Thanatophobia| MICHAEL AFTON x READER

6| Your mind

1st person. Michael Afton POV

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My workday was going by...insanely slow. Somehow, it felt like papers were printing slower, orders were buffering longer, and the voices in the vents grew louder and more frequent. I felt my heart race anytime I heard a giggle come from my left, or an eerily familiar-sounding voice coming from my right. They all stopped when I would shine my flashlight into the vents, though.

Logging off of this bloody computer never felt so relieving...my chest felt lighter as I left my office.

I scanned the room, my eyes landing on a small group of kids over by the Rockstar foxy animatronic, whose bird was dropping candy from its mouth. The children were loving this. I looked through the rest of the room, observing the other employees and examining the children that were there. Then I went back to the kitchens. There were about four people back there, one of them being L/N, who was currently waiting by the oven for a pizza to be done cooking. I approached them slowly, waving at the other employees.

"Working hard?" I said.

"Hardly working." They responded, copying what I've said to them before. I felt heat rise to my face, but I assumed that this was from the oven. My hand sat on their shoulder, and they turned their head to look at me, grinning awkwardly.

"What?" I said shortly, and their hand came up to the bottom of the mask I was wearing. They lifted it slightly and peeked under, our eyes meeting as I stared down at them.

"This mask is stupid." They said lightly, letting go of it and letting it fall back onto my face. I was taken aback by what they said.

"Sorry..." I said slowly.

"Don't, Mike, it's okay." They chuckled. "I totally get it. I've just had the privilege of getting you without all this stuff, so it makes me feel a bit funky." They looked at me again, then grinned once more.

"Y/N. The pizza is going to burn." I said quickly, turning to look at the over. They gasped loudly and yanked the pan out with a mit, tossing it onto the counter.

"bloody hell.." They cursed quietly, waving the oven mit over the pizza quickly to try and cool it off. "Now who's the one burning things...here I was making fun of you this morning..." They huffed. "Sorry."

"For burning the pizza, or making fun of me?" I put my hands in my pockets, now standing to their right.

"Er...both?" They chuckled, now turning their head to look at me.

"Well...apology accepted." I grinned, but they couldn't tell.

"Great..." They fell quiet for a moment. "Er...I better get this pizza out there. I'll be back."

And they left, hot pizza in hand.

I stood awkwardly, now scanning the area around me. The other employees were distracted with work, so I turned to look at the counter. When Y/N threw the pizza, it knocked over a few things, so I took my short moment alone to fix it. Y/N didn't return to the kitchen.

I Ended up talking to one of the other employees for about ten minutes before I leeched myself away so I could leave the kitchen. The room was louder this time.

The animatronics were powered on and singing songs to the children. Staff was cleaning up tables while the kids were distracted...I saw Y/N near the far upper left table. They looked at me almost as soon as I looked at them. I felt heat rush to my face once more.

They waved me over, and I obliged, approaching quickly.

"Hey." They said softly, passing me a stack of napkins to layout on the table. I did so without complaining.