One Shots at Freddy's

Kids as Roommates (Present)

Jeremy Fitzgerald woke up to the unpleasant, though not unusual sound of a shrill horn being honked right into his ear. He was greeted by Susie's mischievous, chipped-toothed grin.

"GOOD MORNING MR NIGHTGUARD!"

Jeremy forced a weak smile as he slowly sat up, trying to ignore the throbbing in his half-bitten head.

"Good morning, Sue..." he replied to the little girl sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

"SUSIE! GIVE ME ME HORN BACK, LASSIE!!!" the unmistakable pirate-accented voice of Fritz called from the living room. Susie gasped dramatically and ran out of the room. Jeremy sighed, falling back onto his pillow, his eyes drawing shut again, carrying him into a lucid dream where he was peacefully walking on the seashore, humming to himself, the only sounds being those of the waves crashing against the coast and the seagulls crying as they flew by, the salty wind whipping his hair out of his eyes...

"MR NIGHTGUARD! JEREMY WON'T SHARE!!!"

Jeremy sat bolt upright, blinking in mild confuzzlement, struggling to comprehend the sentence just spoken. Before he could, though, Susie reappeared in the room, dragging a small boy, also christened Jeremy, behind her. He was protectively gripping onto a small monkey plushie with his free hand, a scowl on his face.

It took a while for the older Jeremy to discern and dissolve the situation by lecturing them on the fact that they were old enough to handle their own problems and that they should learn to resolve tiny argumentative outbursts on their own without a grown-up's interference. Susie responded with an annoyed huff while the younger Jeremy silently snuck away while the dizzying impact of the lecture was still affecting Susie.

Now that that was over with, Jeremy knew he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. It was time to start his day. He slowly slid out of bed and shuffled to the door, rubbing the remaining tiredness out of his eyes before swinging it open.

"OWWWW!"

Oops. Guess that's why you don't hide behind doors, kids!

Gabriel doubled over, holding his nose, and dramatically made his slow descent to the wooden floor, before letting out a loud, exaggerated wail.

"Are you okay?" Jeremy asked gently, helping him back up. Sometimes, humoring melodrama was easier.

"Why did you do that!?" Gabriel snapped.

"I didn't know you were behind the door. Sorry, bud."

The anger on the boy's face faded, and he gave Jeremy a glum nod. "It's okay..."

"Hey Gabe? Did ye see me sword anywhere? The wood one..." Fritz asked, quite literally teleporting behind Jeremy, almost making him jump out of his own skin.

"No... it's not in the toy bin?" Gabriel asked.

"Nay mate. Or in the sink like last time."

Jeremy decided not to question what the toy sword had been doing in the sink.
"I think Susie might have hidden it somewhere," he suggested.

"Argh. That lassie be a pain..."
Despite the hostility in his tone, a tiny smirk of amusement seemed to pull at Fritz's lips.

"I'll help you look for it, honorary brother-mine!" Gabriel offered.

The two of them scuttled off into the playroom.

Jeremy sighed, stretching his arms. Sometimes, it felt hard to believe that these same kids-- mischievous as they were-- had been the cause of so much trauma in both his and his friend Mike's lives. These same kids, of whom both of them used to be scared to death, quite literally, seemed so innocent, so pure. You wouldn't have noticed how broken they all truly were. How pressured, how scared, how angry, how hurt... nobody would see that if they met them. He never thought a time like this would come, but he'd grown a sense of empathy for these kids who tried to kill him multiple times over. Perhaps that was why he'd let them live with him.

"Daydreaming again, Fitzgerald?"

Jeremy snapped back into reality, finding a black-haired girl standing next to him.

"Good morning to you too, Cassidy."

Her expression remained stony for a few moments, before it eventually broke into a small smile.
"Slept well?"

"Yeah... until Susie woke me up."

"Of course she did," Cassidy chuckled softly. "By the way, did you speak to Mike recently?"

"No, CC's not coming any time soon."

"Rats."

Jeremy gently patted her on the head. "I'm sure he'll come eventually, though. Cheer up, Miss Grump."

"Oh my God. Are you seriously suggesting that I, Cassidy Golden 'Vengeful Clickbait Boi' Freddy, drop my grumpiness for a whole second?" she laughed loudly now. "The whole fandom would have a heart attack!"

Jeremy laughed with her. When someone decided to make a bunch of games based on the events of the pizzerias, a lot of people soon became invested and everyone ever involved in real life had gained a certain reputation, Jeremy's being that of some silly goofball ("Accurate," Mike had commented), Mike's being that of a hot, and I mean hot corpse ("Even more accurate," Mike said) and Cassidy's being that of an angry, irritable, furious soul who would go to the greatest of extremes to torture a 'poor', 'helpless' serial killer who only did what he did to bring his family back. The jokes that all of them made about the same often masked the uncanny nature of the fact that someone out there had managed to make a bunch of fairly accurate games almost exactly mimicking the events that had actually occurred...

"Well... what are your plans for today?" Cassidy asked.

"I don't really know... I guess I'll just... stay home...?"

"If you don't have any plans, maybe you could take us to that fair that's taking place a few blocks down...?" She widened her eyes at him in what was, apparently, supposed to be a puppy face. However, pleading wasn't Cassidy's strong suit, and instead, she looked like she was glaring at him.

"Did the others set you up for this?"

Cassidy instantly dropped the face. "Yep. And they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. For both of our sakes, just say 'yes'. Otherwise who knows what pranks those four would come up with to get back at us, especially since Charlie isn't here to keep them under control."

Jeremy shuddered a little. Last time he'd refused to take the kids somewhere, he'd woken up in the middle of the night finding them standing over him with a razor blade, about to shave off his eyebrows. Not as scary as the Bite of '87 was, but terrifying enough to convince him that spending a couple hundred dollars on cotton candy was worth it.

So, he gave Cassidy a hesitant nod, and she returned him a sympathetic smile before making her way to the playroom.

Looks like today was gonna be a long and expensive day.

Guess that's what happens when you have devious kids as roommates.