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and-stir-the-stars · 10 months

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uuu aaaaaaAA

for question: what would the immediate aftermath of the bite be like? like generally in most aus where the bite incident happens-

(also just got on and new au?? you spoil me eheh)

long answer under the cut

I’m assuming you’re talking about My Brother My Wound, since this ask came in with all the other MBMW ones? If so, it’s funny that you’d call the au new; it’s actually my oldest au, I just haven’t talked about it on tumblr much for some reason

I hadn’t put much thought into what the immediate aftermath (as in, before Evan wakes up) would be, so thanks for the excuse to develop it more :)

First, let me explain how the Bite goes down in the au: Gregory is late to Evan’s birthday party because he wanted to put finishing touches on Evan’s gift; he wanted the present to be extra perfect and special since Ev had to have his party somewhere that scares him. Liz is off with her friends somewhere off-screen, wanting to avoid Mike’s tormenting of Evan as much as possible so she can pretend she’s just hanging out with her friends having fun. Liz hears Evan crying as Mike drags him away, and as Gregory rushes forward in a (fruitless) attempt to save him, Elizabeth (not seeing what is happening) wishes both of her brothers would just disappear so they won’t embarrass her or remind her of how broken things are in their family anymore. Then, chomp. In the panic and confusion as William and Mike rush Evan to the hospital, Liz gets left behind at Fredbear’s. I might change this but I’m currently thinking that Freddy realizes she got left behind, and takes her with the rest of his family as they follow Evan to the hospital.

So, immediate aftermath would go smth like this.

Mike gets taken away from the Afton house for about a month while Evan is in his coma. You can probably come up with some kind of believable reason for why the authorities do this, but I’m just gonna come out and admit that it’s purely for plot reasons. Because with Michael gone, Liz is left alone in the Afton household for that month, alone with William and with the crushing guilt that both of her brothers are gone after she specifically wished that they would disappear. I shudder to think of her there alone, but Elizabeth just tries to duck her head and stay out of William’s radar, and William is busy dealing with fall out from the Bite on top of his normal workload. Even so, though, sometimes Liz can’t quite help but look to him for comfort. She asks him if Evan will be okay. She asks where Mike is. She asks if William is doing okay. She asks if they’ll all be okay, in the end. She mostly just gets clipped, insensitive answers (“Evan is a braindead vegetable who in all likelihood won’t be alive in a week” “Michael is out being an embarrassment, there’ll be hell to pay when he gets back” “don’t ask stupid questions, Elizabeth. Put it out of your mind and do not speak of it, not to me or, god forbid, anyone else.”). Liz has to go to her school “friends” for the comfort she isn’t getting at home, but unsurprisingly, her toxic friends don’t provide her with much comfort, either. Maybe teachers find her to be more clingy and desperate for approval than normal in this time period.

Liz has pretty conflicting emotions when Mike finally gets dropped back off at home from whatever foster home or psych eval or juvie facility he was in. On one hand, her brother’s back; she’s not to blame for him being gone anymore. On the other hand, she listened to William go on a lot of rants where he called Mike and the place Mike was at all kinds of bad words, and in his anger, he made it seem like it was Mike’s fault that Mike left, like it was some kind of choice Mike had made to leave them and go be “a humiliation”. So, Liz holds some resentment toward Mike because William and his rants. And, Liz blames Mike for Evan being in a coma. She wouldn’t have lost both of her brothers like that if Mike wasn’t so stupid (it totally doesn’t have anything to do with Liz finding it easier to blame Mike than to blame herself for wishing them gone so much, it wasn’t her fault, it WASN’T, of course not)

Liz sort of wobbles back and forth between demanding (not asking) affection from Mike to make up for the time he was gone and pushing him away for what he did. Maybe it’s not until the “i think we’re both broken” conversation in BCOH that Liz fully forgives him, because she can finally admit to herself that she’s as broken as he is and has done stuff as awful as Mike himself has done, too. Before then, she tried shrugging the blame off on Mike a lot.

Mike lashes out sometimes when the stress, guilt, and abuse get to be too much, but only when he completely loses control; when he has an ounce of self-control left in him, he’s too scared of hurting Elizabeth like he did Evan for that, and too certain that he deserves everything that’s happening to him. Mike doesn’t fight when Liz and William say awful things about him. He said “I didn’t mean for that to happen” so many times during the month he was gone, when people were poking and prodding at him trying to figure out what happened at Evan’s party and if it’s safe for Mike to be around other kids, that the words have lost all meaning– and Mike has already learned from that month that it doesn’t matter how many times he says it, because no one will believe him.

Despite how William is, I don’t think William would be physically violent with Mike when Mike gets returned. Not at first, at least. Because the thing is, as annoyed as William is with Mike for tarnishing the family name by forever associating the name “afton” with “tragedy of the Bite of ‘83” and by making it seem like William can’t take care of (re: control) his own kids, that’s not what REALLY makes William angry. What really makes him angry is that Mike showed signs that he was just like William (an angry killer), and yet, William can’t experiment on his son to see if it’s true/make Mike more like him because the authorities took away his property. When Mike is given back, William goes into overdrive with his experimenting and observations, trying to make up for lost time. What these experiments are, I dunno; let me know if you guys have any ideas. But as the experiments go on, William realizes that Mike isn’t all that like him; Mike killed (almost), but he didn’t enjoy it. It’s not until a month or two later when William can no longer deny that Mike didn’t enjoy it that he starts getting really bad with Mike, because “His youngest getting so severely hurt had been bad enough. At least if Michael had begun showing signs since then that he was similar to his father in more than just appearance, the incident would have meant something– would have given some kind of result. As it was, William had merely gotten from it one damaged son and an unending stream of problems” (Collection, ch 6).

I’ve also been thinking about it, and like.., wouldn’t it be awful if during the time Ev was in a coma, William actually wanted to pull the plug on Evan’s life support, but the only thing that kept him from doing so was his own pride? If once the novelty of his genuine concern over Evan faded, he didn’t really care whether Evan lived or died anymore, and the only thing keeping him from pulling the plug was his fierce determination that he does NOT want the death of a child to permanently tarnish his life work (the PUBLIC death of a child, at least)?

I can see it working two ways: 1) William sees Evan as “damaged” goods and genuinely doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, maybe even would prefer it if Evan died bc his son being dead is better than Evan being braindead or even waking up and being just as cognitively impaired as the doctors warn him Evan will be if he ever wakes, or. 2) William still sees Evan as “damaged goods,” which is why it unnerves him that he still seems to care whether his son survives; William doesn’t like how unpredictable and nonsensical this feeling (caring for Evan) is, doesn’t like how weak it makes him feel, so he wants to get rid of Evan (and his confusing feelings) entirely by pulling the plug. Either way, once Evan finally wakes up and starts getting better, William’s attachment/feelings/concern fades away once Evan isn’t in the danger zone anymore and William is certain he’s going to survive now.

Honestly, Evan is lucky that it was a Fredbear location where Mike hurt him so badly, because if William’s company wasn’t on the line, William probably would have pulled the plug. I wonder if Liz, Mike, and the Fazbears ever find out that William genuinely considered it…

As for the Fazbears, there is just. So much therapy. Ness and Greg and Freddy canonically regularly attend therapy in the au, and the three of them get sooo much more therapy post-Bite to help them all cope. My thoughts on their reactions are less developed, though. Gregory’s grades slip. Ness and Greg both start lashing out more to deal with stress (tho they ofc, like. Actually apologize and work through their feelings afterward, unlike Mike). Freddy tries not to let it get the best of him, but… he’s angry, too.

#also post-bite mike completely stops seeing his friends #i don't really have characterizations for mike's friends #but one of them (freddy mask) is more. like. touchy feely and sensitive than the others.#freddy mask tries to approach mike at school one day and mike snaps bc he's made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to be around them #he punches or shoves freddy mask; nothing too violent but just violent enough that freddy mask and mike both walk #away from the experience scared of mike (in mike's case of himself)#i don't know what the other masked kids would do. if they want to ban together as the whole school (or town)#turns on them and calls them murderers or if seeing each other is Too Much and the friend group disbands.#maybe one or two of them moves away entirely.#(jeremy isn't one of my masked bullies btw. just to like. avoid the implication of any shipping plz and thank you)#my brother my wound #a nest torn empty #fnaf au #tw child abuse #tw child death #i can already hear crumble yelling at me for not developing mike's trauma in this more. i'm SORRY okay lmao

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