The Night Shift (Mike Schmidt x Reader)

6. Mr. Ring Ring

When Mike finally pulled into the station, we both jumped out of the car. After I bought the can of gas to put in my tank, I began to walk back to Mike's car. He was sipping a cup of coffee, so I knew that he'd stopped by the convenience store. Geez, this guy sure likes coffee. 

He hopped in as soon as he saw me. On the drive back, I had realized that Mike hasn't mentioned who'd shown him the ropes. I mean, there was no way someone like him figured everything out by himself. So I asked him. He suddenly went rigid and started mumbling something about empty heads in a back room. He was close to swerving off the road. "Shit, Mike! Are you still in there?!? WE'RE GOING TO DRIVE OFF OF THE FUCKING ROAD!!!!" I screamed. That seemed to get his attention. Luckily, he managed to just barely miss driving off. "Shit, sorry." He muttered. "I can ask another time if you don't feel comfortable... I mean..." "No, no, I'll explain. It's about time I told you anyway."

"You see, I never really got to meet him face to face. I only saw him the time I came to get that pre-shift tour, and even then it was only briefly. He left a series of recordings for me to listen to so I could get through the night, telling me all the basics. The last night he was supposed to work the night shift, he was... brutally murdered. While he was recording one of the messages." 

Mike started to cry. It was so unlike him to do so. Jesus, it must've been really tragic to make MIKE, the badass who could stand months upon months of near death experiences, cry just thinking about it. "It's haunted me since I first heard it. Apparently all the animatronics went for him at once. I never even got to know his name, and he saved my life too many times to count..." I patted Mike on the back, unsure how to comfort him. Why'd I have to be so bad at this? Oh well, at least Mike seemed to feel better. "I'm sorry I asked; I had no idea that it'd be something like that..." I murmured. 

We pulled in to the pizzeria. I hopped out of the car and took the gas out of the trunk. Mike waved and I started walking back towards my car. Mike tackled me from behind in another big bear hug (minus the bear this time). I pretty much just stood there awkwardly, waiting for him to let me go. "Thank you," he said. "I needed to get that out of my system. I've kept it to myself for all this time, and it was really wearing down on me. Mr. Ring Ring may be dead, but at least I put it to rest." 

He finally released me after a while. I turned right around and gave him a hug of my own before he ran back to his car. As he turned to walk away, I called out, "Mike?" 

"Yeah?" He yelled back. "If you need to talk to someone about anything, you can tell me. I'm the best secret-keeper this side of the earth!" Mike thanked me and hopped into his car with a huge grin on his face. As he drove away, it had almost seemed as though he was chastising himself. Huh. 

At least I had helped him get that ring-ring business out of his system.