Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You leave me no other choice, Dee Kennedy!” A younger Jack over-enunciated his words, pointing his frankly oversized nerf gun at Dee, the strawberry-blond girl giggling while her life was on the line, threatened by a plastic firearm and foam ammunition, “bang!” He feigned pulling the trigger, ruffling her hair as she was shot to the ground, giggling, Jack pantomiming the array of bullets being fired into her in the form of poking and prodding.

“Jackk! That's fake!” Dee snorted, punching at his forearm with tiny toddler fists, fighting back against her attacker with all the might she could muster.

“Oh yea? That's fake? This is fake?” Jack took a step back, firing a nerf bullet at her, which donked her on the head, falling to the ground. A move that may warrant Mum being alerted of the tomfoolery going on on the battleground, yet Dee seemed to find as much fun in this as any other warring which had occurred. She, in rebellion to Jack’s incursions, picked up a fallen bullet and threw it at her brother, hitting his leg, causing him to stumble back in agony as the faux metal hit the ground.

“Oh God! Dee! You’ve bested me! Tell my family… i… love them…” Jack dropped the weapon without regard of it damaging the wooden flooring at all, spreading his arms out on the timber, bleeding out from this absolutely horrific injury, defeated by his enemy in battle. With Dee seemingly jubilated from her triumph, laughing over her bested foe, the Kennedy matriarch, or Mum, or Evangeline, dipped her head through the door frame to the living room.

“Kids, dinner’s on the table” She informed, seeming busied as she immediately popped back to the hall and, assumedly, the kitchen. Jack popped back up, seemingly revived by the prospect of food, and pushed himself onto his knees before standing up fully.

“I thought you died!” Dee complained, before remembering that their mother had just called them to dinner, and decided to begin to toddle along to the hall before Jack could explain this sudden resurgence of life. Jack followed along, almost tripping over some strewn toys, yet managing to not clatter his body to the ground. Jack and Dee had a ‘race’ to the promised food waiting for them, the rich scent the essence of a true American dinner, it seemed. With Jack's far longer legs, he easily out-stepped his baby sister, adamant on not letting her win, not even out of virtue of being far older than her. When he entered the kitchen first, the decadence of his mother’s meal wasn’t yet observed by him, as the presence of his Brother and Caroline immediately caught his attention, both caught up in what seemed to be the end of their ‘hello’s’ and hugs to Mum.

“Peter, man!” Jack smiled, holding out a fist to his brother, clanking their knuckles together then retracting their hands as if the interaction burnt, yet of course, it didn’t, it was always more of a comfortable warmth when his whole family was home. Despite being moved out and a whole adult now, Peter still performed perfect fist bumps, despite an easy thing to master. Dee ran up and hugged his legs, excited to see her eldest brother, albeit not having a concrete memory of when he lived at home. Sparky barked in excitement, having been laying around the kitchen in hopes of stealing some meat chunks during the cooking process, jumping up and pawing at Caroline’s beige-toned skirt, receiving scratches around the neck and ears as she baby talked the animal.

“And Caroline! Mum, you didn’t tell me they were coming–i woulda–well i woulda cleaned myself up a bit” Jack laughed, quieting his voice near the end of his sentence, mostly being there to have a laugh at himself. As sparky jumped back to the ground, Jack hugged Caroline, passing a greeting between each other.

“I’ve just sent your Dad down the street to grab a nice wine for Carol and I” She explained, still busied with a taut expression setting out food on the table, which Peter immediately offered to help with after talking to his little sister, noting how ‘big and strong’ she’s getting, although only seeing her a month or two ago. Peter’s offer was met by an expressed desire to have him enjoy his time at home, which he apprehensively took, sitting down with his fiancé infront of an array of lamb cutlets, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, various roast vegetables, a bowl of cut up artisan bread, and a clear pitcher of iced tea, the condensation gathering in drops against it. Dee sat at a head of the table, closest to Peter, Jack helping her up onto her higher chair as Caroline and Peter remarked how Mum must have been working for a while to come up with such a nice banquet, Evangeline responding with how she had to rope Dad into it too as always. Jack sat opposite to Peter and next to Dee, Mum sitting at the opposite head of the table, done with setting out a tower of serviettes in the centre of the meal. Once she’d sat, her expression immediately softened, no longer as stressed with all the doings of kitchen work, inquiring into Peter and Caroline’s domestic life as she served herself.

“Dee, waddya want?” Jack asked, right after thanking Mum for the meal and pretending to vaguely be interested in whatever his brother and soon to be sister in law were talking about. Dee was, and though he would try to refute it in a serious setting, his favourite sibling, out of the two to choose from. She was still at home first of all, despite all the play fighting, wrestling, and furniture breaking him and Peter did when he was younger, it was nice to have a constant reminder of a sibling bond. And Dee was, in Jack's opinion, the coolest kid on earth. From the little Jack knew about toddlers, she was pretty smart for one, and pretty awesome for one, and always listened to Jack's dumb plights about school when he conveyed it in a light hearted manner. And also, currently, she did actually need help serving herself.

“Mm… meat” she smiled, like the carnivorous beast she was, looking particularly frightening for such a young kid. Jack agreed to such a proposition such as ‘meat’, and served both himself and Dee, cutting the bone off a cutlet then sectioning the flesh into smaller pieces for her developing toddler motor skills.

“You happy Peter and Caroline’s home?” Jack asked, plopping the severed off bone browned with both the cooking process and various seasonings onto his plate, not confident Dee could manage to pluck off the slivers of lamb still stuck to it, deciding he himself would be the best candidate for consuming them.

“Yeah, they’re nice” Dee reported, wrapping her whole fist around the neck of a fork and spearing it into a square of mutton, plunging it into her mouth with impressive sloppiness and chewing on it open-mouthed. She talked about them more like they were family friends, not like Peter was her sibling, and Caroline practically her sister in law, creating a world where, for a moment, Jack never faced the brunt of a far quieter house when Peter had moved out, Dee being too young to trade any real banter with, he would have been used to it. He would probably be privy to the quiet, and less excited when Dee had begun to be more knavish and frolicsome. Jack nodded, then went to eat his own food, resisting the urge to grab a cutlet by its rib and bite off the meat in one go, despite the fact both Caroline and Peter would collectively not care, his mother most certainly would.

“Hey kids!” Dad, or Quincy to most, came through the door, carrying a long brown paper bag, grabbing the presumed wine glass inside by the neck, the condensation deepening the saturation in blotches around the bottle and under his fist. The fact he didn’t come up and give the usual hugs and kisses to his visiting family indicated he’d done so before as he fished the bottle out of the bag, revealing a Château Latour wine, gorgeously deep in colour. He placed it near Mum and Caroline on the table as Jack jokingly muttered ‘avert your eyes’ to his little sister, who didn’t really get it. Dad balled up the paper, pulling out a cabinet which was really a bin in disguise and discarded it before sitting next to his son and wife, opposite of Caroline. Quickly, he joined in the conversation they were having of whatever Peter and his sweetheart, Caroline and her darling, had been up to, seemingly not peeved in the slightest of them beginning to eat without him.

Jack didn't really listen in, only adding a small comment every once in a while when he managed to pay attention long enough to gather what was being discussed, feeling a sort of melancholy when he listened too long. For whatever reason, he couldn’t name, and he didn’t really examine this emotion either. But, if he did, if he ripped apart this strange bleakness and felt its pieces smudge under his fingertips, it was one of longing. A strange feeling. He missed Peter being at home, occasionally bringing Caroline with him and shushing Jack after the fiftieth dirty joke he’d make after assuring she wasn’t in earshot. Messing with each other, leaving bruises on each other's arms playing ‘spotto’ on road trips, Mum and Dad nipping at them to calm down. He loved Dee, she was, in Jack’s eyes, most likely the best sister of all time, but he missed his brother, and he wished it was the three of them, because things felt different now. His parents were getting older, the house was quieter, things were only lessened in their desolate nature when he dallied with his sister. When Peter visited home, it wasn’t the same, he was visiting. He wasn’t coming back, he was never coming back, and some selfish part of Jack wanted something horrible to happen to his house, and maybe he could spend a while back at home, a while for everything to feel normal enough again. Sparky shoved his head between Jack’s knees, making his rounds of the table, begging for a morsel to be thrown down to him.

“You fat little dog…” Jack chuckled to himself, cutting a sizable piece of meat off a cutlet, which were receiving far more attention than anything else on his plate, and plucked it off, feeding to it to his beast who licked its chops and begged for seconds before receiving some pets and being shooed away.

“Hey Dee” Jack asked, not loud enough for the whole table to turn their ears to whatever Dee and her big brother were whispering about. She nodded, looking up at Jack, the mess of smeared (yet also half-eaten) food on her plate indicated the rule of ‘don't play with your food’ had been shattered by the blooming delinquent.

“Is it nice?” Jack asked, referring to the meat.

“Yea.” Dee smiled.

Chapter Text

On a Thursday, Evangeline and Quincy Kennedy died in a car accident involving a drunk driver while they were on their way home from late night shopping. The offending driver’s car didn’t have its lights on, it was close behind them, the road was peacefully quiet, and the married couple were performing alongside ‘16 candles’ sung by Frankie Valli, rather loudly. They occasionally interjected with points about how the lyrics reminded them of being young and in love (the conversation evolving from discussing Caroline and Peter’s marriage), back when Evangeline was the prettiest, loveliest girl in school and Quincy was out of his league asking her to the school dance, and later on, to be his wife. They both died near instantly, the undetected car slamming into their vehicle and swerving them into a thick-trunked tree beside the road. The man received a double count of vehicular manslaughter, the judge leaning in favour of a stricter sentence due to the egregious negligence on his part, ruling twenty years in prison with no parole.

“...i miss Mum” Dee stated, unprompted, “and Dad” she continued. She sat with a crayon in hand, Sparky laying at her feet, positioned at a small dining room table, not as nice as the one they had at home, the home which was sold when neither of the Kennedy brothers could afford to pay to keep it. There was a pause before Jack answered, he was focusing on filling out the deductions for Dee’s care, and mentally cursing his brother for being too heartbroken to take her into his home, his real property , and leaving her in a rental.

“Me too, Dee” he couldn’t think about that right now. Everything was a mess, and to at least tidy up the area around his baby sister, he had to stop focusing on the fact everything was trashed. His parents were dead, Peter wouldn’t directly help him out because he was too sad , and Jack was just angry. Angry and numb, and tired. Tired from shoving everything down to make sure he didn’t make this any harder for Dee because he loved her and she was too young to face something like this. He was too young to face something like this, but he was too busy being far to grown up for his age to notice. Once people turn eighteen, the concept of being too young for something dissipates, except drinking, and once that milestone’s achieved, the idea of growing anything other than old is stricken from the record. But Jack, even though he’d turned eighteen, even though he had a pack of bad beer in his fridge, was too young to take care of his sister and everything else in the world. Despite legally being so, that meant nothing when he’d had to stop his education, and life, at a halt. Nothing when he’d had to throw himself into the deep end, water running into his nose and splashing into his airways while he begged to float.

“It’s my birthday in a month!” Dee distracted herself, and she couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not, she just needed something positive to think about. Dee’s sixth birthday, her first without her parents, and Jack knew Peter wasn’t going to be coming. He’s too busy lately. He’s too sad lately. Her first birthday without her parents, without her eldest brother, but at least Jack was here, and Sparky was too.

“Yea, you excited?” Jack smiled, being hit by the physical exertion of reanimating his numbness into something less dull. Of course he was excited for Dee, but in addition to that, he was fatigued, so exhausted to the point of having to tumble through life with his brain so subdued he was practically inhuman, practically a living corpse. Dee nodded feverishly, her smile as wide as her face, then returned to her artwork, taking crayon to printer-paper in an illustration of Sparky curled up in his dog bed. Jack was having problems with money and problems with exhaustion and problems with staying afloat enough to care for his sister and himself. He’d never gotten a chance to care for himself, just himself, so he didn’t know how to care for anyone, let alone his sister, and in extension the world, while still feeding and making sure Sparky had a good life, the shiba was getting old now.

“It’s all good to leave Dee here?” Jack asked, for about the fifth time, to one of the Fredbear’s Family Diner owners, a stout man with rather flushed pink skin and a taut expression. There was another man, the second owner, next to him, extraordinarily tall in stature, with a freakishly long neck and purple-hued skin, yet Jack didn’t take note of much of this, just watching Dee giggle with her small horde of school friends and gaze upon the animatronics dance on stage, looking more blissful than she had in a while. His six year old sister had been and still is underlyingly unhappy, stressed, and Jack knew this due to the juxtaposition, and it dug into him, and he felt nauseous.

“Yes, she’ll be taken care of, pick her up at eleven” the owner responded, for about the fifth time, his voice was more of a growl than real speech.

“Cool, cool” Jack nodded vehemently, Dee always wanted to be allowed to stay up late, and having to book this at the last second between stressful jobs, fleeting rests and slipping remembrance let her. He had to show up for a late night shift, pick her up and put her to bed during his break, then return and keep on working until five. He’d requested a longer break this shift, and received this with great gratitude. He had everything sorted out and under control. He walked back to the party tables in front of the stage, which were between where he was standing and the exit out of the diner, Jack got Dee’s attention with a call of her name. She, breaking herself away from what seemed to be a six year old gossip group about her classmates with her classmates, skipped up to her big brother and waited for a reason to his interruption.

“Ask for the phone and ring my food job if you need me, ok? Stay safe, i love you” Jack instructed, for about the fifth time, the description ‘food job’ referring to his employment at Pizza Hut. He got on his knees with an alarming crack of his joints and hugged her tightly, Dee hugging him back with less strength. Jack kissed her cheek, stood, and somehow cracked his knees once more. He waved adieu, uttering the goodbye as well.

“I will, bye bye Jack!” Dee waved, joy on her face, turning tail and running back to her friends before she could see the rare, truly warm smile Jack sported. Jack was assured the zenith of his life was safe, assured everything would work out, and assured Dee would have a happy sixth birthday. He was ready to work his eight hour night shift with a fifty minute break now. He walked outside, to his car, his countenance naturally becoming less cheery as he left, returning to its usual rigid state. He climbed into his run down yet hardy Chevrolet Chevette, the red paint chipping off in droves, and shoved his key into the ignition, turning it and hearing his engine sputter alive. He cranked the gear shift into drive, reversing out of the carpark and turning onto the road, feeling his zombie-like state of a tired numbness return as he headed home to change into his work clothes. The trip was quick, the world passed by him, his vision was tunnelled to a pinpoint, he reached his destination in what felt like two seconds. Putting the car in ‘park’ and turning off the engine, Jack crawled out, a familiar soreness rippling through his body as he stood, and walked to his front door. Unlocking it, he entered, and felt like he was more of a shambling tower of bones and flesh rather than a person.

“Sparky!” He called out, in a baby-ish tone, waiting for his dog to prance up to him like he always did, jump up and paw at his pants, bark once or twice then jump off, running around in excited circles. He didn’t this time.

“Sparky?” Jack reiterated in his regular voice, wandering further into his home, looking out for the little hound. He must have been sleeping, Jack reasoned, even if Sparky was usually awake and chewing at his toys, or leg, at this hour. Jack exited the foyer, wandering down the hall to the living room, entering the doorway, and didn’t see his pup resting curled up on his dull pink dog bed. A knot of tension formed in his stomach.

“Sparky!” He beckoned, he must’ve been outside, jumping around and attempting to catch butterflies flying above the overgrown grass, even in his senile age. Jack hadn’t got a chance to mow the yard down and clean it up a bit, he’d been too busy, and he didn’t have enough money to hire someone else to help him. Re-entering the hallway, Jack felt his legs ache under him as he came upon the backdoor, turning the handle and opening it towards him, the doggy door flapping at the force as he did so.

“Sparky!” He called, in a more hushed tone, and he received no answer, no barking, no paws pattering up to him. He walked further, looking to the ground, and found him. He was unmoving, open-eyed, and slightly curled into himself. And Jack knew he was dead. Despite this, he got onto his knees, and pet the animal’s fur, gently feeling it flatten under his hand. His neck mostly, Sparky loves his neck being pet. He didn’t know how long he was there, petting the corpse, occasionally scratching behind its ears, and rubbing its semi-exposed stomach, but he did know that he sat there long enough to be late for his shift. He didn’t quite care right now, however.

“Fuck… we’ll bury you, ok?” The animal’s chest was static, no oxygen running through its body. Jack stood, and thought about how upset Dee was going to be, and walked back into the house to retrieve a shovel he’d found alongside some other gardening tools the last tenants had left. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her. The drawer was near the back door, he opened the middle one which rolled out with a yelp, grabbing the rusting implement, before returning to outside. And on her sixth birthday? Way to ruin the happiest she’d seemed in a while, Jack blamed himself. He began to dig a hole in the soil. He wasn’t going to lie to her, no, of course not, she was acquainted with death, it’s permanence, and she was smart, she’d have her suspicions. He set down his shovel, picked up his dead dog, felt its weight in his arms, and set it into its grave, gently, so gently. He began shovelling the unearthed dirt back where Sparky now rested. The ground, not his bed. His boss would be angry, but fire him? Jack hoped not, and didn’t think he would. Jack was diligent, had quite literally never received any prior warning, despite a strong urge to gain one with insufferable customers, and was on good terms with the man. God, he hoped he wouldn’t be fired. Jack packed down the earth, shook any remaining dirt off the metal, and dragged himself back inside, putting the tool away.

He was tired.

And he needed a beer. Shutting the back door, Jack felt like he was floating to the fridge more than using his two feet to get there. There was a distinct disconnect between his body moving and his mind feeling nothing. Not even feeling the action of puppeting his own body. He grabbed the entire pack of beer out of the fridge and sat it on a table as he sat down, and the house was quiet. He ripped a bottle out of the packaging, his mind quiet. Uncapping the bottle with his teeth, the hiss of the carbonated beverage was comfortably loud. Tipping it back to his mouth, he promised himself to only have one, and then he’d change, and go to work, and apologise for being late, and come back on his break to pick Dee up, and tell her Sparky died, and comfort her, and put her to bed, and go to work, and finish at five in the morning, and drive home, and tomorrow would be another day.

No time had passed as he finished the first bottle and set it down. His hands moved to rip another from the packaging, he was too torpid to realise. He ripped off the cap with his teeth, heard it sizzle, and emptied it either immediately or after a considerable while, who knew. And without him noticing, the entire case had been drunk. As his hands moved for another beer and they didn’t graze one, the jaws of reality tore his mind to pay attention to what he was doing, and then his eyes flicked to the clock. It was eleven thirty. Shit . standing up, an ache and lightheadedness was ignored, as he sped to the foyer and out of the door, his eyes locked straight, ignoring his car, as he ran to pick up Dee. What if something had happened to her? Is she safe? Do they have a spot for kids forgotten by their parents–guardians? Of course they do, they have to, for bad ‘guardians’ . His mind raced. Jack practically threw himself forward as he bounded, and the trip felt so long, so long as he was stunned back to living, his brain being shocked into existing as something more than an organ which permitted him the basic bodily functions. When he arrived, his speed didn’t let up, but the door was locked, and Jack practically didn’t notice as he wrenched it apart, not caring to look for a side door. Dashing inside, it was completely dark. Jack’s chest was heaving from overexertion and stress.

“Dee!” he cried out, shoving down his terror, for her.

“Dee!” he repeated, frenetically searching around, tugging himself further inside. He rehearsed her name like if he spoke it enough times, the culmination of naming her would have her appear before his eyes.

“Dee please!” his voice broke, there was a lump in his throat, a sickening lump. He told himself she was ok. She was in a back room somewhere. He’d find her. Dee was safe, Dee wasn’t scared, Dee was waiting patiently with, maybe, a barbie in one hand and a hotwheels in another, having the doll and car undertake a barely comprehensible quarrel which she could tell Jack all about on their way home. Dee was going to go home with Jack, love her sixth birthday and all that extra time allowed to be spent awake, and she’d practically fall right asleep, safe. Dee was safe .

Earlier that night, at ten forty five, Dee Kennedy died via murder, committed by Dave Miller, wearing the Spring Bonnie animatronic-accurate springlock suit, the character being simply known as ‘Bonnie’ in those years. He and Henry Miller, who was donning the Fredbear costume, had lured her to the safe room by informing her that a birthday surprise just for her had been hidden there. Dee was sceptical, not for any reason she could pin down, but she followed anyhow, due to not having a concrete reason to back up her dread. She’d put up a fight, a proper fight, against Dave, or Bonnie, who himself put up a fight to not question his actions and Henry’s instructions. The dullish yet still deadly blade of Dave stabbed through the scarf which Jack had helped her put on that morning. She was perfectly capable of wrapping it around herself by her own accord, but it was nice to have her brother help her like he always would do. The weapon dug into her neck, and the fabric left a gap of time between the stabbing and her eventual death. As Henry, who’d discarded the Fredbear suit, stuffed her writhing, agonised body into a marionette animatronic after closing hours, she wished her brothers were here, she wished Jack would help her, and assure her she’d be ok.

Jack was numb, so numb, as he handed his resume to the pink-ish owner. Maybe this is how he could find his sister, the closest place, geographically, to the pain of her disappearance. Disappearance .

She can’t be dead .