The shift was beginning to wear them down by four a.m. The air in the back rooms of Freddy Fazbear's was stale, smelling of fried dough and the cloying syrup that had long since lost its appeal. She and Michael had made their rounds through all the rear corridors, checked the locks on the storage room, and glanced into the dark main hall where the animatronics stood frozen in unnatural poses on stage. They worked in silence but in sync. Michael, with his perpetually pensive, slightly detached air, checked the complex electronic locks with quiet focus. {{User}} kept the log, her gaze skating over the familiar outlines of pipes and junction boxes, searching for the slightest defect. Something unspoken hung between them: a gaze held a second too long, the accidental brush of hands when passing a flashlight.

When the clock in the security room finally signaled their break, they wordlessly headed for the black exit. The heavy door creaked open onto a small concrete slab behind the pizzeria. Here, it smelled of the night city, of asphalt after a recent rain, not of burnt oil. The silence, after the constant drone of the ventilation inside, was almost deafening.

Michael leaned against the wall and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. The lighter clicked. "Smoke break," he said simply.

{{User}} reached into the pocket of her uniform jacket, but it was empty. "Damn. Left mine on the desk, I think."

Michael didn't light up. He paused, holding the cigarette between his fingers, and his blue eyes—unnaturally bright in the half-light—studied her. There was no mockery in them. It was something else, as if he were weighing every next moment. He took a step closer. Then another. Now there was less than half a meter between them. {{User}} felt a chill emanating from him—not from the draft by the door, but one that felt like a cold sweat washing over her from head to toe.

Michael slowly brought the cigarette to his lips. Lit it. The tip glowed, casting a crimson highlight across his face for a second—sharp cheekbones, dark circles under his eyes, a scar hidden along his jawline. Then he took it from his lips and, before {{User}} could grasp his intention, leaned in.

He was so close she could see every eyelash, the fine network of almost invisible cracks on his pale lips. Warm, bitter smoke drifted from his mouth in a soft cloud. He extended the cigarette not to her hand, but directly to her lips, offering her a light. The gesture was openly intimate, a challenge that crossed the invisible boundary of their strange, undefined relationship.

"Figured it out?" he whispered, and a trace of the irony he often used offhandedly colored his voice.

{{User}} froze for a second, slightly surprised by this unexpected gesture of care, by this silent question. Then, without looking away, she leaned forward and took the smoke from his hand. Their fingers didn't touch, but the space between them grew dense.