SCREEEEEEEEEEEEACH.

"Dammit!"

Alfred jerked back in his seat, nearly toppling over as his arms flailed about, unsure if he wanted to cover his ears or shield his eyes. Both were mighty tempting.

A pale platinum blond head poked through the doorway. "What have you been screaming about?" Ivan wanted to know. This had been going on for awhile now.

"This game, dude!" Alfred pointed an accusing finger at the computer screen, which was displaying a mixture of static and heavily mangled machinery.

Ivan slid into the room, peering for a moment at the screen before his violet eyes widened in understanding. "Ah, Five Nights."

"Yes, Five Nights!" Alfred huffed. "I can't even get past the first night cause I'm so on edge about the jump scares. But I need to have the volume high enough to hear the little warnings." He pouted once more. Then, a lightbulb flicked on in his head. "Ivan?" he cooed, sliding his hands up and down Ivan's arms, ruffling the fine silvery hairs. Their fingers laced together as he swung their arms gently from side to side. "Ivan, you're a big cuddly scary Russian brown bear super spy Cossack badass dancer dude, right? Will you help me beat this game?" He batted his eyelashes for good measure.

"I take offense to about half of that," Ivan deadpanned. "But I shall help you." He pulled up a chair beside Alfred as the latter whooped in triumph. A few clicks later, and they were playing.

"So, we just try not to let them get to us," Ivan mused.

"And you can't lose power. Not too early, anyway. If it's at the very end you might be okay."

Ivan nodded, his attention focused on the darkened screen. His lip pulled up in distaste as he turned on a light to reveal the gruesome face of Bonnie peering in through the window.

"SHUT THE DOOR SHUT THE DOOR!" Alfred squawked, poking Ivan incessantly in the side. Ivan did so, although he twitched violently as Alfred prodded him. Alfred gave a nervous laugh. "Ah, right, sorry, forgot- you're super ticklish there. And super cute- OH GOD THERE'S CHICA."

It took Ivan three tries to get through the first night. On his first attempt, he had neglected to monitor his power and ran out at 3am. On the second, he had made to shut the door only for his request to be denied; an animatronic popped up shortly after. The third attempt was a success, though. Such victory only brought further hardship.

The second night was going to take a lot of refining.

Don't Run Out of Power

Ivan was taking the phone's warnings about Foxy too close to heart, and had engaged in a stare down with the mangled robot. Alfred actually fell out of his chair when Bonnie popped up during this conflict, whimpering and grabbing a nearby blanket to cocoon himself in. Some become numb to the jumpscares with so much playing; others remained fearful throughout the whole ordeal. Ivan, in comparison, grew increasingly agitated. He seemed to take it as a personal insult every time he was beaten. He ground his teeth together, pressed the buttons with increasing ferocity, and took to muttering swears in his mother tongue. This did nothing to soothe Alfred, who had never heard Ivan speak in such a deep menacing murmur before, and merely took it as more eerie sounds to complete the atmosphere.

At last, with a final loud curse, Ivan pushed away from the computer and stomped off in disgust.

"Vanyaaaaaaaa," Alfred called desperately, now alone with Five Nights at Freddy's with nothing but his cocoon for protection. The rotting face of an animatronic stared at him from the title screen.

Then the lights flickered.

And shut off.

"Oh no…" Alfred murmured. "No no no no no no no noooooooo…"

Footsteps, slow, heavy, purposeful, came pounding towards him.

"Boo." Ivan said simply, the light of his cell phone illuminating his face ominously from bellow. Alfred let out a hair-raising scream that sent them both toppling to the floor. Ivan's amusement lasted but a second.

"You're dead, Braginsky!" Alfred yelled. Ivan's eyes widened, but he was too slow to scramble away, and in an instant Alfred was on top of him, fingers prodding and wiggling and poking at his most ticklish areas. Ivan was soon red in the face, laughing painfully as he thrashed around, trying and failing to dislodge his attacker. Alfred persisted, running his fingers along the sole of Ivan's foot, which elicited the most violent tremors yet. Ivan pounded the floor with a fist, having given up on breaking free, and merely focused on curling in on himself.

"S-stop, Alfred, pazhalusta," Ivan gasped, English quickly leaving him. "Prosti menya, prosti, prosti!"

"If you," Alfred gave a sharp jab to his abdomen that made Ivan twitch. "Ever do that." Once more at the feet. "Again." Under the armpits. "You're gonna be so sorry." Stomach.

Ivan was too breathless to reply. He merely nodded, gasping for air as Alfred at last relented.

Who would have known the real danger from playing a horror game was laughter?