I Don't Own Fnaf

Michael Afton never had a... good life.

To be fair, Michael Afton hadn't been much of a good person either to be honest, but still, life was hard when you were haunted, quite literally by the ghosts of your past. Especially when those ghosts were quite petty. Technically it was just one ghost, one child, for a while, then... more showed up.

Evan, his biggest mistake, had been the first of his ghosts, but never the last of them.

But perhaps we're getting a bit ahead of the situation, some context would probably not go amiss in a situation like this.

It all started when Michael was fifteen and so very stupid. He killed his little brother, there was no other way to put it, he and some 'friends' grabbed the kid, hefted him up to a dangerous machine, and only stopped when they no longer had a choice in the kid's small body being held up there. The teeth of Golden Fredbear made sure of that, being chomped down hard into the skull of his youngest sibling.

Michael would never forget that, the sound of the crunching of skull, the blood raining down onto both the suit and Michael, the screams that held on, just for too long to be able to forget until those stopped as well, neither would Evan ever forget, but that was something for later.

He often afterwards, before everything truly fell apart, would smuggle himself away at night, away from his rageful father and mourning sister, to visit it... That place. Sitting in the back rooms of the diner, now retired because of the now obvious flaws in the suits, Fredbear.

He never said much, his thoughts were much too loud to want to make them even louder by saying them to the open air, but he still just stared, looking at the thing, it hadn't been cleaned, still covered in blood, he forced himself there, to remember, to see what he had caused, what he had taken away from the kid he now wished desperately to be able to get back. Michael never got anything out of wishing for anything though, and as such, nothing ever happened.

Sometimes he spoke though, in those following weeks, saying he was sorry, saying... a lot of things, sometimes it just spilled out, sometimes he was angry, sometimes he just broke down and cried, for hours until his father realized where he was and called the police to come back to collect him.

Sometimes, on nights he didn't like to remember, he swore he saw things moving in the halls, could swear someone, or something, golden, was standing right outside his window. Those nights he snuck out the most. But it was only for a small while, two, maybe three weeks, then... it all came to a head.

The time after that Michael also didn't like to remember, being abandoned by everyone, his Father, already cold and distant practically kicking him out of the house, Henry, a man he saw as an uncle turning him away with nothing but a few hundred dollars to keep himself afloat until he could figure something out for himself, Elizabeth refusing to even talk to him, she was scared of him, he'd later realize, same with Charlie and Sam.

His friends had abandoned him right after it had happened, they all put the blame on him, Michael found himself in court, too numb with guilt to truly care of the guilty verdict he got, even though the public defender assigned to him somehow managed to get him into a involuntary manslaughter charge because of his age more than not being guilty of his real crime. It was better than the premeditated murder charge that they leveled against him, that would have sent him to proper jail for at least a decade or two, adult or not be damned.

He still went into juvie, stayed there for nearly a full year, apparently then you had to be sent to a proper prison to serve out the rest of your sentence once a kid turns sixteen. He spent the last two years of his sentence in such a place, before being released at eighteen, unsure what to do with his life, barely aware of what he was suppose to do now, and still feeling the crawling sense of guilt, not thinking he had done nearly enough to make up for the blood on his hands.

It was never enough, he fell in and out of horrid situations, odd jobs half of which he was too numb to care about being legal or not, and eventually, after one more back stab when he was twenty-two by people he tried to connect with, he tried to kill himself. He failed, a cleaning maid for a hotel he had been staying at found him before he bled out. It was his mistake for doing it so early in the morning, it was deemed a miracle that he survived for so long with so little blood on the way to the hospital.

Michael hadn't seen it that way, the staff there knew it too.

He got locked up in a hospital for a while, he was under watch until he was deemed not a threat to himself, it was stupid, Michael had been too numb to care at the time, the forced therapy sessions hadn't really helped either. By the time he had left, with a hospital bill large enough to put him solidly into debt as if he wasn't already in it, he had nothing, just turning twenty-three, and without a care about anything. He only had been released because he learned to pretend well enough that people believed him when he said he was fine.

But he hadn't cared to try again, not yet.

Not until he finally learned what had happened to the life he had been forced to leave behind from his own actions over the last eight years. Fazbear Entertainment was expected to go under, two deaths, a child from each of the founders, William Afton and Henry Emily, Elizabeth and Samuel, both were gone now too. Something called the missing children's incident had occurred, William had been arrested before being released only to vanish, and Henry was largely pulling out of the company in grief after one more attempt at a new location, more kids showing up missing not too much later, before seemingly giving up and vanishing as well. Charlie wasn't mentioned anywhere, but Michael couldn't see that as a good sign, nothing about it was good.

Before then, Michael tried, at least, that's what he told himself, finding occasional work when he could, but seeing that, everything that had happened over the course of only a few years...

Michael broke into the old family diner that night, his thoughts aimless for the most part, like tethers he hadn't realized were keeping him going were cut without remorse or thought.

He found it in the back room, the company never was good at throwing things away, even old machines that reeked of death.

Golden Fredbear, still lightly caked with red, though it had dried to the point it looked more like gross crusted up brown dirt. The poor lighting of the near abandoned building hadn't helped the coloring. Michael nearly puked, he didn't, no reason to, he wouldn't be around long enough to need to bother with it anymore, moving forwards for the suit, leaning down until he was sitting in front of the slumped down and broken suit. It looked like someone had taken the locks and mechanisms from it at some point, stripping it for parts apparently...

"Hey... I uh..." Michael felt stupid, but... He heard of farewell notes being placed, he didn't have anyone to read his final words, but he might as well give them to something right?

"I'm sorry. I never got to say it, not to any of them, but I am. I was just... so angry, but that's not an excuse for what I did, it never was, and I've tried to pay for it, but nothing's worked, not... not for my actions. I just destroyed everyone's lives, Evan's gone, Elizabeth and Sam too, Henry's probably run off somewhere with Charlie, and Father... If he ever saw me, he might just kill me himself... I wouldn't mind it, but I'd rather him not have that on his hands, only one Afton should be known as a killer... then again, perhaps it's too late for that... It doesn't matter. I have nothing left to give, so... I'm done"

Moving forwards, just a bit, Michael reached up, pulling the head of the bear up, just enough to look at it, before reaching around, slowly opening up the jaw, only to sigh when he saw the springs in it were gone, he had... hoped. Oh well, slowly he lowered the thing back down, before instead simply drawing out a box cutter, he wouldn't mess up this time, he already didn't like seeing the long line tracing up his left wrist, he didn't want to have to see another.

In another time, in another place, perhaps that's where everything would have ended.

Michael Afton would have died by his own hand in front of the thing that claimed his brother's life. It would have been a sad ending, one of a wasted life surrounded by the collateral damage of a single day gone wrong, but it would at least be over, finally after years of unending guilt and trials of atonement that never seemed to lead anywhere but more pain, it would be over. But Michael Afton never had his wishes come true.

Just before he could do it, just before he could finally rest, maybe see his family again, if there was anything afterwards, if only to apologize, he was stopped by a faint but clear scraping sound of gears snapping against each other. Shocked enough to shoot his head up, Michael watched with faint horror as two pinpricks of light appeared in the center of each other hollow eyes of Fredbear, staring at him, as the body twitched lightly, the few remaining pieces inside of its form trying to move to... do something.

But that was impossible, it shouldn't have been possible, the thing needed to be charged to move, Michael remembered that, the thing clearly hadn't even seen an outlet much less a power cord in half a decade, not to mention he just saw how little of the endoskeleton was remaining in it, nothing should be able to cause movement or have it turn on. Michael stumbled back, the boxcutter falling to the ground, as he watched with faint terror at whatever it was happening before him, as the suit only managed to move, just a bit before slumping over again, the lights no longer as bright, movement no longer as... active.

It's head bent down now, though it was more like it fell that way after the suit stopped seizing up, but Michael couldn't help but get the faint impression, with those faint lights in its eyes, that it was staring at something. It sent a faint shudder down his spine so hard he nearly felt his legs collapse under themselves, as he slowly lowered his eyes to gaze at what the suit was staring at...

It was the box cutter, which had fallen and bounced around on the floor, falling in front of the suit while Michael had stumbled backwards. Fredbear was staring at it, the lights in its eyes somehow gaining more intensity again, like... like it was glaring at it.

"I-... What?" The words slipped out before he could help it, staring at the bear with confusion before frowning as his thoughts slowly moved around in his head while his heart continued to pound in his chest. Michael had never been slow, if not for his anger issues and problems, he might have even been considered quite a gifted kid, both athletically and academically, but no one had ever tried to have him live up to any potential he had, the schools never cared enough, his father never cared enough, and Michael himself certainly never cared enough, he not once thought about going back to high school, but he wasn't stupid.

The suit didn't have the parts to move, it shouldn't be able to move, much less have the power to do so, the thing was messing it's inner head. After all, he saw that when he... checked the jaw, there were no eyes in it to be lit up like that. And as he stared at them, Michael realized with a faint shudder, the lights weren't on anything, they... were just floating inside of the pools of darkness in the fredbear head. That was not how... anything worked.

Something else was going on, and maybe it was Michael's desperation for something, anything, to anchor him back down into reality, to get himself away from the spiral that led him to this room, to the action he had been prepared to take, (perhaps those therapy sessions did more good than he'd like to admit), or perhaps it was the fact he spent the last five years in so many different and stressful situations that he didn't even think to truly be scared of whatever this was, that caused him to move closer, leaning to stare into the eyes of the suit before asking, quietly.

"Are you... alive?"

He didn't know what to expect, wasn't sure of anything, but he certainly didn't expect the faint whirring sound before the creaking and scraping sounds came out of a much more... static thing in the suit's chest. Michael nearly jumped, he wasn't sure why he didn't, but in the end, he just reached up, with a slightly shaking hand, and placed it onto the suit's chest, over a patch of crusted and dried blood that made him want to vomit, but he could feel it, that faint vibration that came from speakers... It still had an inner voice box in it apparently, not seeming to have been taken among other parts, but that was because it was clearly busted.

That didn't stop the freezing realization that the suit was using its voice box, clearly trying to... say something to him. Michael did vomit this time, it was too much, his stomach had been rolling for hours with all the thoughts in his head, being back here, seeing the suit at all, and how this? He turned, stumbling a few steps away and hurled. Falling to his weak knees and just... let it out.

It took a few minutes to recover, but eventually he did, standing back up shakily, before glancing back at the suit, before finally coming to a conclusion, he needed to know what was happening, he just... He needed to, something was wrong here, the air itself felt wrong, like the very action he had seen the suit take had been against nature itself so badly that the oxygen in the room had turned putrid, though that also could have just been from the now expelled contents of his stomach, but he had to know.

A small part of the back of his mind told him he really, really didn't, but he ignored it.

Moving back to the suit, he spoke, quietly, his voice rough from the sudden abuse, as he asked the suit.

"Are you... Are you him?" Michael couldn't bring himself to actually say the kid's name, it hurt too much, to speak it out loud, here, in front of the thing that helped kill him.

There was a faint but much stronger vibration that rang through the crackling static of the broken speaker, a strong reaction if anything, it told Michael all he needed to, falling to his knees again, he cried.

He... wasn't proud of a lot of his life, his actions, what he's done to his little brother only being a part of that, but he never once regretted groveling then, breaking down and begging the suit covered in his brother's blood to please know how sorry he was, how much he regretted everything. He needed his brother to know. The suit just twitched, not being able to respond, and that hurt, it broke something in Michael's chest, his brother was in there, trapped, unable to move or speak, stuck, in this room, had been for...

For as long as Michael had put him here.

He couldn't keep it like that, Michael couldn't keep his brother like this, the very idea made him want to vomit again, as he spoke with a broken desperation.

"I-... I'm sorry... I'll fix this... I can..." What could he do, the kid's body was gone, years of time had passed, there was no going back to that, all that was left of his brother was in this thing, this suit... This broken down, destroyed suit...

"You're broken..." Michael felt something, something he thought he had long since lost, a drive, a reason, a motivation, as he stared up into the eyes of the suit, now staring straight at him, as he spoke softly to him, to Evan "I will put you back together"

The suit shuddered, just a bit, before finally the lights flickered out of Fredbear's eyes. Evan was... gone? The idea spiked panic through Michael for a moment before he forced himself to calm down, no, he couldn't think like that at the moment, he had to be strong, again. He needed to do this... He just wasn't sure how.

Michael had been... taught about handling these suits, in the loose sense that he knew the basics about what went into them, he couldn't not when the two main adults he had had in his life were experts in the field of robotics and made these suits themselves, a kid picks things up whether they wanted to or not, but that didn't mean Michael was some technician. He spent a year in juvie before moving to spend the last two years in an actual adult prison.

Neither of the two places cared about giving him the education he had missed from skipping out on his last three years of high school.

The best bet he had was hiring someone from the now basically collapsing franchise that was Fazbear Entertainment whose job it was to work on the robotic parts of the suits. But that required money, just for labor alone it was already more than Michael had on him. His father would never believe him, even if he could track the man down, much less be willing to give his deadbeat son that kind of cash or even a contact to talk to someone about this.

Surprisingly though, Michael was fine with knowing that. He... he wasn't sure he wanted to hire someone, or see his dad at all if he could help it, wherever it was the man had gone to. No, it should be Michael who helped Evan, after all these years, he was the one who should do it. He needed money though, for the parts, all of which had been custom.

As well as the blueprints for these kinds of springlock suits, to know what he needed to buy and make... It wouldn't be easy, but he had to do something, as he moved, just for a moment, his legs swaying under him, his heart not yet calmed down, making him light headed from the still surging adrenaline with nothing actually happening.

He finally shook his head hard enough to clear his thoughts as he said with a rough voice.

"I'm sorry, I- I always am, but I'll... make this work Evan. Just bear with me a bit longer alright? I know I'm kind of a useless brother, but I'd appreciate it if you gave me another shot, just until we have you up walking and talking again" The bear didn't move, Michael hoped he heard him, as he spoke softly once more, "I'll be back, I'll bring you somewhere safe, somewhere with... light and less mold, better than here alright? I just... need to put some things together" Like getting a car and a job, Michael's brain unkindly told him.

"I'll see you soon Ev" Michael slowly turned away, before stopping, just for a moment, a faint chill running up his spine as he turned back and for the first time noticed something had changed at some point. The suit still hadn't moved, but where once it had been glaring at a singular object, the box cutter, on the floor, there was no longer anything there.

Michael didn't so much walk as sprint out of there when he realized it was missing, a tiny part of his head telling him danger was around.

That wouldn't stop him from returning... Just... once he figured out what the hell he was going to do.

It was the next day when he decided that Michael Afton couldn't do anything, he had a criminal record, had a name that stained him in a city like Hurricane, where nearly everything had happened, and where he was now at for the long haul. He'd never get hired, much less trusted anywhere with his name and history, he couldn't have that.

It took a few days, a few favors being called in from some people in his questionable past, and for the first time ever being grateful for his apathy with breaking the law once he had been released from prison, but he had a set of barely passable records pronouncing him someone new.

Michael Afton didn't truly have anything to look forward to in this life.

But Mike Schmidt could hopefully get a few things done.

It wouldn't be easy, but since when has anything Mike has done been easy?

I'll be honest, gotta give credit, I've been heavily inspired by Can't Go Home by Mable, they've written an incredible series of stories, and it's gotten me interested in writing something somewhat similar, so sorry in advance for any potential parallels if anyone has read that, and if you haven't and like Fnaf stories, go read that, it's super long, but it's also really good.

Beyond that, the main prompt I had in mind for this story was, what if instead of William sending Michael to fix Elizabeth, instead Michael found Evan by himself. What would happen then? Well, a lot is the answer cause I got plans, but that's for the future.

Just assume a lot of canon is going to be both different and the same... which is a bit confusing... Ok, better yet, just assume nothing's the same until claimed overwise in this story, that would probably be best.

Also, can I just say it's really weird that Michael never goes to jail in any of the stories I've seen around him? Like, come on, he did commit accidental manslaughter, which is a crime in of itself, and there is hardly any consequences of that beyond, you know, feeling really really bad about it. Like, no, I know the police in this universe are kind of dumb, but there is no way in a room full of witnesses that nothing came of it, even as a kid, kids can still be charged with crimes and murder is kind of up here, accidental or not. So yeah, Mike's had a rough go of it, but that just makes the most sense to me for me to be able to get him in the position that I want him to be in for this story, and will help with stuff later.

That's all I really wanted to mention here, so, See ya.