#spoiler alert steve! /lh lh lh

[mute-call]

Steven had started his shift with butterflies in his stomach— not the nervous kind, although in retrospect, maybe he should have been more frightened of his night shift. More aware.

He had been happy. He had been so overwhelmingly happy in a way he hadn’t thought possible since the last location closed. He and Mx. Peyton had been dancing around the issue of their relationship for months, now, neither seeming willing to take the risk of ruining their friendship and working relationship over something as significant as admitting their feelings. Steven had been just about to work up the courage to ask if Spencer might want to grab lunch somewhere nice and borderline romantic when the other guard had just come right out and said that they felt things for him that went beyond the bounds of coworker cordiality.

Steven had made a fool of himself, blabbering on and on like always, but somewhere in the middle of “wow, really?” and “this is so neat!” he had managed to invite Spencer over to his little one-person apartment for breakfast-slash-lunch after Peyton finished their next morning shift. Everything had been going so right, which is probably why the night shift had ended up going so wrong.

It’s easy to get distracted when you’re fantasizing about the way those strong, silent types look at you when you talk, and it’s easy to screw up the toughest shift of the week when you’re distracted. It isn’t entirely Bell’s fault, though— the animatronics have been particularly aggressive all night, even compared to their usual Friday-night burst of energy, and all the practiced motions and careful conservation of electricity in the world can’t save him when they all show up at once.

He tries to call Spencer when it finally sinks in that this is the end, but he gets interrupted before he can finish. …maybe that’s for the best. What would he even have said? “Sorry, I’ll have to cancel that date, I think I’m about to get my skull popped through the front of a mask?”

Even being dragged through the hall, he can’t help but think of them. He knows they have the next shift, and that they don’t slack on their work, but if the universe is in any mood to grant a doomed man’s final wish, it won’t be Peyton who discovers his corpse. Anything but that.

Anyone but them.

SHIP + WISHLIST — @entitytcken !!