge, but he was paralyzed with pain when I snapped his jaw, and easy enough to dispose of. The third was almost too trusting of me, a curious parallel to his cowardly cousin (that youth always regarded me with such suspicion. If they ever come back, it would be best to dispose of them quickly.)
The fourth was by far the most invigorating. The same name as that rat that my son insists on spending his days with, and his face might’ve been the same for all I care. By the time I was done with him, it was so disfigured one wouldn’t know. Oh, how I long to do the same to that Fitzgerald pest, crunch his bones under my heel and tear into his flesh until nothing remains. Pity attacking him now would place me as a suspect. Well, a man can dream. Maybe when the time comes I’ll bake him into a pie, and tell Michael that it’s rabbit pie. I took more time than I’d first thought, and had to hurry getting the birthday girl before they got the cake and noticed the disappearances. I wasn’t as attentive and got a stowaway that needed to be disposed of, but it was all the better. So entertaining, and I took out some of my frustrations on Michael while I was at it.
By far the most disturbing thing Jeremy had ever read. Jeremy had never liked Afton, mainly because of the bruises that would sometimes pop up on Mike that he was shit at explaining away, but he’d also pitied him. He’d killed the man’s son, for fuck’s sake, and he was still a human at the end of the day. He may not be great, but he was human. But now, that notion had fallen apart. Afton wasn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he was a demon from hell wearing human skin.
This man was sick. He’d claim to care for others while laughing at their tears. He’d built a whole-ass nightmare simulation basement, and tortured Mike in it for years. He’d built killing and kidnapping machines, and rented them out. He’d sent his own son to die.
And Jeremy had left Mike behind, with him.
Any remaining guilt or pity for Afton had melted away when they’d met M2, and Jeremy learned David Murray’s story. An animatronic that was programmed to copy everything it saw, but could somehow pick and choose, based on his hatred for Afton and his love for his first victim. David, Mike’s first friend. Killed in ‘75, ten whole years before the Missing Children and eight years before Afton had even experienced loss.
And apparently, David had been around this whole time too, and him and the other victims wanted revenge. Which Jeremy could understand, he wanted it too, but he was less on board with the whole “torturing Afton for all eternity and killing anyone who stands in our way” thing. Especially since this group had apparently included, until very recently, security guards.
And Jeremy wasn’t stupid. He may have had occasional short-term memory lapses and a twitching right hand, and be in a constant state of crisis and denial right now, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that spending years or even decades alone and in agony had fucked those kids up bad. But they were still lucid, and should’ve still known better than to kill innocent people. Ralph’s death had been no accident. And there was no getting him back.
Jeremy still cared about Mike, but him bringing the vengeful spirits that had killed Ralph into the house (that was Mike’s, but he’d also been living there for almost a month) was too much for him. He knew Mike didn’t mean it, that he probably didn’t even know Ralph was dead or how close they’d been, but it was still too painful. He’d needed space, he’d needed time, he’d needed to see his mom, and so he’d left Mike’s house and gone back to her.
He couldn’t tell her the madness he’d learnt, because she was dealing with Ralph’s loss too and he didn’t want to give her a heart attack, but he did tell her that William Afton was missing, and Mike was dealing with a lot, and he’d asked for his help, but as much as Jeremy wanted to help he was too overwhelmed.
“That’s okay, baby,” said Ellen, hugging him. “Mike has his struggles, but so do you. No shame in taking your time to sort yourself out. He’ll understand.”
“But he won’t, mom!” cried Jeremy, “He’ll think I’m leaving him behind again.”
“Then tell him you’re not,” she replied, “he’s only a phone call away.”
So, he did just that. As the tone rang, Jeremy wondered if that was how Mike had felt, when he’d called Jeremy. A massive miscommunication fuckup between them like a chasm they’d opened, not knowing if the other would even hear them from the other side, or listen to what they had to say.
«Hello, um, this is Mike Schmidt. Who is this?»
Jeremy gulped, pushing through the deja vu. “Hey, Mikey.”
There was a beat of silence. «Jeremy? Why are you calling?» Mike sounded small, and scared.
“Well, mostly to apologize. I’m sorry I left. I…” Jeremy took a deep breath. A bout of static came from the other end. “Look, Mike, I really, really care about you. And I know you do too. But I-”
«I knew it would be too much, Jeremy.» Mike said sadly. «I meant it when I said you didn’t have to help me! I just-» Mike cut himself off, and there was a feedback whine. Jeremy had spent long enough with Mike’s new body to know it was a sob. «I guess I got too caught up in this ‘together’ thing.»
“Mike, you didn’t.” Said Jeremy. “You need help. And I want to help you. But I’m going through so much, and I- It is a lot. And there’s a lot of things that I’m not ready to deal with. I don’t want to lose you, but I feel like I’m floundering on the deep end. I needed space.”
There was a long pause where neither said anything, and neither hung up. Jeremy didn’t know what else to say. He felt so lost.
«What if we ease each other in?» Mike’s voice startled Jeremy. «I- it’s a lot, so we’ll do this little by little. How about you come visit for a few hours, and we get to know each other? I mean- it’s the ghosts that overwhelmed you, right? I get, I mean, with Evan and David… so, we could get to know each other and sort it out. I- you’ve helped me so much, Jerry. I want to help you too. I just… I guess I’ve been selfish. Too caught up in my issues to consider yours.»
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Oh, you’ve been considerate enough, Mike. You tried your best to give me a clear path out, and you’re doing your best to help…” he swallowed. “those spirits. I guess zombies and animatronics were one thing, but I wasn’t ready for ghosts.” In more ways than one.
There was silence on the other side, and Jeremy waited for Mike’s response. He knew Mike would have something to say about that, but he wasn’t sure what. Still, he waited and listened for it.
«Jeremy, you do know I’m a ghost too, right?»
“No,” said Jeremy, almost too quickly. “No, that’s different. You may have been a corpse, and you may be animatronic now, but- you’re still here. You’re still here, and we can still see, and talk to each other and-” Jeremy’s breathing came up short as he thought of the putrid, purpling corpse and the cold, metallic shell that he refused to see as his friend. His friend was Mike, and “You’re still a person, Mikey, you’re still you, and as long as you’re you then you’re not really-” Flashes of Evan’s limp, dangling body, dripping blood, bone and a little bit of brain poking out through Fredbear’s mouth, his voice coming out of that thing- “You’re not gone, I haven’t lost you, and I can’t-” Coppelia calling to say her dad hadn’t been home when she’d woken up, the cops giving them the news, a casket being lowered into the ground and a weeping Pel being led away by a social worker- “I can’t lose you, Mike Schmidt. I can’t.”
Jeremy broke into sobs, letting himself feel a little bit of the despair he’d been shutting away in fear that it would tear him apart. Emotions were difficult, since the bite, sometimes oddly vacant or numb, others explosive and volatile. He wasn’t sure which he preferred: the former made it easier to process and function, the latter was more easily recognizable as the person he was before.
There was a burst of static on the phone, like a sigh. «Jeremy, you- you won’t lose me. Not yet. I- we need to talk about this. I think there’s things you’re not telling me. Would you be okay to visit sometime? Next week, maybe? We could have a late Halloween movie marathon. I… I miss doing that sort of thing. Just casually watching stuff, cuddling with someone. I’ve missed doing it with you.»
Jeremy thought about it. He still had a lot of feelings about the ghosts, but maybe it would be easier to be around them if they were all doing something. And watching movies with Mike was familiar: it had been one of their favorite things to do, back when things were simple. “I- yeah. I can do that.”
And that led to now, on Mike’s couch, having a movie night with a bunch of vengeful spirits and killer machines. Mike had made a large bucket of buttered popcorn for Jeremy, since he was the only one who could eat. He sat with Mike’s shoulder softly bumping against his right side, and M2 in his frankly adorable small form perched on the couch’s arm at his left. On Mike’s right was Fredbear, which contained Evan Afton and Cassidy Prince’s spirits, and a shadowy, barely noticeable silhouette that Jeremy knew to be Andrew Prince’s ghost sat at Mike’s feet. The much more defined figure of a small boy wearing a white tiger mask sat on the floor between Jeremy and M2’s dangling legs: David Murray. A little girl wearing a tear-stained Puppet mask sat on Mike’s robotic lap, Charlie Emily completing their little clique.
The choice for the movie they were watching had been a hard one, and not for lack of options. Mike’s VHS tape collection (because he insisted on always buying tapes, despite having a working DVD player) had everything from old-school cartoons like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Bendy, to recordings of shows like Scooby Doo and Inspector Gadget, to things that were considered lost media, like the Smiling Critters cartoons, to every single Disney movie ever made. Few things captured Mike’s interest as thoroughly as animation did.
The Prince twins had wanted to watch “The Black Cauldron”, since it had been set to release a month after their final birthday and they’d never gotten the chance to watch it, but Mike and Jeremy had shot that down immediately: that film was the last thing a bunch of vengeful ghosts and a program designed to copy should be watching. They unanimously agreed not to watch “Fredbear and Friends”, and only Jeremy shared Mike’s passion for animation enough to give the old-school thirties cartoons a try. Andrew had insisted on not watching “kiddie stuff” if he couldn’t watch Black Cauldron, so in the end they’d settled for the rerun of a weird, vampire soap opera Mike liked.
The Immortal and the Restless. An echo of their situation, in one way or another.
“Don’t I know it,” mused Jeremy as Clara tried to get her lover (husband? Could vampires even marry, if they were technically dead?) to pay child support. Despite not having been present, Arnold hadn’t missed his child support payments, steady like clockwork… until he’d disappeared.
“Yeah, parents can be crazy sometimes,” said Cassidy, her voice echoing out of the springlock suit. “Like my mom. She used to say me and Andrew would become green if we lied to her, but that wasn’t true!”
“I… I don’t remember much of mum. But she was… good, right?” asked the slurring voice of Evan Afton from inside the same machine. Jeremy nearly flinched back (because usually, whenever he heard that voice, it was in a nightmare), and Mike’s jaw twitched, which Jeremy had figured early on was a facsimile of his anxious lip chewing habit.
“Yeah,” he said after a little-too-long pause. “Yeah, she was good.”
One of the stranger things Jeremy had noticed in his reconnecting with Mike was how… cagey, he got at the mention of his mother. Yeah, their falling out had happened a few months before Laurel’s “suicide” (which, as they’d found out, had actually been Afton’s reaction to her trying to leave. That box was still unpacked in Jeremy’s mental shitpile of doom: reasons why Afton sucks), so he didn’t really know how Mike had grieved her, but Mike had always loved his mother. The fact that he seemed uncomfortable talking about her was… strange.
Then again, Jeremy had no room to talk. Arnold had been a taboo subject with him for nine solid years, and he was self aware enough to know he’d been repressing his grief for Ralph ever since finding out about… the whole Afton situation, so maybe Mike was dealing with his grief in a similar way.
Maybe Jeremy should find Mike a therapist who gave sessions over the phone…
«I have a mom,» said M2 from his little perch. «I miss her.»
“Me too, sometimes,” said David. “She may not have been able to properly love me, but she was the closest thing I had to a real mom.”
Oh. Right. The embodiment of mishandled grief and emotional immaturity that was F10-N4.
By far one of the most heartbreaking things Jeremy had found in that basement had been the remaining belongings of the Murray family. A wedding portrait, a family photo, homemade films and an old circuit board. Jeremy was just glad he’d watched the videos before plugging the program into anything.
Because holy shit.
Jeremy knew grief. Grief was practically his on-and-off girlfriend at this point. He’d lost his dad, he’d been abandoned by two of his friends, he’d stood by his best friend after his brother’s death, he’d lost said best friend, he’d lost his normal fucking brain, he’d just lost his almost-father and almost-sister figures a month ago. He’d seen it, he’d lived it, he was being not-so-discreetly followed by it like a debt collector on a mission right now. He knew it could fuck you up. He knew people weren’t quite themselves while grieving. He knew they didn’t have the best judgement.
But there was “refusing to acknowledge your dad existed because you can’t cope with the way he left” level of bad judgement, and then there was “making a robotic replica of your dead partner because you can’t cope with single parenting” level of bad judgement. Jeremy didn’t know if he wanted to give Edwin Murray a hard smack over the head, or a hug and his therapist’s number. Maybe both was the answer.
Jeremy leaned against Mike’s robotic shoulder, and couldn’t hold back a shudder. Fuck if he didn’t need therapy too.
As the credits rolled around, a heavy silence draped over the lot of them. Someone would have to break it, but Jeremy didn’t know how to.
«Are all fathers like that?» Asked M2 eventually. «Reject their children?»
“No they’re not,” said Andrew, a whisper in the room. “Our dad really loved us. There are bad ones, I guess, but not all of them are.”
“People are complicated,” said Jeremy. M2 gave him a stare that felt oddly resentful, which put him a little on edge. “Sometimes they mean well, but they go about things wrong. And sometimes, their best isn’t enough.”
“How can you know if they’re doing their best, though?” Said Cassidy, phrasing it like a question even though it didn’t sound like she wanted an answer. “That Scott guy couldn’t have been doing his best, we died under his watch!”
The shitpile of doom of boxed up feelings that Jeremy had stuffed inside himself toppled over, spilling its contents everywhere.
“Shut up, you little brat! You don’t know what it’s like to live knowing you fucked up! I do! Do you know how much Ralph beat himself up over what happened in ‘85?! Hell, in ‘87?!! He was stuck in a low-paying job under a rich, psychotic asshole who wrote the world’s most fucked, self-serving policies EVER!! You think he didn’t feel guilt? You think he didn’t stay awake at night thinking of what he’d do if something like that happened to his freaking daughter?! That guy loved that little girl more than anything! He had to put on cryptic-ass warnings on the employee training tapes so the company wouldn’t delete them and fire him on the spot! Do you have any idea what it’s like, to not be able to do enough because you can’t risk your family?! You all are just so… selfish! Thinking you’re the only victims, the only ones who deserve closure. Do you know how many families are stuck in this shithole town because their loved ones went missing after working at Freddy’s? You’ve ruined lives! You ruined Coppelia’s life! You ruined mine!”
Jeremy sobbed, his hand twitching uncontrollably, his scars aching as his face scrunched up. Mike reached out to hug him, but Jeremy jerked back. He just couldn’t right now. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, couldn’t… be in this room anymore. He stormed loudly up the stairs, and opened the door to a little storage closet, where the Aftons had kept their blankets. He grabbed one, balled it up against his head, and cried.
Not for the first time, Jeremy Fitzgerald cried himself to sleep in the House on the Hill, grieving parents, children and friends.