Monty stalked closer, jowls dripping with artificial saliva—a toxic slew of grease and motor oil that stained the floor with every step he took. His claws were outstretched to scoop you up in case you tried to run past him, which wasn't really possible anyway because he was just about as wide as the catwalk and you'd already slumped to the ground in an embarrassing show of defeat.
"Finally got you, bunny," he seethed, steam pouring from his flared nostrils. The ears of your headset twitched at the nickname and you scowled at their responsiveness. Monty's eyes were glowing brighter than you'd ever seen them—tiny red pupils locked onto your trembling frame. For a handful of seconds, all he did was stare down at you, heavy breaths rattling through his mechanical lungs. It almost seemed like he hadn't planned to get this far.
"She'll let me keep you if you're good," was what Monty finally settled on, snout jutting toward the glowing exit signs below. Vanessa. He was talking about Vanessa and there was no doubt about it now.
"You...You can't keep me, Monty." Your own voice was betraying you, turning your demand into a weak plea for your life. You weren't afraid of Monty in any capacity, but you weren't half as confident in the strange force that was holding him hostage. As far as you were concerned, the animatronic in front of you now was completely different from the one you had been working with every day for the past few weeks. That had everything to do with Vanessa and absolutely nothing to do with you, despite how hellbent he seemed on making you pay for it.
Your attempt to reason with him went unrecognized. Monty really didn't like the sound of refusal, but you already knew that. "Sure I can," he rumbled, swiftly closing in on you. You scrambled to your feet just as the catwalk shifted and he steadied you with a hand on either hip right before you could go sailing over the handrail. What a gentleman.
Even under all of that rockstar bravado, you knew Monty couldn't hurt you. This wasn't even the first time the both of you had a standoff like this in the rafters above his golf course, but you could get into that later. Nostrils inches away from your face, he bellowed. "The bear's ripped to shit and I'm running the show from now on. I'll be the star and you'll be my little groupie. Right, baby?"
You frowned, coughing away the heavy steam that poured across your face as he pinched your cheek between two massive steel claws. You opened your mouth to argue when a loud, sharp beep sounded directly in your ear. You pressed a palm flat against the side of your head in a vain attempt to quiet it, but Monty's glowing pupils had already turned to slits at the sound of Freddy's voice feeding through your headpiece.
"Little Helper! Can you hear me? Are you alright?"
Before you could conjure a response, Monty ripped the headset clean from your ear and tossed it over his shoulder where both of you watched silently as it landed in the center of one of the many ponds that deckled the putting green below. You heard a soft fizzle as the radio short-circuited and promptly sank into the murky knee-deep water, lost forever amongst a dozen or so neon golf balls.
"Don't need those anymore," Monty chuckled over your shoulder. You couldn't break your stare, unsure if the thundering in your chest was your heart or the bass from the overhead speakers that were still spewing out high-pitched 80s guitar riffs. You could say goodbye to the random helpful quips from Freddy. And, you know, the instructions you needed to survive.
Those headsets cost three paychecks at the very least to replace and if there was one thing you could prioritize over your own life, it was money. "Are you kidding?" you roared, eyes narrowed as you whipped your head around to glare up at the alligator who was pinning your arms to your sides. He almost seemed to shrink at the sternness in your voice. "They'll make me pay for that, dude! So not cool."
"You can take it outta my royalties, sweet thing."
Virus-Monty was significantly harder to work with than the good old-fashioned pessimistic, child-hating gator you were used to. There was no time to explain to him that he didn't have royalties or that he wasn't even being paid for his performances. If there was one thing you learned from being dubbed the Monty Negotiations Expert by your coworkers, it was that there was only one trick that would work in your favor right now.
Wrestling one of your arms free, you swallowed the rest of your fear and swatted him hard on the flat tip of his snout. Monty tensed, pupils going round like a guilty puppy. That's all he was—a huge green puppy with a spiky plastic shell. "Bad gator. You're being really, really bad."
A low whine echoed from his voicebox and rumbled deep in his chest, but you wouldn't relent. "I am so disappointed in you right now. How many times have I risked my job to cover for you, hm? How many shifts have I had to double without overtime because you wouldn't cooperate with the evening staff members?"
"I-"
"Montgomery Gator, you owe me big time. Put me down right now."
Monty stilled, his hands tensing before delicately lowering your bare feet back onto the grated catwalk. He blinked, eyes still gleaming in that threatening amber color you would never get used to. But when you crossed your arms in a threatening show of your disappointment, they seemed to almost grow...dimmer? Wavering on a hazy pink that looked just close enough to their original color that it soothed you instantly.
Taking a deep breath, you did everything in your power to sound as calm, cool, and collected as you absolutely weren't. "Good. Thank you. But you need to listen now, okay?"
He said nothing to indicate that he heard you but still lowered himself to his haunches until you were standing near eye level. This was a first for you—stunning Monty into silence.
A wave of sadness washed over you in that instant. None of this bullshit was Monty's fault. He just happened to get caught up in the weirdest night of your entire life. At the same time though, you were giving yourself a silent pat on the back for somehow taming the bug that was pulling the strings behind his programming.
"Vanessa is evil. She's bad. I don't know why, but she wants to hurt me." —and Gregory, you tacked on mentally. But the way into his cold titanium heart would not be made easier by mentioning the little kid running around and raising hell right alongside you. "You can't let her. I want to get home and I need you to help me, please."
Your speech inspired no witty remarks or backhanded and slightly inappropriate compliments. Something seemed to shift in his gaze like a cord snapping loose behind his eyes. You thought he might have held you there forever, trapping you on that catwalk with freedom just out of reach until someone eventually found you after the sun came up. But just when you least expected it, he nodded with a quiet chuff.
It was unspoken, but you knew that you'd succeeded in getting through to him.
"Montgomery!" Vanessa's shrill voice echoed across the bare, vaulted ceilings of the golf course. A hand made its way over your mouth. The beam of her flashlight swept over the rafters and bounced off of Monty's broad, gleaming plastic shoulders. You were nestled safely in his shadow, completely untouched by the light. There was no way she could see you from all the way down there, right?
"Get down here! You're not done looking for the kid!"
You held your breath and stared right into the set of glowing eyes less than a foot away from your face. The music had been switched off so there was no question now that the pulsing in your chest was your own frightened heartbeat.
"Hey! Don't think I can't see you. We don't have all night!"
"Comin', boss," Monty snarled, making you jolt at the cold harshness of his voice. The words dripped from his muzzle like pure venom and he looked right at you as he said it, nodding so subtly that you barely even caught the gesture before he rose to his feet (nearly doubling in size) and shouldered away from you.
You sat suspended in silent terror listening as Vanessa chastised him for taking ages to climb down the ladder and meet her at the bottom. Monty said nothing about the person he was leaving behind in the rafters and the two of them disappeared from your sight. You waited another handful of seconds before daring to breathe again.
You didn't trust the virus not to re-consume whatever part of him you were able to revive just then. He wouldn't be able to keep that secret for very long and you needed to be long gone when Vanessa finally wrestled the truth out of Monty.
Using the handrail to gather your balance, you let it guide you down the catwalk in the opposite direction of the ladder. Maybe there was another way out? One that didn't require you to follow in their footsteps?
As you tiptoed through semi-darkness, you felt a slip of fabric under your fist and flinched at the foreign material. Monty was always hoarding random shit in the rafters where none of the maintenance staff ever dared to look. It wasn't unlike him to leave little treasures lying around for people like you to find. Pulling the scrap from the handrail and holding it up to the weak overhead light, you realized that it wasn't a piece of garbage after all. In fact, it was a collector's item.
The glow-in-the-dark 'I Won Monty's Gator Golf!' t-shirt wrinkled up in your fist was at least three sizes too big and insanely moth-eaten. It must've spent years discarded up there before you found it. The letters were jagged, reminding you of a Def Leppard album cover you once saw in a record shop.
Shaking off the loose dust particles, you wrangled the torn mess of stitches over your head. For all of the bullshit that you were putting up with tonight, you deserved a t-shirt. You did win Monty's Gator Golf, just not in the traditional sense. Besides, you worked with some real weirdos who prided themselves on scouring the deepest reaches of the internet for vintage Fazbear merch. If you survived the next few hours, you could sell it back to them before you quit and left the Plex for good.
You were so hungry that even the lineup of stale Glamrock snacks that they kept stocked at the giftshop checkout counter sounded like a five-star meal. Not to mention you just lost your only way of communicating with Freddy and you were once again completely and entirely alone.
Or, you thought you were alone. The soft, floaty melody of a music box drifting through the air vent directly above you proved otherwise. It was disturbingly familiar and you were craving any semblance of normalcy right then.
The vent cover wasn't too hard to pull off—nor was climbing over the safety rail and hauling yourself inside. Without as much as a look over your shoulder, you began crawling in the direction of the lullaby, already appreciating the warmth and comfort of the t-shirt layered on top of your itchy, tattered uniform.
(A/N: I refuse to edit this. I'm quarantining rn so i have all the time in the world to revisit this godforsaken book. #welovecovid19 #ripmontysmut. I have no idea what I'm doing here. i hope i gave someone a heart attack with this update notification).