Chapter Text
In retrospect, he decides, he really should have been watching where he had been running. Another careless, stupid mistake to be added to the pile mounting from tonight’s abysmal failure. Michael forces himself to suck in a breath through clenched and bared teeth, pointedly ignoring the empty burning from his lungs. It should have been so easy; his plan was practically perfect. He had obsessively planned and re-planned, categorized issues possible and non-existent to a compulsive degree.
“Sh-it,” He grits out; his lungs were still spasming from having the wind knocked out of them, “I’ll kill y-you.” He manages to spit out. An empty threat with no audience.
He clenches his fist around dry strings of grass and pulls, grounding himself with the subtle snaps of the blades being torn. With a painful huff, he tosses the grass with clammy hands and forces himself into a sitting position. He drums his fingers against his thigh before wiping off the straggling pieces of dirt on his hand with a frustrated groan. His plan was supposed to be perfect. He was supposed to continue his father’s legacy, and, and, now what? Now what? With a practiced ease, he unfastens the clip on his badge and lays it next to his head. Now what? Michael sighs before squinting his eyes and pushing himself upwards, lurching forward with a suppressed cough. He feels himself trembling with a sort of rage and fear that he decides to unpack later.
His car isn’t too far. He had made sure to park close enough to the house to allow a quick escape if need be, but far enough to assuage any suspicion. He slinks along the neighborhood’s treeline, lost in thought. It had been easy enough to sow the seeds of Fazfest, easy enough to convince Charlotte to let him reap the benefits of her rage, he thought. He had everything under control, it was supposed to be perfect! It could have been perfect. He had watched the signals on the animatronics as they blipped around his flip phone’s grainy map, tracking their movements and following along. Fuck, it had been so, so meticuluosly planned out. He seethes. It was easy enough, too, to stalk his sister’s every move. To figure out what house the animatronics and Charlotte were closing in on. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The sound of a door slamming open breaks him from his spiralling. Michael nearly jumps out of his skin, hurriedly crouching against an overgrown mailbox to eavesdrop. He had only made it two houses down in his trance. It’s hard to make out the voices at first, but he forces himself to focus.
“Please, just listen to me—” It’s Vanessa. Intrigued, he crawls back in the direction of that damnable house. She’s probably arguing with that stupid, stupid, sweaty, puppy-dog eyed bastard. He can’t believe that plain, boring, imbecile bewitched his sister. Can’t believe that his own sister would choose someone like him over her own brother. He clenches his fist and ignores the slowly dropping temperature, studying an overgrown crack on the side of the curb.
“Listen,” Mike, presumably. That moron even had a similar name to him. Mike continues, “I just don’t know if I can trust you. It’s, well, I just don’t know if having you around is going to be safe for Abby.” Michael’s heart practically skips in petty joy. It’s only fair, he reasons, that if she should reject her own family that she should be rejected in turn by her fucking boy-toy.
“Mike, listen to me, I should have told you, everything, I know. It’s just that–” He holds his breath.
“I know. I get it,” Mike again. He acquiesces to her with obviously clenched teeth, “But I don’t know how many more times I’ll be able to just move on from you lying to me. It’s over and over! Again and again. I think, I—I just need you out of my life.” Michael could cry tears of pure happiness. His knees are starting to ache from his crunched over position, squished between a rotting fence post and a bush, but he just can’t seem to get himself to leave.
“Mike—”
“Just. Just for the time being. Maybe forever, maybe not forever. I just can’t do this right now. I need my sister to be safe.” Michael smiles to himself, wide and sharp, as he hears Mike usher his sister into a car. Another voice joins them, another man, but he’s talking in a hushed tone that Michael can’t bring himself to understand.
Only when he hears the car peel out of the neighborhood, only when he waits another minute after that, does he uncoil and stand at his full height. Perhaps with such a terrible rejection, Vanessa will come to her senses and realize her potential. And when she does beg Michael to join in his cause, he’ll reject her right back! And then she’ll realize how badly she fucked up! He practically skips back to Mike’s house, shattered ego all but forgotten. Perhaps, even, he could take a look around to see how Mike had done it. How he had stolen Vanessa from her family. There must be something he missed. Probably, he thought, there was a lot that he missed. He had only really seen the man for a combined ten minutes at most. He smiles to himself.
The yard, now that he takes stock of it, is terribly normal. He scans the drying grass with interest, focusing on a wilting patch of dandelions. Despite the cold, the soft white bristles peek over the non-uniform lawn, climbing next to the old concrete of the driveway. A run-down sedan sits peacefully, a clear contrast to the black tire marks leading to the car. He stalks up the driveway, stepping over a particularly large crack in the concrete, before slowly climbing the stairs leading to the porch. Plain. So plain. Old paint and gouges of old wood where weather and time had chipped it. He wets his lips and reaches for the doorknob. Dull and normal looking. The door was ajar.
He raises his hand to knock, but stops himself. If Vanessa is still here, knocking would give her time to compose herself, and he didn’t want that. He blows out a breath, watching as it fogs up in the cold weather before pulling the door open and slipping inside.
It was jarring, really. Not even twenty minutes ago, he had been so intent on ripping this man limb from limb using the toy animatronics. Now, outside of his mission to humiliate his sister, he was inspecting Mike’s house for any semblance of intriguing information. The urge to know everything about his sister’s bastard boy-toy overcomes him suddenly and without reprieve, it was so sudden he finds himself shaking with something terribly similar to want. He sucks in through his teeth and wills himself to focus, blinking against the dark to adjust his eyesight. The toy animatronics are nowhere to be found, the only evidence of heavy machinery being the friction-burnt floorboards covered in long, parallel scratches. His hand twitches towards where he jammed his phone in his pocket but stops short. He could track his missing animatronics later. Bigger fish to fry, right now.
The broken glass of the windows invites the stabbing chill of winter into the living room. The wind prickles against his neck dully, and he subconsciously lifts his shoulders higher. It was normal. So normal, outside of the claw marks boring into the drywall, the broken picture frames dislodged from the hall, and the fleeting threat of Charlotte. There were minute drops of impossibly black oil, smeared and viscous, like little endless holes littering the floorboards. Nonetheless, the entryway and its view into the living room held nothing of importance to him. He shuffles forward and onward, purposefully avoiding any of the larger piles of glass shards so he wouldn’t ruin his work shoes, or need to commit health insurance fraud again.
The kitchen. Now that could be interesting. Perhaps Mike had enchanted his sister with his cooking prowess? Or maybe he had drugged her? Or something equally as interesting. Briefly, he swivels his head around comically. No Charlotte. No Vanessa. He could be thorough, then. Drumming his fingers against his thighs, he gives a cursory glance through the dated kitchen. Ancient and peeling cupboards, dirty dishes in the sink, a piled-too-high drying rack, various colourful magnets and children’s drawings plastered to the stained fridge. Boring. He slinks to the dirty dishes and examines the dish soap. Dollar store brand. Blithely labeled as a new formula, only a dollar. A passing sniff has him reeling back: a sickly sweet vanilla scent. Something Mike’s sister had chosen, he figured. How adorable, that he loved his little sister so much. He supposes they have that in common. To a degree. He was, admittedly, mad to the point of hatred towards Vanessa right now.
On the scuffed kitchen table he spots a music box. Beautifully made, with a deep purple flocked-velvet outer casing and hand painted gold accents. He slides the back of his hand across the front; the velvet bristles against his ministrations before he smooths it by following the grain of the fabric. The gold accents are icy to the touch. He runs his bony fingers over the filigree, gently pressing his forefinger into the opening clasp. It unseals with a muffled click, slowly revealing its contents. Inside, the deep purple was forgone for a muted navy. A little violet stage, hand carved and impossibly smooth serves as the base for a mini ballerina, all poise and elegance. As if urged by the box itself, he reverently drags his thumb to the side and powers it on. He places it back on the table, as gently as he can manage with shaky hands.
The freezer yields nothing but semi-expired TV dinners covered in a powdery layer of freezer-burn and ice. The fridge was mostly empty, stupidly normal, with a packed lunchbox shoved in the top shelf. How domestic. No drugs, no fancy ingredients, nothing of note. Nothing at all. Shoving the fridge closed with his shoulder, he makes his way towards the bedrooms. Surely, he reasons, surely, there’s got to be something interesting. Something to set this guy apart. Something worth tearing apart your family for. He squints angrily, and, stepping over a stray shard of glass, opens one of the last shut doors in the house, reasoning that it must be Mike’s.
Gently closing the door behind him and flicking the lightswitch on, his eyes immediately lock on to a pill bottle, discarded and seemingly forgotten beneath a nightstand. Score. He dips down and gingerly frees the bottle from its dusty confines. Raking his eyes over the placid orange, he reads the label.
“Schmidt,” He drawls, “Boring, stupid, normal name. Mike Schmidt,” Scrutinizing the prescription, “Boring, annoying Mike Schmidt got his hands on some very strong tranquilizers.” He pockets the bottle after haphazardly shaking it a few times.
The nightstand is dull and, unsurprisingly, quite boring. A digital alarm clock, a bottle of ibuprofen, an old analog watch, two quarters. Nothing of note, he decides. The drawer is far more interesting. A ratty, miniature, composition journal with leaflets and pages clipped inside. Fatally dogeared and bent from water-damage, it begs to be read. Next to the mangled journal lies a chewed up ballpoint pen resting on a condom wrapper. His eyebrows shoot up in response to his findings.
“Finally.” He grits out under his breath. Flipping through the pages reveals the contents to be a dream journal. Repeated entries of some dream of a forest and some boy over and over and over ad nauseum. None of the entries are recent, the last one being from around when Michael had started trailing his sister. He grabs the journal, and with a moment of hesitant deliberation, shoves it in his jacket pocket. It was old, probably forgotten for months. It might have important data for later, he justifies. Focusing back on the drawer, he spots another surprise. Beneath the bent journal, a half-empty travel-sized bottle of lube. Narrowing his eyes, he clenches his hands on the side of the nightstand, refusing to name the feeling simmering in his gut. With more force than necessary, he closes the drawer and collects his thoughts.
The bed is messy and unmade. There’s a pile of laundry in the corner of the room, mirroring the dishes in the kitchen sink. Opposite to the bed, a low dresser stands unimpressed. He passively feels the journal and pill bottle and figures he’s taken enough to start his research. He could always come back later, of course, if he needs more.
He slinks out of the room, smiling to himself. He’s pleased that he got something out of tonight after all; he had a new mission, a new plan. Information on Mike. He needs to know what he could have possibly done to his sister to bewitch her like that. With a resolute nod, he begins to turn back towards the kitchen but stops himself. There’s one last door he didn’t go in. It wouldn’t hurt to be thorough. This is just being thorough. A quick, super fast cursory glance. He didn’t really believe he was going to find anything in Mike's sister’s room, and despite everything, he didn’t want to invade her privacy. Super quick glance.
Anxiously, he opens the door and scans the dozens of drawings, compartmentalizing her fixation on Freddy’s for later. Pencil shavings layered in cone-shaped halos around a pencil sharpener. Coloured pencils neatly stacked points-downward in a mug. Doodle-covered backpack. Neatly made and tucked bed. Half finished robots, servos, breadboards…and a state of the art, completely intact FazTalker. (Circa 1982, patent pending.) Leaning complacent and lazily against the clutter of her desk, it was completely void of dust or stains that would show its age. Briefly flipping the pad over, there’s a barely noticeable black stain following the line where plastic was fused together to make the toy’s casing. Dragging a finger nail over it confirms his suspicions, it’s an oily sludge. Charlotte had used this at some point.
The display screen blinks impatiently, casting a gentle neon glow on the dark green plastic. The whole room was cast in an LED haze. His quick glance was over. Not wanting to linger, he gently excavates his prize and inspects it closer. For all the failings of the original location, he always had a soft spot for the merchandising. Maybe it was nostalgia. Maybe not. Something to think on later. Of course, the FazTalker was a complete surprise to see, given that the original dark green casing, Freddy’s version, was never officially released. The patent never officially went through; maybe Charlotte really had planted this somewhere to be picked up.
The patent was never completely accepted due to an included IR motion capturing camera slotted just above the blinking display screen. It wasn’t necessarily a true camera per say, being an infrared sensor, but it could relay the shape and motion of a given object. Something about privacy and safety concerns. He could work with this. If he could get the animatronic’s trackers to work on his phone, then he could connect the camera to his phone. It was practically fate that he had found this here. Serendipitous. Fascinating. Mike, with all the hatred and delicious vitriol he held in his eyes for Freddy’s during Michael’s big monologue, let his sister keep this? He allowed her to plaster marker and crayon scribbles of the animatronics on the fridge? Around her room? Well, no matter. Mike was getting more and more interesting by the minute. The longer he lingered in his house, the more intrigued he felt.
Quickly, delighted at his luck, he creeps back into Mike’s room. With a practiced, stocky grace, he leans the device on top of the low dresser and against the wall. The sensor for the camera should be facing the middle of the room, he calculates, and maybe the top of his headboard. It’s not perverted. Really, he was just being thorough, this is just insurance, honestly. It’s not a sex thing. But, if it ever turned into that, then he could make do with the angle. He was being thorough. With that justification, he exits the bedroom again.
Rounding away from the bedrooms, he freezes, suddenly thankful that the carpeted hallway had muffled his movements. He sidles against the wall, leaning against the blank drywall and outdated panelling, leering towards the kitchen.
Vanessa. How he had overlooked her was a mystery to him. Maybe she had been slinking around too? Trying to collect some keepsakes from her failed…friendship? Relationship? Maybe she had been hoping that Mike would come back for something, hoping to reconcile with him? Pathetic. Hadn’t she learned her lesson from being rejected once already? He hopes it hurts even more when he gets Mike to reject her again. He shakes the thought away, refusing to be too far gone too fast. Running a clammy hand through his hair, he focuses on his sister, pointedly ignoring the way his hair gel has begun to clump together in vague chunks.
She was slumped over, holding her sides and writhing on the tiled floor. Halfway delirious and groaning in pain, her legs were tucked beneath a dining chair, folding nearly in half, with her torso and head beneath the table proper. The music box drones on and on and on. The twinkling notes are metallic and warmly nostalgic against the chill of the house. With a sudden jolt, like an icicle stabbing into the back of his neck, he’s suddenly grateful he had the foresight to turn the music box on. From the pained noises and shudders that Vanessa was giving off, he assumes that Charlotte had most definitely possessed her. She should recover. Probably. Well, she was a grown woman. She was a cop, too, he thought with disdain, she could take care of herself. She made it loud and clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. She could deal with the fucking music box, too. His father had been right, again, like always. Charlotte was a total liability. Unstable, unable to get the big picture, unable to follow through.
With his haul safely pocketed and FazTalker in place, he saunters out the front door, kicks the welcome mat to the side, and grabs the predictable spare key underneath.
“I’ll be seeing you.” He whispers under his breath, shaking with glee from his luck. The night had started so very awfully. It was meant to play out this way, he thought, it was meant to fail so he could get to Mike. It was like fate. It was fate, for sure. He just had to convince Mike. Mike, with his rejection of Vanessa, would surely be lonely. So, so lonely. But he had to observe first, needed information and data. Needed to know the best way to approach. He didn’t know if he could handle another rejection so soon; he would just need to be patient. He could do that. He had been patient his entire life. Patiently waiting for the perfect time to strike; planning and planning and re-planning.
Drawing in a shivering breath, he presses the spare key into his hand until he was sure it would leave a reddened indent. The walk back to his car is coated in thick darkness.