Vanessa doesn’t know exactly what she’s supposed to do now.or, an ex-security guard and a piece of stolen property have a chat while Gregory robs a gas station blind.
It turns out there is no 12 step program for recovering from being manipulated and possessed by a child murderer who likes to dance around in a rabbit suit.
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Podfic
Vanessa doesn’t know exactly what she’s supposed to do now.
It turns out there is no 12 step program for recovering from being manipulated and possessed by a child murderer who likes to dance around in a rabbit suit. Except it was her suit, she made it, she remembers making it, even if she can’t remember a lot of other things that she knows she should. She remembers cutting and sewing and becoming, and she remembers that she was proud of the craftsmanship. No. Step back. Separate. He was the one who gave her the design, and He was proud, that specter in the code that she gave the form He wanted.
She remembers listening. Mostly, always, listening.
Whispers through a keyhole. A door she unlocked.
Her computer is gone. Her security badges and hat and uniform, gone. Her job, her life, everything, gone. His voice is... His voice is, but it is also quieter than it has been in a long, long time. Vanessa finds she can’t prefer the silence it leaves. The radio of the van they stole has one broken dial, the one that controls the volume, and if she turns it on and fiddles with it quick enough, she can get the sound to a reasonable volume before the music blasts out. Sometimes, the volume dial jumps erratically, out of her control, and there will be a sharp note that makes her ears ring and makes Gregory jump. Usually, though, she can make it before it’s too late.
Vanessa is still here. She’s still alive, which is more than a lot of people can say.
Gregory’s alive, too. That’s more than a lot of children who meet her- No, separate, met Him, can say.
Vanessa’s never killed anyone. Vanessa’s killed children. Vanessa can’t remember anything. Vanessa can remember everything, but all it is is screaming whenever she tries to sleep.
Gregory’s alive, and that’s not because of her. There’s a head in their van. It talks. For once, Vanessa does not feel crazy when she talks back. Most of the time. She thinks she owes something to the bot, Freddy. Gregory can drive, and he knows how to hotwire a van, and how to connect an animatronic head to it to keep Freddy’s battery from running out. She’s not sure she wants to know how he learned all of that, but she definitely knows it means that he could ditch her, if he really wanted. She’s also pretty sure the bear convinced him not to. Probably some old protocol demanding that lost children get brought to the nearest adult that can help them find their parents.
Gregory doesn’t sleep unless she’s made it clear she’s going to as well, and not until he’s checked and double-checked Freddy’s battery and connection to the van. He sleeps with his Faz Camera clutched to his chest. Vanessa knows now from experience that being flashed with that thing can leave you half-blind for a good five minutes. She’s learned not to wake the kid up. At least, not from a distance where she’s still going to be blinking spots out of her eyes for an hour.
If she had it her way, she’d sleep a lot less than she does, but that would mean Gregory sleeping less, too. She’s got some sort of responsibility here. So, instead, she bites into her hand in the middle of the night to stay silent and ignores the whirring of robotic eyes as they focus on her. The first time, he’d tried to say something. She doesn’t really remember what. She ignored him, wiped her tears, and tried to go back to sleep. She hadn’t succeeded, but he also hadn’t tried to talk to her again when she did wake. He watches, though. Those robots were programmed to watch as much as they were to perform.
"Why did you help him?” she asks. She’s leaning against the open back door of the van, waiting for the tank to fill up. Gregory is inside the gas station. The security guard part of her feels like she should reprimand him when he inevitably comes back with things he didn’t pay for. The hungry part of her just wants some jerky. Freddy is currently under a sheet. She doesn’t particularly want some nosey gas station attendant walking past the van and seeing an animatronic head, not when the major property damage and theft Vanessa and her unnamed child accomplice/victim caused are still all over the news. She’s not sure if law enforcement has conclusively pinned the “disappearances” on her yet.
At least as long as Fazbear Entertainment is involved, they’re going to remain “disappearances”. Less dirt on the company name.
“I... do not know.” Freddy says after a long pause. His ears click and turn under the sheet, and Vanessa reaches over automatically to keep it from sliding off. “He is a child. It is against our programming to harm children. My friends were malfunctioning.” She winces, and she’s glad he can’t see it. That’s her fault. No, His fault. But her fault. For giving Him the chance. For unlocking the door. She chains it now, a thousand locks, but that just means more keyholes, more places where the whispers escape.
“If programming is all you have, you should have turned him over to me. You had a lot of chances.” She shoves her hands in her jacket pockets and digs her nails into her palms. Freddy whirs. She’s starting to recognize the different sounds his small movements make. That’s the sound of his eyes moving. It’s a small victory in her mind that he can’t see her.
"He did not trust you.”
“So, you decided to listen to a seven year old who you knew broke in.”
“It was the right choice, Vanessa.” Freddy says, and she knows he’s trying to stop her line of questioning. She doesn’t want to argue with him. It’s messed up that the closest thing she can consider a friend is a robotic head. She had coworkers, once. They were almost friends. Luis used to exchange emails with her, casual stuff, jokes... concern when she stopped emailing him back, and then silence. She wonders if he tried to get in contact with her again when he saw the news. She’s got no way to check.
“Had you seen him before?” Freddy’s ears quickly click backwards, and his voice comes out slightly offended.
“Fazbear Entertainment does not record, monitor, or store guest information using facial recognition software without consent.” Vanessa snorts.
“You know, most nights at that place were pretty quiet. I did a lot of weird stuff to pass the time. Including reading all the stuff guests had to sign to get in there.” The clause about recording had been in very small print. Vanessa had to take a picture of it with her phone and zoomed in the photo to read it properly.
“Fazbear Entertainment, on occasion, uses facial recognition to record, monitor, and store guest information.” Freddy concedes. He almost sounds embarrassed. “But I have no information about Gregory before I met him in my room. He did not have a guest profile.”
“That’s a no?”
“He did not have a guest profile.” Freddy repeats.
“And didn’t sign the waiver. Shit.” She glances over at the pump, then at the store connected to the gas station. She can’t see Gregory. She’s not worried about him. He’s survived a lot worse than shoplifting. “Legally, you’ve never seen him before.”
“Legally, I have no record of Gregory.”
“What about illegally?”
“Vanessa, I am not allowed to collect information on someone who did not sign the waiver.” She lifts the sheet just enough so that he can see the look she’s giving him. She’s been told she can be pretty intimidating. She hopes the dark bags under her eyes and her messily tied back hair help the effect rather than just making her look like a walking disaster. Not that that wouldn’t be accurate. Freddy blinks at her and then looks forward again.
“You know you're stolen property now, right?” Vanessa pushes. That is a bit of a sore point.
“After meeting Gregory, I went through the video footage I had access to. Without being able to connect to the main office, it was not much. A week.” He answers. “Gregory is in the footage. I believe if I had more memory storage, he would also be in that footage. He knew his way around the Pizzaplex very well.”
There was no record of Gregory in the system, ever. She asked him where his parents were, to return him to them. He didn’t answer. He didn’t blink hijacking a van, at leaving town, at stealing food. He hummed Freddy’s stage shows without missing a note when he was bored, all the way through. He wore a pair of shoes she knew were sold in the Pizzaplex gift shop.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she admits. “I don’t know how to take care of a kid.” Especially not one who doesn’t trust her, and who has every right to never trust her. She’s pretty sure that, if push comes to shove, if He ever gets so loud she can’t do anything but listen, Gregory won’t hesitate to push her under her own van.
(And then to lie to Freddy and say it was an accident. She had cameras all over the Pizzaplex to watch. She saw what Gregory did to the other animatronics, the ones who hunted and hurt him.
Freddy has, had, access to those same cameras. When Fazbear Entertainment designs something to watch, it watches.)
“I am very good with children. I can teach you!” Freddy says.
I am very good with children, someone whispers through a keyhole, a door she checks the locks of every day. I can teach you.
“You think that a healthy diet consists of pizza, fries, and milkshakes.” She says, louder than she intends.
“The menu of the Pizzaplex was looked over by multiple nutritionists!”
“Did any of them approve it?”
“...We also failed restaurant inspections less than 50% of the time?”
“I worked for that place, and I still don’t know how you avoided lawsuits.” Vanessa says as she tugs the pump from the van and puts it back. The machine accepted cash, which she has... enough of. Enough to last them a little while longer. They can wait for things to calm down and maybe then the kid and his robot buddy could hack something and get them new identities. She has no idea how hacking actually works. She thinks she did some, once. She did what she was told, and the computers listened like she listened.
“Gregory, you’re back!” Freddy says as she gets into the driver’s seat, and she glances into the back of the van. Gregory had scrambled inside, shutting the doors behind him. He sees Vanessa looking at him, and he tenses, tries to hide the stolen goods he was pulling out of his pockets. Vanessa bites the inside of her cheek.
“What’s the haul, kid?” she asks. Gregory just stares at her. She tries not to think about the fact that she didn’t eat breakfast today. “I’m not going to arrest you for shoplifting.” Gregory looks down at the items and then over at Freddy’s still covered head. There’s a slight yellow glow where his eyes are. He’s looking directly at Gregory.
“I paid for this.” Gregory lies. She raises an eyebrow.
“That’s the right thing to do, superstar.” Freddy says. “Shoplifting is illegal, Vanessa. Please do not encourage him to do crimes.”
“You,” she points at Freddy. The yellow glow flickers up in the direction of her finger. When Gregory tugs the sheet off a moment later, she sees that his gaze is exactly on her finger. Not one to be deterred, she continues, “Are Literally. Stolen. Property.” She turns back to the wheel. “He stuffed you in a duffel bag.”
“Yes, but-” Freddy stalls. Makes a clicking noise. “Well-” Click. “See-” Click. He finally gives a metallic sigh. It’s not a very pleasant sound. “Gregory, please do not steal anything that isn’t me.”
“I won’t,” Gregory promises. He’s lying again.
Vanessa starts the van. She fiddles with the radio, stops it from getting too loud. They should keep going. For how long, how far, she’s not sure. Maybe, if they get far enough, she could open that door in her head and see that there’s nothing behind it. (She doesn’t actually believe that. She has read the newspaper articles, the old speculation about restaurant after restaurant, child after child, and she knows better than anyone, He is the kind of curse that lingers.) Maybe they’ll at least get far enough away that she can get a real job. She doesn’t have any references now, but if that goddamn place gave her anything besides the nightmares, it gave her the experience she needs to work a night shift.
Something pokes her in the shoulder. She looks.
“Here,” Gregory says. She reaches back to take the beef jerky from him. He jumps back the moment she has it, before their hands can touch, and then he sits back on the floor next to Freddy. She can see him looking at his Faz Watch. The text that appears on it is too small for her to read, but at least she knows who he’s talking to. Freddy is the only thing connected to the watch. No one else. Gregory has nightmares too, but he doesn’t have Him and His words on a screen that know everything. Gregory just has Freddy, and Freddy might know more than he lets on, might watch and watch and watch, but Freddy will protect him as well as a head wired into a van battery can protect a child.
Vanessa is alive. She has a van. She has a goal, nebulous though it may be. There is a keyhole in a door in her head that she can hear the most horrible things through, but it’s locked still and will stay that way, as long as she can manage. She’s got a piece of beef jerky to eat for lunch, and maybe later, she’ll teach Gregory how to dine and dash, if he doesn’t already know. He probably does.
No one is telling her what she is supposed to do.
(She cannot choose whether to listen. She can choose whether to heed.)
She’s just going to have to write that program herself.
Step one...