you smiled; i fell in love

There’s a moment of uncertainty as you watch him lead the little boy to what you can only assume is the man's car, a moment of hesitation that you’re not sure what to do, did he know the man? Was he his father? Or was it something worse. There wasn’t any more time to contemplate it because before you know it you’re watching the car take off, the little boy looking back and there’s muffled yelling coming from behind you.

You jolt awake then, the cool air blowing against your skin through the window you opened last night. Another strange dream, something that had been happening more frequently since that first night at Freddy’s. You push the thought away for now, deciding it was only a coincidence.

You’d been hoping to get to Freddy’s early and get a decent start but the note you find on the kitchen counter from your mother decides your day for you.

You’re still somehow earlier than Mike, you’re standing at your car when he pulls into the parking lot. “How are you a security guard and not on time?” You quirk ann eyebrow at him when he steps out of the car.

“Took longer getting out.” Mike crosses his arms over his chest then. “Why are you waiting out here? Didn’t your dad co-own the place?” The tone in his voice sets you on edge immediately and if it wasn’t for the little girl stepping out of the car you might’ve hit him.

“Formerly,” you bite out, reminding him once more. “And I lost my key so I’ll need you to unlock the place for me for now.”

You can tell there was still apart of him that didn’t believe you, not that you could blame him, you weren’t sounding very convincing. “Right, well this way then, princess.” He grabs the little girls hand leading her to the door, while you stand there muttering under your breath before following.

There’s a heavy silence when Mike walks through the door, you’re surrounded by boxes you’d pulled out to sort through. You hesitate, not sure how to approach the topic or if you even should when it wasn’t your place. But curiosity got the better of you. “Soo, why’d you bring your daughter?”

You can almost hear the disgust in his voice when he corrects you. “She’s not my daughter, she’s my little sister.” You stop in your tracks turning to look in his direction, embarrassment creeping up on you as he goes on. “I didn’t have anyone to watch her tonight.”

“Are you sure it’s wise to have her here while you’re working?”

“Is it wise to have you here?” And there it was, just when you thought you were getting somewhere. “Besides, she'll sleep the whole time.”

You spend the next two hours going through old documents looking for anything of use, so far the only thing you’ve found were old tax statements and records of money made then spent on repairs. You were never going to get anywhere at this rate, you were already two hours in and the only thing you learned was how the money was handled.

If you were going to get this done faster you needed to take some of it home.

You turn at the sound of a sigh, Mike pushes a box back into the rack rubbing his eyes then dropping his hands down to his sides.

You think for a moment, considering breaking the silence that had been peaceful for the last few hours, whether or not you were ready to give that up yet. But you also weren’t going to give up this story.

“So I have an idea,” Mike’s attention turns to you as you go on. “What if I took some of this home? I could get through it faster and then bring it all back.”

There’s a brief pause where the silence stretches, it was a long shot but a shot you were willing to take.

“It’s an idea,” A glimmer of hope sparks in you, “a crazy one.” And now it was gone.

“What? Come on! There’s no getting through this with only six hours to work with, if that.”

“And I can’t just give it to you either, it’s my job to take care of this stuff. I can’t trust you to bring it back.”

The sound of something clattering to the ground cuts both of you off, there’s hesitation in both your movements, nervousness as you follow Mike out of the room. The place was dimly lit, the only other light being that of Mike's flashlight, both of you enter the main area Mike ahead of you.

He calls out and you swear that couldn’t be any more horror movie for him to do, you wander away from him, your eyes scanning your surroundings, you hadn’t properly looked around the place, only a  quick glance before you’d gone off looking for old records. There’s a wall of children’s drawings, at the center of it was a yellow rabbit holding hands with five kids. You aren’t sure what it is but something about it unnerves you.

A yelp causes you to whip around your eyes landing on Mike who’s pulled back the curtain to the stage, you peer over his shoulder a slight gasp escaping you when you see them. “Woah, creepy.” Mike hums in agreement the flashlight falling on each of them before you both finally step away.

You sigh checking the time, it was nearly 4am and you were exhausted, you needed to find a better way to get this done that didn’t mess with your sleep schedule. “I should go, I’ll see you tomorrow.” You haven’t made it halfway before you’re stopped.

“Wait, give me your phone.”

“What?” You could almost laugh, “why?”

“Just,” Mike groans, rolling his eyes as he gestures for the phone. “Give me the damn phone, princess.”

You roll your eyes as well but ultimately hand your phone to him, you watch as he puts in his phone number before giving it back, he doesn’t say anything else only disappears back to the security room leaving you at the entrance dumb founded, you had his number now.

There was something so infuriating about the whole thing the longer you thought about it, he was a complete asshole one moment and then the next he’s actually tolerable to be around, you couldn’t understand it. You're brought out of your thoughts by your friend waving her hand in front of your face. “Are you paying attention?”

“Huh? Yes! Of course.” You smile weakly, but the deadpan expression Margo gives tells you she knows you’re lying.

“Yeah? What did I just say?”

You stutter, trying desperately to think of something to say as you get a knowing look from Margo. “I’m sorry.” You say sheepishly.

“Okay girl, what’s going on?”

You sigh, where do you start? The fact you’re three days into your two week deadline and the security guard you asked to help you is a huge asshole just gave you his number? And you still haven’t found anything yet. Instead you opt for, “this story is just harder than I thought.”

“I still don’t know why you want to write about that place, you’re not going to find anything.” You groan, dropping your head down into the table earning a chuckle from her. “Okay come on, I’m sure there’s something you’ll find.”

“You just said I wouldn’t!” You grumble muffledly into the table.

“And I’m trying to be optimistic now!” She laughs more, you sit back up to meet her eyes as you grumble more.

“The worst part about it all is Mike is a complete ass who’s only nice half the time.”

“Woah, hold on, there’s a guy involved?” You can hear it in her tone already, that same tone she gets when it comes to your dating life.

“No, Margo, no! It is nothing like that, he just works there and did you miss the part where I said he’s a complete ass?” She only shrugs, a grin spread across her face. Another groan escapes you, you weren’t going to try arguing with her on this, but she was wrong.

Instead you spend the rest of the evening catching up, occasionally gossiping about former classmates and what they were up to now. Yet for some reason you still couldn’t shake the topic about Mike.

He jolts awake his eyes immediately met with error warnings on every monitor, he pulls his headphones off confused and dazed when the speakers start blaring music and the lights flicker in a manner you’d only see in a club. Mike stumbles out of the chair, nearly tripping on his way to the breaker.

Everything shuts off, his breathing is heavy, his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest, he flips the switch after a couple seconds when everything comes back up he all but jumps out of his skin when the buzzer goes off. Mike heads over to the monitors to see who would be here at this hour, then he spots you, and he stands there contemplating for a moment on answering and letting you in, he does it anyways.

“Didn’t think you were showing up.” It’s the only thing he says when he opens the door. You would love to do nothing more than to say something witty but it was pouring rain and you were soaking wet.

“Sorry I got caught up with–” you pause, finally assessing the state he was in. He looked rough, his eyes are wide scanning his surroundings in a panicked manner, his body is ridged his clothes disheveled and– “you’re bleeding.” His eyes fall down to his arm, a trail of blood falling from his forearm, his face is unreadable as he looks at his arm.

“Come on, let’s go patch you up.”

Mike watches you rummage around the office for a first aid kit, his eyes fall back to his arm to the cut in the sleeve of his jacket, he hadn’t felt it when he got up or even when he answered the door but now sitting here with all the adrenaline gone, he did. He’s not sure what he cut it on or how, it was strange really, the cut showing up after he was cut by that kid in his dream.

Mike’s attention is brought back to you when you place the kit on the table, pulling out all the things you need. “Roll your sleeve up.” You open an alcohol wipe as Mike pulls the sleeve over his elbow, his eyes track you, watching as you run the alcohol wipe over his skin. A hiss escapes him, his hand clenching into a fist. “Sorry,” you whisper, lightly blowing on the cut to relieve the sting.

You place gauze over his wound, carefully wrapping his arm. Your hands work deftly around his arm, Mike’s eyes move from you hands to your face, your eyes are trained on what you’re doing. There’s a slight furrow in your brows, it’s almost adorable really, that your brows furrow when you focus your own little trait.

He’s brought back to the moment by the sound of your voice breaking the silence. “There, all done.”

“Thank you.”

There's an awkward silence, neither of you are sure how to proceed, you think this is the nicest either of you have been to each other since meeting. Your eyes roam the room, taking in everything that has changed since the first time you'd been here, a Nebraska poster sat above the monitors now. For a second the image felt familiar, like you'd seen it before, been there before, but no memory comes to mind.

A scraping sound echoes from behind you, when you turn Mike has moved the chair back enough so he could free his legs out from under the table. “Why are you really here?” The question takes you by surprise, had he really figured you all out? Was he onto you?

“What? I told you, my dad he–”

“Yeah, but why do you keep coming back? Why not make him come get the stuff when he's back?” You're taken aback by that, sure you'd only been coming here because of your story but the more time you spent here the more you thought about Margo’s brother. If you were being honest at some point you'd started coming here to find out what happened to him and the other kids.

You’d finally scored the interview, but now you had to find the story of a lifetime if you wanted the spot.

So here you are neck deep in articles, hoping to find anything worthwhile that you can submit.

That’s when you come across it, the break in that happened at Fazbear’s yesterday. You remember hearing about it from other people in passing but you’d been too busy to care, now here you were with the article right in front of you.

Your whole life you’d always heard about Freddy Fazbear’s, used to dream about going as a child, that was until all the other stuff followed in the wake of its closure. You remember how horrified your mother was when she saw on the news about the five missing kids and the connection to Freddy’s, how they’d searched the place top to bottom and found nothing.

You spend the better part of an hour reading every article even remotely related to Freddy’s, every missing child’s case that was left inconclusive because the evidence wasn’t enough. That’s when you make the decision that this place is your ticket into The Daily Bugle, you were going to solve the mystery of Freddy Fazbear’s

“You’re going to write about that busted old place?” Your friend, Margo, to your surprise seemed less than thrilled you chose Freddy’s as your piece to submit. You can’t blame her really for being against it, you’d met her in high school but by that time Freddy’s had already closed down and her brother was one of the five missing kids.

“I know, but there’s something weird about that place, and what better story than uncovering its mystery?” You thank the barista, the both of you taking your drinks and making your way out of the cafe.

You watch Margo sip on her coffee, you can tell she’s thinking about him, her brother, Adam. She’s blamed herself for so long, hell probably still does, she was left to watch him while all the parents had gone to prepare the cake for a friend of hers. Freddy’s was famous for birthday parties, but also for disappearances, and that’s what happened that day. You can still remember how she’d broke into tears telling you about it. “I’d rather that place finally be torn down.” She finally says.

You don’t say anything after that, not wanting to bring it up anymore.

“So how’d that date go with that waiter?” 

“It was decent, however it turns out he’s a massive theorist.”

“Ah, so no second date then?”

“Mmm-h-mmm,” Margo shakes her head, her lips pulled into a thin line.

You both spend the rest of the walk gossiping.

“I’ve found it.”

“Found what?”

“My story,” you place the image on the desk, the image of Freddy’s from that article staring right at the man before as he picks it up to examine it.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, only looks at the image you’d cut out hours prior, eventually he places it down with his full attention placed on you. “And what do you think you can get from this?”

You’re taken aback by that, did he really have no clue about this place or was he messing with you? “I believe there’s something suspicious about it, and I’m going to find out what.”

The man placed his chin over his intertwined hands, seemingly contemplating. He leans back in his chair, his hands falling to his chest. “Two weeks. You better bring me something worthwhile.”

“Thank you Mr. Kavinsky.”

When you’d checked the weather forecast for the day there wasn’t anything about rain, but as you sit in front of Freddy’s watching as the rain is pouring down you start to wonder why you didn’t just wait one more day before coming out here.

You also start to wonder who was inside. You weren’t sure anyone still came here.

You lean forward to look out your windshield, getting a glimpse at the lit up sign. It was creepier in person, the whole place, almost like you were being watched, or maybe it was all those articles finally getting to you.

You wait another twenty minutes in hopes of the rain stopping, but it shows no sign of it so you eventually make your way home thanking whatever deity that the roads are fairly empty.

You stare at your computer screen, hair still damp from the shower you took after getting home hoping to wash away the feeling from earlier. You tap your pencil against your notepad, almost like you’re trying to will the words onto the page, to no avail though.

A yawn interrupts your thoughts, and you swear you could crash out at just that, but then your eyes land on the clock and maybe sleep wouldn’t be so bad.

—

There’s a muffled voice next to you, you can’t make out what they’re saying, the light burning your eyes from the window. You look around, assessing your surroundings, you were in a house but it wasn’t your house. The living room was a mess, papers scattered around the floor and table, drawings on every one of them that was no doubt made by a kid.

“Are you listening?!”

You snap out of it, finally turning to the direction of the voice next to you. Your ears are ringing, your vision slightly blurry as you look at the male before you. “Huh?”

“Jesus-“ he hesitates, like he isn’t sure what tone to use. “You can’t publish that! Not after everything, do you have any idea what this would do? I could-“

The ringing gets louder, like an alarm being blared in your ears waiting for you to hit the snooze. Your hand reaches for your head, a sharp pain splits through your skull as the alarm gets louder and you wish it would just fucking shut up!

You jolt then, sunlight immediately hitting your tired eyes, when you finally adjust you look over at your alarm clock that was still incessantly beeping. You hit the button and in seconds silence fills the room.

A dream. That’s all it was, a stupid dream.

You sigh, pulling yourself from the bed and preparing to get ready for the day, nothing was going to stop you from getting into Freddy’s.

You’ve done more research than you ever have since college, so far you only have the key details. When Freddy’s opened, when it closed, how many kids went missing, and the situations when they went missing. It wasn’t a lot, standard information everyone knew, but it was something.

The strange thing about it all is none of the articles mentioned anything about anyone seeing anything, you aren’t too surprised by that fact, a hundred kids running rampant hyped up on cake and ice cream? You’d be lucky to notice anything.

You run your hands through your hair, you weren’t going to get anything more from these articles. That only left Freddy’s.

It was late, the sun had set hours ago, it was 11pm only an hour from when you needed to be out of here, but that was fine because you only needed an hour.

You wander into the building, the entrance is bigger than you imagined, all of it really. It was all open as well, which makes you wonder even more how anyone would miss something out of the ordinary.

You’re not sure why you didn’t think this through enough, of course it would be dark, so not bringing a flashlight really was on you.

It was like being in a big time capsule, everything was stuck in time untouched for the last decade or so. It became more evident when you walked into the security room and saw the monitors. Your eyes land on the file cabinets then, it was almost too easy.

—

There was a sense of unease as he walked through the parking lot, his eyes locked on the other car, who was here? Why at this hour knowing someone will be here for six hours? Whatever the reason Mike entered the building with caution. Nothing was out of place or even looked stolen, his third night on the job and there was already another break in, this really was going to look good for him. Not.

A noise from the security office set Mike on edge, there was a moment of hesitation, a moment to think about what he was doing, but only a moment. Mike swings the door open the next second throwing all caution to the wind as he prepares to face whoever or whatever was in there. “Who the hell are you?”

You scream at the gravelly voice behind you, you whip around your eyes landing on the man the voice belongs to. “Knock first?!” You pause, considering before continuing. “Scratch that, I probably would’ve screamed anyways.”

Mike stands there confused for a moment, almost shocked you even reacted that way. “Wh- never mind that, who are you? What are you doing here?” His tone is stern, his body language however doesn’t match.

“What am I doing here? That’s a good question, uhm,” You rack your brain for something, anything to say that would be better than saying you broke in because you’re an aspiring journalist. “I’m uh here looking for something for my dad yeah, he used to co-own the place, made all the animatronics and everything.”

He raises an eyebrow at you and you can tell he’s not buying it. “I’m serious, he asked me to get some old documents for him because he’s out of town.” You say matter of factly and he almost rolls his eyes.

“Alright, whatever you say, princess.”

You glare at him, who was this asshole calling you princess? “And who are you?” You all but seethe out.

He places his things down and practically throws himself in the chair, swivelling in your direction. “The security hire, didn’t your daddy tell you about me?” You can hear the mocking tone in his voice and it only just further irritates you.

“He doesn’t keep up with the place, having formerly co-owned it.” Your eyes narrow at him as he leans back in the chair. “And your name, asshole.” You spit out.

“Mike.”

You let out a breath, running your hand through your hair. “Thank you, now if you’ll excuse me.” You turn back to the file cabinets, carefully inspecting each of them. It’s like that for the next hour you looking through everything in the office and Mike sitting in the chair watching you. But if you’re being honest the company is nice, it’s almost unnerving being here alone.

You let out a groan after searching the last cabinet and finding nothing, apparently this wasn’t going to be as easy as you’d thought.

“Are you sure your dad owned the place?” You turn to glare at him and he only shrugs.

“Y’know just.. Shut up.” You sigh, pulling out a chair and plopping down into it. There’s no way there’s nothing in this place, there has to be some kind of file room, it was the 80’s for crying out loud. You look up at Mike then, he looks back with a raised brow. “Is there a file room or something?”

The door swings open and you swear god was laughing at you, there was no way you were going to get through this before your deadline. “There’s.. So much.” You can hear Mike hum from behind you causing you to turn to him. “Hey, why don’t we go through it together? It would go faster.”