Chapter Text
Sophie knew this was a bad idea. She knew it was, the second she had accepted uncle Felix’s job offer, she knew she had made a horrible mistake. Sitting in her car with her hands white knuckling the steering wheel, she also knew there was no real reason she had to be here. No one was waiting for her in there, and there was no one that could stop her if she decided to turn around and floor it back to her apartment. But she needed the extra money, and this was strangely good pay for something so remote and easy. She takes three deep breaths before opening her door, grabbing her bag from the back, and entering the K-9 unit.
She reached for her flashlight and flicked it on, and the entire room was suddenly lit up from how bright it was. She flipped on the light switch, annoyed but not unsurprised that it did a good deal less than her flashlight. She rolls her eyes and pulls out the note Felix wrote. Most of it was menial things, make sure things were in their places, do a small bit of cleaning, make sure no one breaks in, typical night shift things. One request was strange though. She checked the note again to make sure she had read it right. In Felix’s messy scrawl, the instructions ‘check on the animatronics to see there still in place (except Bon.)’ Why not Bon? Was he at another unit getting repaired? She knows Felix had been talking about opening a new restaurant, so she shrugs it off. She saves that task for last though, to give herself time to prepare. She heads down to the basement, where she knows the animatronics are kept, and shines her light around the place. Boozoo sat in the left most corner, Banny next to him, and Sha next to her. Like the note had predicted, Bon was nowhere to be seen. She knows it’s stupid, but these animatronics where her childhood, she’d watched her dad and Felix create them, they were important. So even though she knows it’s stupid, she says goodbye and goodnight to all of them. She could almost swear Sha moved her eyes towards her and smiled, but it was probably just a trick of the light. She steps back into the main floor and is getting ready to head out for the night when she hears it. Thunk. Thunk. Scrap. Thunk. Something heavy was moving. She catches a glimpse of blue in her peripheral, and blanches. Bon is coming towards her, and when she glimpses it’s eyes, there’s something like recognition. Something like agony. Sophie turns her flashlight off and books it down the hall, away from the metallic shrieks that follow. Bon was alive. Great. What the fuck does she do now? She runs as quietly and quickly as she can, can hear it tramping down the halls nearby. She tries a door and thanks any god that might exist for it being unlocked. She waits there and counts. 10 seconds. 30 seconds. 60 seconds. 2 minutes. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and flicks her flashlight on. Her breath is immediately stolen again. She hadn’t even heard the door open, hadn’t heard the heavy metal footsteps through her panic. She didn’t need to turn around to see that Bon, in all his hulking, dilapidated inglory behind her, the shadow cast on the wall was more than enough of a hint. Before she could even think to run, it had grabbed her, squeezing her tight. She swears it muttered her name, and it sounded familiar, that was his voice, wasn’t it but there’s no way because he’s gone has been gone for a long time, he-
Sophie’s train of thought gets broken at the same time as her arm. Dimly, she thinks it odd that it doesn’t hurt, in fact, all that had alerted her to its breaking was the horrifying crunch it made as it snapped. Suddenly, something purple rushed in from the door, tackling Bon and knocking Sophie from its grip. As she went tumbling, she vaguely noted that it was Banny, and that something else was in the room. Her head hit the concrete with a sickening crack and she lays there a few moments before the sound of the two animatronics fighting ebbs away and something picks her up until she’s in a bridal carry. It’s soft and warm, and feels strangely like wool. She glances up at the brown plastic face of Sha, and doesn’t question it, head too blurry to question much of anything.
“You’ll be safe here. He can’t find you” she whispers to Sophie
Sophie knows that voice just like she had known Bon’s. That was the voice who taught her how to make the worlds fluffiest pancakes, who bandaged up her scrapped knees, who sang her to sleep, who held her right and whispered how proud she was when she came out.
Weakly, Sophie choked out, “M- Momma?”
Sha pats her head comfortingly and shushes her.
“You’re safe now. Sleep, baby bunny, everything will be alright when you wake”
“Okay. I love you, momma,” Sophie slurs
“I love you too, my dear Sophie”
And as Sophie falls unconscious, she swears she hears Sha cry.
When Sophie wakes up again, Felix is lifting her up by her good arm, wrapping it around his shoulder, trying to get her to his car. She goes without a fuss, too out of it to fight him even though she has the overwhelming feeling she shouldn’t trust him. He gets her in the car, and he’s saying something, she knows he is, but it sounds like he’s a thousand miles away. Before she knows, everything goes black once more.
The final time she wakes up, it’s to the harsh lights and pristine white walls of a hospital. She hated hospitals. Sitting on a chair next to her was Felix. No nurses or doctors could be heard in the hallways. Just her and Felix, alone in a hospital. He takes a breath, and begins speaking.
“So, as you’ve probably figured out by now, the animatronics are more life like that anybody thinks,” he starts.
He then goes on to explain the situation, but Sophie feels like there’s something more, something bigger she’s missing, something he’s not telling her for some reason.
“So it appears that Bon is the one who broke your arm. Sha was there protecting you when I got there,” he finishes.
Sophie lets out a rattling breath and laughs, humourlessly and more than a little panicked.
“No, no, that doesn’t happen” Sophie weakly refuted.
It doesn’t happen. He’s looking at her with pity but that. Doesn’t. Happen. It doesn’t it doesn’t it doesn’t (it does.)
Her arm is broken because she tripped and fell or something, and misremember is because she hit her head. That thing didn’t grab her, didn’t squeeze her so hard that her arm broke, didn’t try to kill her. It didn’t it didn’t it didn’t (it did.)
Animatronics don’t come to life, and if they did they certainly wouldn’t try to murder innocent people. They don’t come to life. They don’t they don’t they don’t (these ones do.)
But he’s looking at her like he knows something she doesn’t and something about the story she created doesn’t add up. Felix stares at her and knows what she knows. That something has been irrevocably damaged between them. (It had been for a long time.)
“I understand it’s a lot to process, and it’s probably be easier to forget all this, but I can’t lie to you again. Not after everything. You at least deserve the truth, whether you take it as such or not” Felix explains, voice grave.
Sophie is filled with a sudden and potent rage. How dare he? How dare he send her into that death trap, alone and scared, and then pretend like he cared? He didn’t care. He cared about himself, and in this case it meant he had to pretend to care about sophie (he did care, but he never showed it.)
Sophie cant say any of that. Can’t reveal her cards, her plans for when she’s healed. So she makes a strange face and nods. Felix nods, and something about the way he looks at her like he’s never going to see her again plants two ideas in sophie’s head. He knows what she plans on doing and knows he can’t stop her. (He does. he also knows he deserves the pain it brings.)
Felix stands from the uncomfortable chair he was sitting in, pats Sophie’s uninjured arm and leaves the room. Sophie stays staring at where he had been sitting in. It was a strange shade of blue, not dark, but not light either, in a weird grey space between the two (and hey, hadn’t that been the colour of the last dress her mom wore? Hadn’t she seen a piece of fabric sticking out of sha the exact same colour?)
If she had any doubt before, looking at the chair had all but dissipated it. She was going to go back to K-9 and find out what was really going on.