Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Upbeat tunes, colorful lights, sounds of pleasant chatter and children playing, emitting shrieks and laughs of joy befitting their tender ages.

The scent of factory ordered sugary cakes, re-heated and apparently, deliciously greasy pizza wafted through the large party hall. A subtler smell of plastic from the play fixtures within the building lingered beneath it.

All invisible yet enduring things that William Afton could never seem to stop being aware of, no matter how many years he had been exposed to them.

He could do without them, those small familiar essences that had nearly been etched into his senses, his being, and he wouldn’t bat an eye.

But there was one essence that dwelled deeper in his bones than any of it, an unseen, deliciously insidious thing that he had no desire to ever part with.

(William knew he couldn’t, even if he tried.)

And the source of that essence was vastly more, so much more than a simple sensory effect for his body to pick up on. Greater than even the flood of fire and shiver-inducing high he had felt, driving a steel blade into the fragile bodies of his previous, unsuspecting–or sometimes, cruelly aware when it was just too late– victims.

Killing had set the bar too high on what could really stimulate William’s senses. That savage, secret delight had broken the ceiling of what his body could be satisfied with long before he had taken a young life on his current hunting grounds of the establishment. No, the man had tasted blood much sooner in his own youth, and that addiction left him both immensely satisfied when he could fulfill it, but restless and numb when he couldn’t. Which meant most of his time was spent finding small thrills in other, more subtle ways to curb his need for intensity, for satiation.

Not everything he did revolved around feeding that hunger, constantly scraping on the walls of his skull and trickling down his lean throat, dragging its hot fingers against the inside of his ribs and clawing at his stomach. Lower, too, when he really had it bad.

It scratched and itched, sometimes faintly, other times, like nails on a chalkboard.

But not everything he did revolved around it.

In truth, William could not have gotten this far had he not been a man capable of a surprising degree of control. All things considered, he’d go as far as to say he still surprised himself how much he hadn’t done thus far, considering how easily he could, and how deeply he desired to do so.

And he had enough alternative interests to supply himself with. A need for adrenaline and challenge was often met with pushing the creativity and capabilities of his own mechanical and dangerous (no one needed to know about the latter–how exactly hadn’t Henry done more than raise a brow so far, again?) creations. Receiving lawsuits had a way of tickling him; the thought that someone had bothered to pour their time into something, whether their grievance was genuine or not, into something that he simply got a chuckle and a pleasing zap of dark amusement and cruel satisfaction out of. All that effort and paperwork, merely shoved into a drawer beneath his desk to sit with the others in indefinite abandonment.

Beneath him, as most things seemed to always fall, if he hadn’t put them there to begin with.

Beneath him…

He sat at that very desk now, tapping the dying embers and ashes of his cigarette into a glass ashtray. Using and dirtying something clean and clear for his own destructive pleasure, as usual, harming himself and others in the most subtle and horrific ways in pursuit of a fix. Though, to him, he never registered anything he did as painful…not for himself, at least. There was only frustration and the pain of overwhelming pleasure when he had it, with little in between.

There was something else he hasn’t gone a day without wanting–and frustratingly, not so easily being able to have–beneath him.

The hunger stirred, pawing at his stomach after a familiar, fresh wave of heat coiled through it as the thought returned for the umpteenth time that minute. That day. That year.

The last sixteen years, if he was being honest. Possibly longer.

Like an affliction he always carried dormant, and had privately dealt with the delightful, maddening symptoms of ever since it breached into his awareness.

William surprised himself regularly, how he hadn’t simply grasped a fistful of that soft, sweet birch scented hair yet and just–

“Will, are you really just smoking in here?” A warm voice chuckled, following the quiet click and push of his office door opening. He could almost feel Henry’s easy smile and arched brow.

After a split second of staring at the ginger haired man (not the hair he wanted to lace his fingers into), William’s own easy smirk graced his lips, like the flip of a switch he had flipped countless times.

It was always like this. A game the man played against himself, often amusing, sometimes thrilling, other times grating, dancing the line between self-control and dangerous indulgence.

“Ah, can’t I?” William drawled, calm and playful, the smoothness in his voice ever present. “It wouldn’t be right, putting in so much work to earn this office and not enjoy it.”

Smooth…how soft was the skin he hadn't touched since–

A fraction of a beat passed for the nails of his yawning hunger to rake a heated chill over his skin. Today was one of those more trying days, apparently.

He casually tapped his cigarette after taking a drag, ridding the building ash again. Henry chuckled again. (Not the voice he wanted to hear.)

“Hey, I have no argument with that,” Henry said lightly, with a hint of wryness in his friendly tone, “But you’ve been spending a good bit of time here over the last year, Will. I’m starting to think you’re moving out of your house and into your office.”

The smirk on William’s lips stretched a tad, and his eyes crinkled with a wryness of his own. Though Henry was perceptive in an enjoyable manner in itself, it hadn’t been quite enough to truly catch on to certain…oddities surrounding William. For the best, of course, and it contributed to the little jolts of thrill William thrived on to get through the week in a civilized manner.

Henry had no idea why his friend and business partner, still so enigmatic after years of close interaction, chose to sequester himself in his office more and more as the course of the current year slowly increased the pressure of William’s hunger inside of him for a certain something.

And he intended to keep it that way.

“Perhaps a man simply appreciates a space where he can unwind alone,” William mused with feigned innocence, giving a cheeky shrug. “It’s easier than arranging a vacation.”

More half-truths, laced with careful dishonesty. No, he did not want to be alone. He wanted to be alone with–

“And besides,” William added, cutting his own train of thought off swiftly, “I enjoy working.”

That was true, most days. But he knew he would enjoy something else far more, if only he could have it without risking impractical, complete ruin of the controlled life he had carefully cultivated. And he had a feeling that Henry was about to make his already persistent thoughts of need, usually easier to put on the backburner except for over the course of this particularly trying sixteenth year, scratch the inside of his skull and ribs a little harder.

Henry smirked back, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway to the faintly smoky office. “That’s all well and good,” Henry smiled teasingly, “But I think your kids could use a little attention for a minute out there. Maybe you could split some between them and your friend?” he asked jokingly, but well-meaningly, gesturing towards William’s dwindling cigarette. Dwindling, like his desire to stay in control.

Always so light, so full of good will, Henry was. Why their friendship lasted so long, William could only chalk it up to Henry being an optimist, and himself having done a good job keeping up the performance of acceptableness.

If only Henry knew.

If only he could see the look on Henry’s face, if William told him why his attention was, from a rational and less selfish viewpoint, better off being hoarded by the cigarette in his grasp.

It was something he could get away with using up, inhaling deeply into himself and snapping between his fingers, over and over in place of the real craving he never would or could kick.

As for the thing he really wanted, well…he reserved testing the limits of what he truly wanted his hands on to the liberties of his creative imagination.

And William had always possessed such a creative mind.

In a liquid motion, William stood from his dark, broad desk and calmly rolled back his dark purple suit-clad, broad shoulders. He could indulge today. Just a bit.

“Where are the little ones now, hmm?” William hummed, the low note of fondness in his voice, hopefully, convincingly spreading to sound genuinely inclusive of all three Afton children. Appearances needed to be kept for the ongoing show he put on for the world.

With a light movement, Henry pushed himself off the doorframe and unfurled his crossed arms, his kinder hands finding his pockets. “The usual spots, you know them. Always drawn to what they resonate with,” Henry chuckled, a touch of fondness and thoughtfulness blooming into his smile, “Kids can just be so transparent like that, huh? Not complicated like us adults.”

William gave a nod of agreement, mostly because his mind was already elsewhere.

His sharp silver eyes glanced over the bustling expanse of the pizzeria’s main hall, maintaining the outward air of his typical calm and subtle amusement.

Within the chattering crowds of adults and playing, shrieking children swirling into the colorful mass that flooded the hall daily (business was doing quite well lately; maybe a vacation was in order), his calculating eyes soon found one familiar form at a time while Henry similarly looked, with a much more authentically warm and good natured intent. Henry loved all three Afton children, almost as his own.

William? He certainly intended to give that impression that he cared about all three, as a father, as much as it suited him.

Yes, he had been distant on purpose, but he could simply argue that it was for their own good as well as his own. Though it definitely was not what he desired for one child of his in particular.

His steely eyes maintained the image of casual searching, masking the eagerness for that something that his hunger clamored for daily, with fluctuating levels of bearableness.

The kids had been getting dropped off in the pizzeria since the start of summer break began, not with the expectation that William would be bothering to spend time with them, but more so for the more extensive air conditioning than they had at home, leftover free pizza and ice cream, and the available entertainment. There wasn’t much else for kids to do in the sweltering heat of Hurricane (that Clara or William would approve of, at least), and while Clara had argued that they could easily afford to go on a family vacation for once, William just smiled and pulled the ‘maybe next year, dear’ card again.

It had been difficult to hold in the chuckle and keep a composed stance, seeing how Clara made a face like she didn’t know whether to strangle him or resign herself to stop asking for it every summer, among everything else she had resigned herself to when it came to him. Besides, it suited William just fine to have an excuse to have a certain someone in tantalizing proximity all summer again, even if it could get a bit maddening at times.

Now, where was he…?

The strawberry blonde haired one, the little girl who was endlessly polite and pleasing in an attempt to have his genuine focus…indeed, she was near the stage, singing and enjoying the unfortunate privilege of being the daughter of the co-owner by dancing closely around the stiff legs of the main animatronic attractions, hoping Daddy was going to smile at her. Dear, silly girl. Craving her father’s attention since the cradle yet not knowing he would never have or give it to her the way she wished.

Next.

The abyss of his pupils wandered, roaming like the quiet tread of a misfortune-bringing black cat, thinly disguising the beast prowling beneath.

They swept by the youngest addition to his, frankly, too big family. Clara had insisted on having a third child, and with her taking the brunt of child rearing onto herself willingly, William had obliged her under the guise of letting her think it would bring him back closer into the family fold. In truth, he found it useful that it would keep her too busy to have much time or energy to think or argue, a plus, and it was easier than arguing or explaining why he was more than satisfied with what he already had.

William had long known, without a doubt, that he could have happily stopped at having one child. His first one. His.

Henry, still smiling fondly and waiting for the calm, faintly smirking man beside him (the depraved psychopath he had practically built part of his life around with their ventures) to finish spotting all three of his children, waited patiently in the crowd with him.

He did not notice the flicker of hunger and eagerness that nearly broke through to the surface of William’s cool silver pools.

Would Henry have picked up on it if he simply turned to glance a bit closer, at the desire in his eyes that just barely kept itself from seeping out, unveiling itself?

A better question, William pondered with dark amusement, Would Henry have done anything about it?

Finally, William’s eyes focused a tad sharper (externally not looking as sharp as they felt to him, like a familiar knife’s edge searching for flesh) and looked more intently. Near the walls. He had to be near a wall somewhere, close enough to his siblings to keep a watchful eye but far enough to enjoy some distance.

Endearingly similar to his father, that boy was, but those similarities largely ended at their shared physical features. His eldest son’s greatest differences being those softer blue gems of his eyes and that general softness of his character, whether he tried to hide it or not, even knew it or not, that just permeated every aspect of his being.

Even the rougher edges, William wagered. The raw, vulnerable, aching parts his boy always quietly kept deep inside himself.

He resisted the urge to lick his lips.

With the steel of his own eyes tracing slowly along the walls, like the blade he had used to sink into the pliable tissues of his past victims (they died for a good cause, really; the ‘prevention’ of William acting on his most sickening desire, one that promised to be the most gratifying), he finally sank his gaze into the single greatest pleasure and torture he had the privilege of creating, of having in his life.

The existence his possessiveness had sprung from, had obsessed over with no signs or desire of stopping for sixteen years.

“Michael,” William said, calm and smooth, that ever-present glimmer of amusement in his eyes and faint upward curve of his lips not wavering as he strolled over to his eldest, who leaned quietly against a wall, just as anticipated. “Watching your siblings still, are you?”

The man had to hold back a shit-eating grin over the whole situation. If there were a medal for keeping up the act of a decent-but-distant father’s coolly amused civility, in the face of burning temptation, he would have surely won it by now.

Restraining and enjoying his hidden obsession was a delicate balancing act. A marathon, not a sprint. And William savored every step, frustrating as it could often become.

Michael glanced over at (not up at; he had grown quite a bit taller this specifically trying year, hadn’t he?) his father, a tiny surprise in his eyes and marginally raised brow. He was built just like William, broad shouldered and slender waisted, but still boyish and soft as befitted him, far less muscled and hard in comparison. He had his slim, toned arms crossed over his chest, covered by the soft grey cotton of his sleeveless shirt, dressed light for the summer heat.

And the way his thighs were hugged by those goddamned shorts, those ripped jeans…

Lust aside, William knew that his eldest had mixed feelings towards him. Michael surely loved him as much as he always had as a boy, but not knowing the reason for his father’s distance over the years (again, for the better (?)) had made him grow similarly distant to protect his battered heart. At least, outwardly. Yet William knew, more out of subtle observation than any genuine empathy, that Michael held back a desperate wish to know and feel that he was still loved by his father. He was too reserved, too careful and receptive to his parents’ unspoken disapproval for him to seek companionship outside their home, too damn selfless and innocent–

“...Yes, Father. I’m just watching them,” Michael said, in that soft, measured voice that was getting a little more distant every day, more than his father was starting to find tolerable despite being the active cause for it. William outwardly expected distance and polite behavior from his children, and Michael was giving it, speaking less casually than he wanted to. But the gentle tone was deliciously innate. “There’s not much else to do right now.”

–William mentally cleared his throat.

Michael was too used to being alone and obedient to his family’s spoken and unspoken whims and needs, to ever seriously pursue filling the ache in his heart with someone new. The ache that William, especially, had taken care to nurture.

Indeed, he was such a good boy. Too much so for his own good.

William sometimes had to wonder if Michael knew it. The boy’s quiet but increasing traces of something like…bitterness? Melancholy? Loneliness?, seemed to hint that he was becoming more aware of how isolated and unfulfilled he was.

In an ironic way, he was a softer, sadder, sweeter mirror even in his heart to William’s dark, non-pure hearted and consuming desire and frustration. Even more ironic; the fact that they needed each other to find that fulfillment, though in starkly contrasting ways.

William hadn't specifically planned to create that lonely hunger in Michael on purpose, but once he realized it taking root on its own as his boy got older, he ensured it remained. It was useful. Satisfying, even, to know that there was a hole in his eldest’s soul that throbbed, that only he could fill. Among other openings, of course...ones he liked to think were reserved for him, despite keeping them untouched.

On the other end, Michael hadn’t quite ‘created’ his father’s darkness, per se, but he unknowingly added a new dimension to it, fed it and became the main fixation of it, just by existing. If he had unintentionally sparked anything in William, it was most certainly the need, the raw possessive instinct. William Afton had never felt he truly needed  anyone, with that deep, damn near primal grasping, until the moment he laid eyes on his first child.

To William’s credit, if any was deserved to begin with, the lust had come on a little more than half a decade later. That had to count for something, did it not?

“Not much to do?” William asked, just a faint sparkle of tease in his cool irises. “Don’t want to dance on stage with your sister?”

Again, that little hint of something other than the respectful but weary wall Michael put up flickered in his eyes, which widened fractionally. A glimpse of surprise, embarrassment, slight confusion, perhaps. A glimpse of vulnerability.

But just as quickly as it came, it was blocked off.

The boy simply let out a small huff of air from his nose and made a slightly resigned half-smile that looked like it hurt to make. “No, Father. I’m fine here.”

Despite his youthful age, Michael seldom expressed his real feelings openly--though part of that was due to the unspoken expectation William silently radiated to all of his children. He certainly didn't express his temper. And most definitely not towards his father, as justified as it would be.

More often now, William wanted to see him lose his reserve and finally snap, just to see what lay beneath his son’s well-mannered exterior. To see how beautifully broken and in pain he really was, crack him open like a bruised pomegranate and devour its sweet, bleeding insides.

Thankfully, as William briefly caught himself staring at the emotions playing across his son’s pretty blue eyes and imagining for a moment how they might look while abusing his throat, Henry chimed in with a hearty laugh and filled in the beat in their conversation.

“Mike, you’re supposed to get annoyed with your father, not take his jabs like a respectful young man,” Henry chuckled playfully.

Another faint, wry smile appeared on Michael’s lips, though it held a smidge of strain and wistful shyness. He could explain himself, but it was too personal. Where would he even begin to explain why he acted the way he did, especially when it came to his dad?

Having gathered his stare back into himself, William tilted his head in light amusement. He still had enough control to test the waters a bit today. “Nonsense, Henry,” he commented with a smooth lilt, “My boy is behaving just fine.”

The fleeting look of surprise returned to Michael’s eyes again, and this time, it went a bit deeper–the very intentional and rare usage of my boy landed the mark.

Perfect.

It was almost sad how easy it was to give the boy’s wounded heart a little jump.

After a blink, Michael glanced away back towards his siblings. Elizabeth continued to prance around the actively performing animatronics and giving a little show of her own that she hoped their father was taking fond interest in, while Evan watched her anxiously with his little Fredbear clutched to his chest, his eyes trying to focus only on his elder sister and not the mechanical orbs of the animatronics’ eerie gazes.

“...Will Mother be coming to pick us up soon?" Michael asked politely, more to change the subject than anything. He knew when she would come to get them; around the same time she had been over the first two weeks of summer break, when the sun would begin to set and cool the air a bit beneath a soft gold and dusty purple sky.

Very subtle, William thought, trying to prevent his sarcastic response and strangely fond feelings from bubbling into a wide grin. Michael was adorable.

“In an hour or so,” William said, light and nonchalant. "It won't be long.” What he desired, frankly, involved telling Clara to take the younger two kids and leave Michael there with him. William and his family were no strangers to the former coming home late at night. Maybe one of these days, he could keep Michael at work with him that long just to have him near. Whether anything more would transpire on William’s part was a bit more of a gamble, depending on how his control fared on that hypothetical day and how unintentionally enticing Michael was being.

But no, he wouldn't take that risk, no matter if he sorely longed to. Though wouldn’t his boy just secretly light up (if not be rightfully skeptical) at the chance to spend almost an entire day near his dear, distant father?

William knew, almost for sure, he would. Even if Michael had conflicting feelings about innocently letting himself feel happy at the prospect.

An hour soon passed in a pleasant chat between William, Michael and Henry as the crowd continued to bustle, and Evan meekly followed Elizabeth around as she played in the hall, her green eyes glancing at her father every now and then to see if he was looking her way at all. He wasn’t, really.

William kept his usual distance and watched his eldest son to the extent he could get away with.

Michael kept his usual distance and avoided looking at his father to the extent he could get away with.

Henry picked up on the subtle exchanges, but could not clearly ascertain their true meanings and thus kept his tentative silence on them, though he privately couldn't help but wonder. He knew William was a distant father and husband, knew it bothered Michael just as much as it did the rest of the family, if not more, but he neither knew how deep it went nor why the other man avoided the ones who longed for him most.

The hum of an engine sounded as Clara eventually arrived in the parking lot, and William did not walk out to tell his wife to pick up only two of their kids and leave Michael with him.

“Goodbye, Daddy!" Elizabeth chirped, politely trying to restrain her meek eagerness, giving his legs a squeeze with a shy smile before she contained herself and tried to walk out like a proper little girl should to the front door to Clara’s car, hoping once more to have left a lasting impression that could earn a fraction of his real attention. But William's eyes were already elsewhere.

“Bye, Daddy…” Evan said, perpetually shy and anxious as he quietly made his way out. William didn’t care, but at least it was kind of funny when it wasn’t annoying.

Michael gave his father a half-hearted, weary glance and faint, almost formal nod on the way out.

Jesus, William thought, amused though nearly a bit concerned, his focus only spared to how his eldest was bidding him goodbye. The distance had really been that hard on him, hadn't it?

He had to hold back a satisfied smirk.

“Michael," William said calmly. The boy stopped after a second, willingly or not. “Just a moment."

A few long steps later, and William was about two feet and some change away from him. He studied Michael quietly, taking in those guarded, apprehensive, tired and…dare he think it, still longing eyes. He studied his own features all over Michael's face, features that were practically the same yet all somehow made sweeter by the soul of the boy sharing them. The way his blue eyes were, even now, more gentle than they should have been.

Perhaps Michael just wished to understand his father. Or, failing that, to understand what he himself could have done wrong to deserve William’s absence. But it couldn’t really be his fault, right? That his dad had just…pulled away from him and the rest of the family almost right after his sixth birthday, with no satisfying explanation.

…Could it?

William’s fingers twitched in his trousers’ pockets. He took out one hand to give his silently starving eldest a light pat on his bare, lean bicep. A rare and casual touch. 

“See you tonight,” William said, steady and level.

Something fragile came up for air in the deep sea of Michael’s eyes before he shoved it back underwater.

“...Yes," Michael said, evenly yet a tad stiff now. He knew he probably would not see his father tonight, again. "Bye, Father.”

Finally, Michael left to join his siblings and mother in the car, keeping his face neutral despite the encroaching tightness in his throat and mix of aching emotions stirred in his chest.

Clara planted a kiss to Michael’s cheek as he stoically climbed into the passenger's seat beside her. William briefly made eye contact with his wife, who gave him a worn, sarcastic smile in return for his cool, amused one.

She pulled out of the parking and drove off, leaving William indoors to watch until they disappeared around a corner.

The hand he had touched Michael’s bare arm with a moment ago hung at his side, fingers curling and shifting, idly rubbing against the warm, tingling skin of his palm as his other hand remained tight in his trousers' pocket, despite his seemingly relaxed demeanor.

Soft, he recounted, now having the answer to his earlier hungry thought. A tangible proof he had long held himself back from experiencing again, re-confirming what he already knew to be true.

His skin is still…so soft.

Chapter Text

Clara was nothing if not a devoted wife and mother–she knew it, her kids knew it, and her distant husband had never denied it once in all their years of marriage.

Even if her relationship with the very man had long grown frustrating, to put it lightly. A frustration that appeared one-sided, if his consistently unperturbed behavior had anything to say about it.

Clara had tolerated his distance for ten years since Michael's sixth birthday, the same year she bore Elizabeth. She assumed he might have been either stressed about work, about having another child, or worse, having second thoughts about the weight of being a husband and father.

But he had been so utterly adoring of Michael up until then, so doting and close, the most loving of fathers. Even Clara was amazed at this seemingly new, deeply affectionate side of her often calm, collected partner. How had that devotion and love just…switched into distance and an intense focus on work, all of a sudden?

Clara stayed home with the kids and endured, trying to do whatever she could to make things easier on William for whatever problem she believed he must have–not that she could seem to get a direct answer out of him, he was smoothly reassuring and evasive as ever–but in doing so, she unintentionally made it easier for him to be absent. She took on so much of the child raising responsibility from then on that, to William’s satisfaction, he didn't have to be around to deal with her or Elizabeth, or risk losing his control around Michael just by prolonged exposure.

However, she remained oblivious to his true reasons for his absence. She had long put aside her young aspirations for ballet when she and William decided to have Michael; Clara never blinked twice about it, and she wasn't about to start doubting her choices now.

Yet, even as he reassured Clara that her efforts were supposedly appreciated, she realized they weren't bringing her husband back any closer.

But what else could she do now?

He was apparently deep in getting his business to operate at a high level with that man, Henry; the money was coming in fast, and by all other accounts, William seemed to continue being a decent husband and father. Relatively speaking.

Yes, he left and came back home at ungodly hours. Yes, she was starting to have trouble remembering when the last time he had been around her and the kids for more than a few minutes was. But he still provided, remained calm and charming as always, and he showed no signs of unfaithfulness or actually leaving his family. No, never. William Afton was not the type to simply walk away from what he created. Even the unused schematics he had no love for anymore remained in a box somewhere, because even if he felt no real fondness or interest for them, the sense of ownership remained at the very least.

He was just so goddamn distant.

And try as she might to make his life easier, to devote herself entirely to him and their children, she could not get a handle on the man.

For the life of her, she couldn't fathom why.

Did they not have everything that mattered? A beautiful family, an enviable house better than anything Clara ever had growing up, wealth and comfort? Did he not have a tirelessly devoted wife, and two precious, growing children?

Did a man so sharp somehow not register that his woman, their kids, needed him just a fraction closer?

Her tentative, light suggestions and inquiries were certainly heard, as they always had been since his drifting had begun. They were just as soothingly reassured–‘Yes, darling, you and the children are perfect, I couldn't ask for anything better’–but the gaping degree of separation remained. The wall between words and actions grew clearer, harder to not notice for Clara. Everything he said sounded like reasons for him to want to be close again, yet he just…wasn't.

As time passed, with Michael’s sweet face showing faint traces of innocent confusion at the tender age of eight over questions of why is daddy working so much? and when is he gonna stay home?, questions that were thankfully too big for their now two year old, fussy daughter to make yet, Clara’s patience and single-minded resolve began to fray into desperation.

Her little boy was starting to hurt. Her tiny daughter had hardly been held by the man, not like how he had once cradled and spent time with Michael for hours on end whenever he could.

While Clara was a woman of great fortitude when it came to doing what she felt she had to, hardly stopping to truly rest or enjoy a full meal for herself yet never complaining about it, because damn it, she loved her kids and they deserved to be taken care of...her strength to not let the concern, anger and confusion towards William get to her started to crack.

Soon, her suggestions and inquiries, once made lightly out of respect for her husband's efforts away from home and his apparent devotion, took on a slightly bitter edge. It wasn't ‘do you think you might have some time for us next week?’ anymore, it was ‘when are you going to have time?’.

Yet, William maintained his smile, his gentle, measured responses. It grated on her nerves more than put them at ease by that point.

Clara tried harder. She did her best, better than her best, gave what she could of herself to her darling, fussy little girl and puzzled little boy, to the man she had married. But he did not return to her in a real, tangible way. Not in the slightest, no matter how placating his words and soft his touches were in their brief minutes of early morning or late night exchanges.

Eventually, her bitter edge twisted into exasperated anger, valid accusation.

‘Why aren't you spending time with us?’

That night, when her temper flared after about two years of going back and forth, William did not raise his voice. Nor did he show the faintest flicker of anger in turn, or even defensiveness.

Guilt was also lacking in his handsome features, but perhaps Clara was too frustrated to notice.

Instead, he calmly strode over, took her into his arms and gently whispered sweet apologies, soft acknowledgements of how hard she tried for their family and how selfish and inconsiderate he’s been as he peppered light kisses on his wife’s weary face. Her trembles of resentment and indignation melted into weepy, tired shivers. They spent the night that way in their master bedroom, with Clara releasing the weight of her pent up worries into his unexpectedly soothing, understanding presence.

Then, without having to be explicitly asked to do so by the next morning, Clara woke to William–who hadn’t vanished like he usually had by that hour–giving her breakfast in bed and the warm news that he would take an entire week off from working.

That week was almost perfect.

William was finally there, doing everything she assumed he would have been doing with her and the kids for the past two years. Elizabeth was held and tended to by someone other than her mother for once, her fussing turned to pleased giggles and smiles. Michael’s heartachingly confused face lit back up with joy. A slight, nervous shyness from William’s sudden return colored the boy’s demeanor, but he couldn't get enough of being around his beloved father again. William was still smiling, capable and charming as always.

Sure, he appeared just a tad stiff whenever their son clung to him or smiled big or just entered the room, really. But maybe he simply felt a twinge of awkwardness, possibly a shred of guilt after having neglec–

That week was almost perfect.

Clara’s hope was restored almost to full. Things were going to be better. All of her efforts, those endless days and nights of toiling and questioning and hoping were coming to an end. They had to be.

Why would William do this, otherwise?

No, no, things were great. Swinging back in the right direction. Clara felt the security of his closeness, his support. Little Elizabeth was tamer and cheerier in her father's warm arms than she had ever been in Clara’s. And Michael was happy again.

She had to lock that down. It was now or never. Perhaps what they needed to keep this dream going strong was a concrete reminder for her husband of how wonderful family, and being connected, felt.

And honestly? Clara had always wanted more kids, if she could afford them. William was here, and things felt so easy as long as he merely put in the effort she knew he very well could. Hell, wasn’t that the point of why he had taken time off, to prove it to her that week? The cash flow from his hard work also spoke for itself. When would such a perfect time to seize the moment come again?

They weren't getting any younger. Clara knew she had it in her to keep going, and clearly, so did William.

The night before he would eventually have to go back to work again (of course, he'd have to; he was still the sole provider, after all), Clara made it clear she wanted one more little bundle of joy to bring their lovely family closer together, closer to what she it should have been the last two difficult years.

In a moment of thoughtful calculation consideration in William’s dashing silver eyes, he smiled in his charming, easy way and obliged her. With a greater passion than she had ever experienced from him before, in fact. It wasn't unwelcome, though it did catch her by surprise. Maybe this week had made him miss the happiness of closeness more than either of them realized. He certainly made love like a man possessed, even if his eyes were closed, like he was lost in a moment.

“...God..." he grunted and sighed, "...Mi–oh..."

“My…love," she moaned quietly, so the kids who had been put to bed wouldn't hear. He had nearly said it; she finally felt enough passion to say it back, say it for him, even. Something in her just felt compelled to fill in the blank she perceived. “William..."

There was the slightest, imperceptible stutter in his hips, like her words had interrupted something for him. His concentration or feverish immersion, probably–that explanation was most plausible. At least, the most plausible one she could think of while getting speared like he was a starving man, with a hunger she didn’t quite comprehend but welcomed regardless.

That uncharacteristic fire within him cooled back down behind the teasing, calm smile that re-took its usual place in his face as he seemed to remember himself. Remember her.

He surely had just gotten too caught up, that's all. How else would a man who had been so distant, so hardworking, behave after finally spending a rare night with his devoted wife again?

With each day that Clara progressed into her third pregnancy, Will progressed carefully back into his distance with calculated, subtle steps.

The glow Clara felt slowly wore off as she found herself holding the latest product of their relationship in her arms, almost as anxious and confused as the new, sensitive baby she had asked for. William had shown up, of course. But his smile held a sort of strange, smug satisfaction in it as he looked over his wife swaddling the additional child she wanted, that Clara was too exhausted and tense to spot.

A satisfaction that came from knowing now, Clara would be too busy to have as much time or energy to fuss over his distance again. Not as fervently.

Stubborn woman she was, though, Clara also went back to her tireless devotion, to clinging to belief, relying on focusing on the day to day and her endurance to get through what must certainly have been another phase.

We have three kids now, and he's busy with how much the business is growing, she told herself, both in hope and ignored despair, He’ll have time when things settle down this year.

Michael, then nine years old, tried to help his mother in what limited ways he could when he'd come back from school. The brightness he had regained from William’s brief resurgence had dimmed months ago, whether he was aware of it yet or not. Clara herself was often too focused on her tasks of raising three kids almost single-handedly to notice. Or perhaps it was preferable to think of difficult work over difficult truths.

On an ever positive note, Michael was clearly remaining and growing into a sweet, caring, helpful boy. Quieter than he used to be, but then again, he was always a bit on the quiet side, wasn’t he? At least his soft-spoken, polite nature was endearing, genuine, and a pleasure to weary adults like Clara. Not a frustrating, insurmountable wall like it had become with her husband.

He looked more like his father each day, yet his soft blue eyes and softer personality made those features feel so…different. Why couldn't William be more like him? Clara would be so much happier, certainly, if she had married a man like Michael--

Elizabeth grew fussy again, but that was just how she was with anyone besides William, ever since she was born. She would continue being a beloved handful when she got older, Clara could feel it.

Evan, while not a demanding child like his sister, seemed to be the living, breathing, near-ceaselessly crying epitome of Clara’s unacknowledged anxieties and unending inner turmoil. Consciously? She loved all her children. Equally. She just felt tired.

But she had Michael. That darling child was always there outside of school hours, listening and helping, comforting and trying to take a little of the load off his mother. The load that William, apparently still neck deep in the business (which had been ‘hectic but enjoying a long, busy, profitable streak–you should be happy, darling’ for the last three years now) left for them to pick up. For better or worse, Clara could vaguely see that was indeed true. The expansion of the franchise, the consistent payment of all home and family expenses in an easy, timely manner seemed to be proof enough. Not like she could ever catch him to have a real discussion about it at the time.

And that deep violet, beautifully tailored suit she started seeing him in–Clara always had an eye for distinguishing the quality of physical things. It was custom, obviously expensive and high quality, but...purple? Really?

Well. Then again, he always had peculiar tastes. His colorful business and unique creativity spoke to that enough on their own. Regardless of his infuriating interpersonal habits and…interesting preferences, he appeared to be handling the money side well, and with everything she had been left to manage, that became the baseline standard of what would have to suffice as ‘good enough’.

Clara’s glimpses of things that hinted that her husband still retained a modicum of interest in his family were few. One, the fact that William was still involved, tangentially and financially oriented as it was. Two, the way that his smile and calm, amused demeanor strangely stayed just as intact as it always had, like all these hardships were merely her own–

He remained relatively courteous and respectful. Maddeningly so. He cared enough to never behave harshly when he was around. Clara almost wished he would be more of an overt bastard just so she could yell at him without being accused of being the one with a problem, disturbing the illusion of peace.

Three, most strangely of all and least dwelled on...

Every once in a while, during those unreasonably early morning hours when William left like clockwork, and when Clara could not keep or find slumber due to her inner surmounting stress...she could hear William quietly walk down the hall into Michael’s room. He would (at least, from what little she gleaned) caress his eldest son’s soft, messy locks and press a kiss to his temple, then leave the room as if he was never there, smoothly strolling downstairs to go about his day. Then, it was a mug of black coffee, a few calls, and William was out the door until midnight at minimum.

Did it fix anything his distance had caused? No. But Clara tried to take it as a decent sign, a good sign perhaps, because it must have meant that he still cared deep down.

Clara had only ever seen what he did once, when she had tiptoed down the hall to take a peek, her former ballet training finding a new purpose in silent sneaking. Of course, she hadn’t wanted to be so secretive. But Clara simply felt that, for some reason, William wouldn’t appreciate an audience to his rare show of affection. She didn't think too much about that, she just wanted to see what he was doing.

It almost warmed her weary, bitter heart to see that her distant husband at least had it in him to give one of his family members a shred of fondness. But why only Michael? Because he was the child he used to openly adore most? And if William had retained that love, why not give it openly, when the boy could actually be awake to confirm his father indeed still loved him? Those questions had answers she could not consciously let herself realize, even in the present day.

In her soft surprise, Clara had taken a small step into view past the open door. She didn’t know if she would have smiled, given William a confused or accusatory look and demanded answers to her inquiries. Because for the first time, his perpetually calm and bemused eyes changed; they cut through her and froze her to the spot like icy knives of steel.

That was the only occasion Clara could ever say William had been angry. Silently livid, for reasons she couldn’t grasp.

The single moment she couldn’t admit, even to herself, that she genuinely feared the man she married, while also telling herself that she did not understand him.

He had stood slowly, stared her down like she had trespassed on something that was not meant for her to see…then wordlessly walked past and walked downstairs, resuming his routine like nothing happened. Clara remained fixed to her spot, reeling for a few minutes, before returning to bed as if she was moving through deep water.

Neither of them brought it up afterwards. He continued about his way of doing things, as did she. The event relegated itself to the subconscious pile of things Clara would not or could not bring herself to ponder and address over the course of their relationship.

Time passed. The kids grew further into who they already were. Clara presently continued to believe that William’s strange behavior had been set into motion ten years ago, not sixteen.

Evan remained an anxious little boy, shy and prone to tears, clinging to his Fredbear and whoever else would offer comfort. Mostly Clara. Often Michael. Though with a quiet weariness in his own need unspoken need to be comforted.

Elizabeth evolved from needy and fussy for her father into an almost overly polite, appeasing and proper girl, as William distantly intended all his children to be ‘well-behaved’, but also in hopes of getting his love. Clara could see the loneliness and hunger for her father’s scarce attention beneath her subtly strained, good behavior. Michael, at least, had known William’s adoration long enough to remember it clearly, for better or worse.

And Michael…somehow held onto his gentle nature, despite the quiet hurt and somberness he carried inside himself. He had every reason to lash out and complain like most kids often did, yet he rarely ever took the liberty. Clara continued to lean on him–perhaps a bit more than she should, but she deserved some help, didn’t she?--in William’s absence, like a younger, softer, caring version of her husband that was always present and quick to try to alleviate any suffering he saw in his dear mother or siblings. However, she worried about Michael most. He had been the only child to remember better days of having his father’s closeness, which consequently meant he felt and remembered most of the pain of his distancing.

Michael hardly ever shared his feelings openly, especially about what hurt him deepest, and Clara worried that he might break or snap under the weight of them one day.

But for now, in the present day, she had come to pick her troubled children up from William’s seemingly ever-prioritized business.

Clara was nothing if not a devoted wife and mother.

And she greeted her kids with that tired yet vivacious smile, the one her tenacity and loaded subconscious allowed her to continue being able to make in spite of everything, as they came out one by one to enter the car. She kissed Michael on the cheek as he got in last to settle on the passenger's seat, having noticed that telltale stoic look on his face. Clara knew what that look meant well; she had seen it countless times over the years. Something had bothered Michael, and she knew in her gut that once again, William probably had to do with it.

She shot her husband a glance through the glass of the car and of his business’s front doors, and he briefly made eye contact with her. Clara gave him a weary, sarcastic smile in return for his cool, amused one. As always.

Clara pulled out of the parking and drove off, leaving William indoors to watch until they disappeared around a corner.

Strong as she was in her own ways, she was not strong enough to truly take action for change or realize why that change was so direly necessary. Nor could she bear to acknowledge more than William’s role in their family’s problems, that she held part of the blame for enduring, for continuing to begrudgingly hope, depend and wait on William, as well as the slow, crushing effect it had on herself and her children.

The thought was simply too painful, too buried in her guilty mind for it to even consciously occur to her to unearth. Clara couldn’t do that. She couldn’t dig up something she didn’t want to realize was there. But she could do what she had learned to do to get by the past ten years, the point where since she believed when the 'problem' started.

Namely, take it on the chin without letting herself realize how much she was doing just that, how it wasn’t getting anyone but William anywhere, and keep it pushing. She had poured too much of herself, her prime years, into this marriage, this family, to stop now. As for backup plans, Clara had none. William was the safety net. The only one she had.

Clara had come from a poor background, with nothing but her youthful determination for better and parents she was desperate to leave behind; parents she hadn't seen in so long, nor attended the funerals of as they got older and passed away.

This life, with all it's unexplained and painful edges, some acknowledged and most not, was still far more than what she would have otherwise. Clara was strong, yes, but she didn't want to go at this alone. She was older, wearier, hadn't had a job in sixteen years. And William, infuriating as he had become, was always smarter and better than making more money faster than her. At this point, if all he wanted to do was give her and the kids a headache, work and pay the bills, so be it.

“So, kids,” Clara said, smiling wide and trying not to think too hard on how Michael holding his arm with a silent, misty look in his eyes–the arm she saw William casually pat him on before he left the store, “Want to go somewhere where we can get some real pizza and ice cream today?”

Chapter Text

Some hours later, when the purple-golden dusk in the sky faded closer to a star speckled deep blue, Clara returned home with her three children in tow. Michael (no longer misty-eyed but still a bit quieter than usual) held the still-warm box of half eaten pizza from a nearby authentic Italian shop in town in his hands, while Elizabeth and Evan carried a sweating tub of blackberry gelato, one of their little hands holding either side of the plastic bag. Clara walked a few steps ahead, fishing her keys out of her purse and wearily tucking a loose strawberry blonde lock behind her ear.

After everyone came into the large, quiet house and got settled in, another hour was spent at the dinner table in light chatter as the remnants of their pizza were divided up with another scoop of gelato. The absence in William’s seat at the head of the table was glaring as ever, but it had become the equivalent of a dull ache. One everyone felt constantly, yet would only hurt more if it was brought up explicitly.

As the plates grew empty with nothing but crumbs and faint traces of the sweetness that had just been there, Michael tried not to think about how even that reminded him of what he felt he could get from his father anymore. So many things in his mind always found a way to relate back to the gaping, invisible hole in his chest.

His soft, tired blue eyes flicked up to glance at the state of his present family. Elizabeth was growing quieter and sleepier with her cheek in her palm, a bit jittery from the dessert, but at least she looked close to happy, rather than just smiling out of a meek desire to be appeasing. To earn more love than she was getting. Weirdly, despite their mother’s near-constant presence, Clara couldn’t seem to supply enough attention to all three of her children enough to make up for her husband’s lack of providing any. Not equally, anyhow.

Meanwhile, Evan’s little head drooped like his eyes, his worn little Fredbear falling forward a bit in his small arms every few seconds as he dozed off in intervals. The ache in Michael’s chest clenched a bit; he was just like Evan once. A little boy who would doze off quietly in his chair after dinner…except back then, his father would actually be there to eat with him, to chuckle warmly and gather him up in his arms, to make sure he brushed his teeth and tucked him into bed…

Feeling a strange twist in his heart and an even stranger pooling of warm saliva in his mouth, Michael swallowed hard down his tight throat, his hand clenching on his thigh under the table. He was sixteen now, he knew. He shouldn’t have still been craving the most childish things that had stopped so abruptly from his father, but as he couldn’t escape the feelings, it simply became another lonely secret he kept to himself. Better to hide his fragile longings than to air them out and risk judgement or misunderstanding. Michael already felt hurt enough, he didn’t want to take his chances and possibly burst into tears if he tried to voice his emotions, even to his own mother. If she gave him the slightest knitting of brows or unpleasant look, Michael just knew it’d feel like a physical blow.

Inhaling and exhaling a quiet, heavy breath through his nose, he propped his elbow up on the table and rested his temple against his knuckles, stealing a partially obscured glance at his mother. She externally seemed satisfied with her quality choice of a meal that evening, despite her habit of always deliberately eating half as much as the rest of them. A thin strip of cooled pizza remained on her plate, partially devoured, and a bit of melty, purplish gelato pooled near it. Again, the sight of pizza and the color purple reminded Michael of his father, and he had to avert his gaze.

“Mother,” Michael began, soft and tentative, “You didn’t finish?”

It was more of statement than a question at that point. The boy just hoped that he might actually get her to finish a whole meal for once.

Clara’s dark ringed green eyes, which had appeared a bit distant as whatever thoughts (or perhaps, a merciful lack of them) fogged over them, stirred out of her daze and became a bit animated again, her lips stretching in a smile. “Here, Michael,” Clara said, instantly sliding her thin slice and melty scoop onto his plate, “You eat it, baby. You need it.”

The action was expected, but it never felt less grating. Still, he loved his mother dearly, and it just wasn’t in his conscious nature to snap at her.

“I didn’t–” Michael began, catching himself and sighing as he clenched his jaw a bit, “Mother, thank you, but…why don’t you ever finish what you eat?”

Clara did like what she had bought, didn’t she? She had enthusiastically raved about it earlier when they ate some at the store first, her weary eyes lighting up in a way that only quality things seemed to really be able to make them shine anymore. Her tastes and judgement for knowing what was good was always quite honed. If only her judgement in people had been just as well.

Michael’s question was met with a half lidded, almost blank sort of stare that Clara made sometimes when he asked her things that she didn’t want to answer. He could only imagine what reason she might have to never let herself enjoy a full meal. Maybe it was another subconscious guilt thing, like she didn’t feel like she deserved to after seeing how things had turned out for her and her kids.

He never said it, but he hated that look, whenever it would glaze over her eyes.

“...Mother?” Michael said again, quieter but a hint firmer.

“What?” Clara finally responded, her gaze and tone somewhat dismissive in a manner that would be more befitting of a flippant teenage girl than coming from an adult mother. “Finish it, Michael. It’s for you.”

The boy knew she loved him. She loved all of them. He just had to remember that at moments like these, to help ease the fire that rose in the back of his slender throat, and he could end another night in peace while still being a good kid.

Holding his tongue, Michael breathed in and fought the urge to just throw the scraps he didn’t ask for on his plate away, trying to simply consume them with a similar level of blankness his mother often achieved. Ignoring the way Clara just stared and smiled at him as he did so, her body lounged back against her chair beside him.

Once he had swallowed down the last bit of food and his bottled indignation, he sighed, wiping his lips on the back of his hand and standing up to walk around behind where his two sleepy siblings sat. He placed his gentle hands on either of their little shoulders, and then their tuckered out green eyes shifted up to him.

“Come on, you two,” Michael said, soft and weary, “It’s time for bed.”

In truth, Michael had warm feelings about being the big brother. But those feelings were often marred by the weight of also having become like a stand-in for their father. It didn’t help that the vast majority of Michael’s features were William’s, even if his own softer nature could often make him look and feel like the entirely different person he was. Michael knew that he was seen as the kinder, more present and loving version of his own mother’s husband, though it had yet to be said outright.

And of course, while he genuinely loved his whole family–William included–he couldn’t help feeling rather stuck and…uncomfortable, with the particular way his mother and siblings gazed up at him more often over time. Like he was the man they leaned on, and not just a teenage boy with his own unsatisfied needs for support.

“Can’t we stay a little longer, Mikey…?” Elizabeth pleaded sleepily, with her shrill, childish voice. Still so small in so many ways, petite enough to pass as younger than ten. Michael could reason that his own inheritance of his father’s British accent was due to having spent a huge amount of time with him growing up, up until he was of kindergarten age. But Elizabeth?

She barely had a fraction of that exposure to William. Michael could only reason, bittersweetly, that in his little sister’s needy love, reverence and desire to please their father, she had tried to learn the accent from Michael. It sounded rather natural to her now.

Unfortunately though, as with all her other attempts, it had done little to make William spare her a second glance.

Michael exhaled wearily, looking down at her emerald irises. He tried to ignore the innocent hunger in them.

“No, Lizzie,” Michael answered, gently chiding, hoping he didn’t sound too fatherly but hating that he probably did, “You’re too little to stay up late.”

Elizabeth looked conflicted, squirming between the wish to protest and just spend more time with her caring older brother versus obeying him the way that Michael secretly felt chilled by. He didn’t want to know that he had any sort of ‘effect’ on his little sister like that, like he had the authority and power to sway her the way only William and Clara should have as their parents. It went beyond her just listening to him as the eldest sibling; the sick feeling in his gut that churned every time it happened told him so.

Her pleading green eyes softened, and Michael pushed back the urge to grimace.

“...Okay,” Elizabeth relented, rubbing her heavy orbs as her words slurred a bit, “But…can you carry us, please…?”

Michael really wanted to say no. He wanted even more for his mother’s half lidded but intent and strangely pleased eyes to stop caressing his back. But how could he? He couldn’t make Lizzie start feeling rejected the way William had done to her so soon in life. His own discomfort and grievances aside, one thing Michael could not stand was seeing anyone in his family cry.

Biting back a sigh, Michael turned his head to look down at Evan, who watched him sleepily, quietly shy and anxious as usual.

“Do you want to be carried, too?” Michael asked, quiet and gentle regardless of his inner turmoil.

The little boy hesitated before giving a tiny nod, one that was more generous of making his big brother feel like he had a choice. At least out of all the green eyes on him right now, Michael appreciated that Evan’s still lacked that vaguely unsettling hunger in them. He was needy of him, yes, but at least it didn’t feel as weird as it tended to with Elizabeth and Clara.

Hoping that Evan would only innocently notice the tenderness in his own blue eyes and not the bittersweet pain, Michael nodded back and got down on one knee behind the middle of their chairs and opened his boyishly slender, lightly toned arms. He felt a momentary relief, ducking out of his mother’s direct and oddly pleased gaze.

“Alright, come on then,” Michael said, unable to resist a faintly warm smile despite his predicament, “Hop on.”

Not needing further prompting, Elizabeth and Evan climbed out of their chairs and latched onto their big brother, both still slight enough to sit on his forearms and fit in his embrace on either side without much difficulty. Evan hugged his toy close to his chest and contentedly rested his head against Michael’s chest. Elizabeth was more proactive, wrapping her thin arms around Michael’s neck and snuggling her tiny self into him as if she wanted to hide.

It made the eldest boy feel a pinch in his stomach, but he pushed it aside, adjusting his grip a bit and pretending he was too busy assessing his siblings so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with his mother.

He walked out of the kitchen and made his way up the stairs leading to everyone’s rooms. Too weary to remember why he usually put Elizabeth to bed first when he brought them both over that way, Michael first stepped into Evan’s room, carefully leaning down and settling him on his bed.

“There you go,” Michael said, ruffling Evan’s hair with his now free hand as his little brother smiled a bit and shifted himself under the covers. He stepped to the side, holding Elizabeth securely and flicking on Evan’s nightlight next to his bed. “Are you okay like this, Ev?”

The little boy nodded again slightly, the head of his little Fredbear peeking out from the top of the covers. Michael single-handedly tucked the covers a bit more snugly around Evan, a faint smile on his own tired face as well. Despite everything, such little moments of innocent joy still existed, and they made the burdens of the dysfunctional state William had left the family in more tolerable.

“Don’t we need to brush our teeth first…?” Elizabeth spoke up, quiet and dozing, though there was an undertone of childlike excitement at not having to follow the rules for once. William was subtly stricter with the expectations he had for his wife and children to be ‘proper’...but he wasn’t there right then to enforce them.

“You can, if you want to,” Michael answered, his gentle, weary smile growing a hint wry, “But it’s okay if you skip it one night. I won’t tell.”

Evan had already nodded off anyway, and Elizabeth had little qualms about it. She usually showed more anxiousness about not being good, mostly because of her innocent desire to please their father, but she seemed to be in the process of possibly replacing that desire with the urge to please her big brother instead. The one who was, for better or worse, more of a father to her than William ever cared to be.

She giggled, hushed and happy, her spindly arm hugging his neck tighter. Michael felt his moment of contented playfulness flicker with that unease again. He set his jaw slightly, giving Evan one last glance before walking out towards Elizabeth’s room.

As Michael padded down the hall, he kept a straight face and thought about other trivial things–the way that the temperature upstairs was always warmer because heat rose and cold sank, like he had learned at school during a fire safety seminar–before his brows knit upon feeling a strange sensation on his neck. It wasn’t just Elizabeth squeezing a little too hard. It was soft and wet. His stomach twisted sharply, and his eyes widened, losing the sleepiness in them for a second as he instinctively jerked his head away and froze his steps.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked, confused and incredulous. He was met with his little sister’s big, innocent, hungry eyes looking up at him again in surprise, like she hadn’t expected him to stop her.

“I’m just giving you a kiss, Mikey,” she replied, not knowing better. But sometimes, a sinking feeling told Michael that she wasn’t as childishly oblivious to what she was really doing as she seemed. “Like on the cheek.”

Michael grit his teeth behind the tight line of his lips, his brows furrowed and skin crawling. “Then just…do it on my cheek then, okay?” he said, trying to sound gentle and not rattled.

“But why?” Elizabeth said, and he knew that kids were never to blame when it came to engaging in intimate acts too soon, but for the life of him, sometimes he could not tell if she was just pretending to be unknowing or not. He desperately hoped she truly didn’t know. Otherwise, it’d mean many unpleasant things, one of them being that Elizabeth might have the ability to lie just as smoothly and convincingly as their father could. “It’s so close to your face, Mikey. I just couldn’t reach it from here, so I did it there instead.”

These were the type of things Michael wished he could hate his father for. Yet even after all the unsightly aftereffects of his pulling away, he still hadn’t found it in him to despite the man. He couldn’t. Or maybe, bizarrely, he still just didn’t want to.

Taking a breath to steady his stuttering pulse, Michael resumed walking to her room, remembering that this was why he would often wisely drop her off to bed first. Elizabeth didn’t…do things like this in front of other people, not even the innocent Evan. Unless Michael was just imagining things, the implication of that did nothing to soothe him.

“I know it’s close, but it’s…not the same,” Michael said, soft but with slight discomfort, pushing her room door open with his free hand, “Just…promise me you won’t do it again, okay, Lizzie?”

He strode over to her bed, feeling out of place in her pink, pretty room. There were a few toys and dolls neatly placed around, as well as a large teddy bear beside her pillow. All those things were bought by Clara (with ‘allowance’ money from William) in aims of appeasing Elizabeth’s needs, both as a little girl who loved pretty things and as a little girl who needed things to cling to for comfort and fill the void in her young heart.

To Michael’s dismay, he was apparently, slowly but surely, becoming the ‘thing’ Elizabeth wanted to cling to most. Almost as much as she wished she could do to her actual father. But if she couldn’t have William…

A slightly off-putting amount of time passed where Elizabeth did not respond to what he asked of her, which was highly unusual. Michael knit his brows and glanced down to check if she had somehow fallen asleep within the last ten seconds. She had not. Her eyes were still boring up at him, conflicted and oddly intense as if she really wanted to say something, something other than the proper thing to say.

“...Lizzie?” Michael asked, a little more unease openly slipping into his face and words. “You heard me, right? You promise you won’t do it again?”

The conflict in her green gaze grew into visible strain and desperation. Before he could prompt her again, she suddenly buried her little face in the crook of his neck, her hands unclasping from around his neck to ball up into his shirt.

“I love you, Mikey,” Elizabeth murmured, muffled, her lips and breath brushing his neck as she spoke. Whether it was intentional or not, Michael had no idea, but he did know that he felt instantly sick. “You’re so much nicer than Daddy.”

Michael could never get away with throwing his little sister at the wall like she was made of fire, nor would he probably ever forgive himself for it. Yet, he very nearly shoved her off of him.

Instead, he inhaled sharply, eyes going wide, and he quickly shifted his grip to hold her under her arms, outstretching his own a bit to keep her at arms’ length with her back to him. Thankfully, the room was dark, and Elizabeth likely couldn’t make out the way he had paled and looked close to vomiting.

“Thanks,” Michael said hastily and tightly, swiftly putting her down on her bed and taking a few steps back, his heart rattling in his chest. “Go to sleep, alright?”

Elizabeth looked up at him, an innocently surprised expression on her face. “What’s wrong?” she asked, “Aren’t you happy?”

He just never felt there was a good time for him to be completely honest. He could do so now, just tell his little sister that while he understood that their father’s distance made her feel sad, her words and her lips on his neck almost made him cough up his dinner. Regardless of whether she meant to come off as…what, loving? Intimate? Jesus. All Michael knew for sure is that he felt incredibly uncomfortable. And that was all the reason he needed to feel compelled to pull away.

But again, Michael could find a way to stomach this for the sake of sparing her feelings. He couldn’t stand seeing his family members cry, especially not as a result of the loneliness and sense of rejection they were afflicted with, and especially not because of himself.

“I’m fine,” he said, smiling tightly, “But I’ll be even more happy if you go to bed now, okay? I still have things to do downstairs for Mother.”

That display of desperate hunger resurfaced in her eyes, subtler this time but no less creepy to him.

He knew that there was likely only one thing he could do to nip her impending protest in the bud, but it was a double edged sword. A solution that would probably work at the moment, but only make things worse down the line if she kept feeling her inexplicable attachment to him.

Michael took a breath, his palms sweaty as he clenched and unclenched them, briefly closing his eyes to calm himself a fraction before wearily reopening them.

“...Elizabeth,” he said, soft, low and subtly authoritative with that accursed fatherly tone he disliked using, “Go to sleep, now. Be good.”

Almost as if by magic, the intensity bubbling up in Elizabeth’s gaze fizzled down. The hunger remained, though it looked more muted for now, and her thin shoulders slumped a bit as she reluctantly crawled under her bed covers to lie down.

Michael felt relief, but he hated knowing she was so receptive to him like this, and it almost pained him how much he sounded like William. How messed up it really was, that she hardly ever got to hear that sort of firm yet warm fatherly feeling from anyone but Michael most of the time. William spoke expectantly, calmly, strictly, with amusement, whatever–but Michael was the only Afton child who knew what it was actually like, having William speak like a loving father, as he used to in the past.

He watched her, quiet and tense, his blood slowly unfreezing in his veins.

“...Mikey,” her small voice began, “Are you mad at me?”

That gave him pause. His own shoulders also slumped somewhat, feeling a pang twist in his heart. Maybe he was just…overreacting? But he swore he wouldn’t have reacted that way if he seriously didn’t feel panicked and uneasy…

“...No, Lizzie,” he sighed, returning to his more natural, soft and weary tone, “...I’m not mad. I love you too, I promise.”

That last piece seemed to calm her, and she nodded slowly, settling down further while her thin arms took the large teddy bear beside her pillow into her embrace.

“...Okay,” she said quietly, the sleep returning to her again like a cascading wave, dimming her lonely hunger, “Good night, Mikey.”

Michael didn’t know what was worse, the glimpse in her eyes like she wanted to have Michael crawl into bed with her and replace her teddy bear, or the thought that he might be seeing things that were only in his mind and what that might mean. He would swear on his life that he had absolutely no desire for anything closer with her, and he felt nothing but panic and violent illness when he thought anything more might be happening. But if he wasn’t seeing things like a creep, then did that leave the only other option to be that Elizabeth was actually in the wrong?

His head aching and heart feeling exhausted from pumping as fast as it had, Michael just nodded and sluggishly left her room, shutting the door behind him and leaning on the wall. His hands ran over his face and through his tousled hair, resting on his shoulders. All of these things probably could have been avoided if William had simply been more present and loving to them all, as he should have. However, he wasn’t. Which left Michael to struggle alone as he contended with his own hardships and those of the rest of his family.

Shaking his head slightly, he exhaled a deep, shaky breath and walked into the bathroom across the hall, avoiding his reflection while halfheartedly brushing his teeth. He knew what else awaited him downstairs, same as most nights, especially over the summer. Michael could easily picture his mother still lounging in her seat at the dinner table and humming the tune she always hummed while raking her fingers through her hair, despite it being around 11pm. Waiting for him when she could have, should have, already been going to bed as well.

Chapter Text

At what point had Clara stopped waiting for William to be the one to come to her instead?

Michael finished brushing and tiredly walked to his room to change into an airy t-shirt and shorts for bed, wishing he could just plop onto his sheets and sleep, but he couldn’t. Clara was expecting him, whether she would admit it or not.

He reluctantly loomed back downstairs and into the kitchen, feeling hit with another wave of exhaustion when he saw his mother perk up and smile back at him, a finger twisting in her locks.

“Hey, baby,” she said, enthusiastic despite her own weariness and dark circles, “Did the kids give you trouble while you put them to bed?”

Michael wasn’t the type to anger easily or genuinely hate things. But he fucking hated being spoken to like he was her boyfriend, her man.

The funny thing was, she, like Elizabeth, similarly seemed to reserve doing such things when others were around.

“Kind of,” he said stiffly, and as he anticipated, Clara didn’t appear to care for elaboration. Michael stayed quiet and picked up their empty plates still at the table, placing them beside the kitchen sink and wordlessly starting to wash them. He could technically leave them for his mother to clean, but knowing how worn down she was from how her life had gone the last ten years, almost more than she acknowledged herself consciously, he just couldn’t help feeling compelled to always try lessening her burdens anyway. Michael loved her deeply, even if some of her behaviors tended to silently drive him insane.

One of them being the odd but not completely surprising way Clara could act more like a teenage girl, or hell, even a child sometimes when she felt relaxed and comfortable. Perhaps it was a consequence of having chosen to shoulder so much responsibility, leaving her parents behind to elope with William at a young age, having three children she powered through mostly raising herself while having little help to allow her time to pursue her own interests. Maybe it was also because Clara had married too young and was too determined on working devotedly to get the life she thought she would have with William, which left her mature in some ways and less mature internally.

Clara had chosen a path where she both grew up too fast, and didn’t get to be a child like most people got to, due to her own desperate aspirations and supposedly, her own parents’ lackluster treatment.

They never gave me anything!, Clara had once sobbed in a rare fit of violent emotion. They never did anything for me!

It had left a younger Michael in tears and with a deep impression (or perhaps, trauma) that made him realize his seemingly strong mother’s own inner frailty, making him afraid of hurting her or not supporting her.

…You’ve done more for me than my parents ever did, she had said afterwards, tearfully caressing Michael’s face. That was a few years ago. Maybe that was why he felt like he could never let himself let her down. It always hurt and amazed Michael, the fact that Clara had apparently felt something from William, something that gave her so much hope that she followed him single mindedly way back when they met. Committing to him entirely, even being the one who asked for marriage first.

Yes, it was strange that a man as sharp and intelligent as his father would choose to marry a young, determined girl so soon when he could have easily only pursued his business ambitions. Or married a more established, similarly aged young woman instead. Someone who wasn’t thirteen.

Your father was seventeen when we met and married, he wasn’t that much older than me, Clara had flippantly explained when Michael had asked her once, bewildered by the revelation, Things were different back then, baby. They just went that way.

Michael wondered what his father had to say about that, but as he neared completion of idly washing the dishes, he snapped out of his reflections at the sound of his mother’s voice.

“Are you almost done, Mike?” Clara asked, yawning a bit and smiling tiredly at him, chin resting on her palm.

“Uh, yeah,” Michael answered, reeling his mind back to the present and holding back a deep sigh as he awaited the ‘request’ he heard most nights.

“Good,” Clara said, and he could feel her smile widen, “Think you can give my back a rub again tonight, baby?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he held his tongue as always. His father was the one who should have been doing those things all these years, not himself. Michael didn’t know what other teen boys in Hurricane did for their mothers (not like any of them would ever admit to anything), but he was pretty sure her asking him for these massages wasn’t exactly ‘normal’.

However, once again, Michael just felt stuck. As if he couldn’t stop providing the comforts he gave over time to his family without causing some sort of internal collapse. He had initially offered to start giving her arms a rub when he was around twelve due to seeing how tired she was from constant child-rearing with little support of communication from William besides the bills getting paid and him maintaining his calm, charming attitude despite the distance. Clara had warmly accepted, and it just became one of many things that got built into his supportive role in the family.

The question of whether Clara should have accepted, or continued to accept the gesture to the point where she made a habit of soon asking for it and later expecting it, remained. But who else was going to comfort her? Not William, not her distant and later departed parents she didn’t even like, not the friends she didn’t have. The least Michael could do, he thought as a child, was be there to soothe her aches, listen to her and just…try to keep her from falling apart.

He still felt that way now, too. Things were simply piling on and getting harder to just innocently do without feeling the weight of them so consciously.

“Yeah,” Michael replied, attempting to keep the wear out of his tone, “You can go lie down, Mother. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Clara grinned, her energy always at odds with her tiredness, standing up from her chair and walking up behind Michael to briefly hug his narrow waist. At sixteen, he was about as tall as her now, enough for her to rest her head against the back of the broad shoulders he was growing into.

The fact that Michael kept looking more like William every day he grew, yet remained so present and helpful to her unlike her husband rather than start to grow distant and rebellious like other teen boys did, was a strange but great gift to her.

“Thank you, baby,” she sighed, with a tint of pride and bittersweetness, “You’d make such a wonderful husband.”

Michael’s soapy hands stilled beneath the water. She occasionally made such comments, though after his ordeal with Elizabeth’s possibly unhealthy, growing attachment (if he wasn’t crazy), the timing of it couldn’t be poorer.

“...What do you mean, when you say that?” he asked quietly, unsure if he really wanted the answer.

However, Clara didn’t allow herself to really realize what she truly meant. “About what? I’m just saying you’d make a great husband, Mike.”

His stomach tightened internally. He had come to learn that Clara wasn’t one for introspection; it just seemed too painful and frightening to her, even as a world-weary adult.

A sigh left Michael. “Sorry. Never mind,” he said, rinsing his hands off, and Clara let him go to go change upstairs. While he tiredly leaned back against the kitchen counter, staring at the floor, Clara soon returned in a pale yellow, loose sweater cropped just above her curvy waist and grey lounge pants, her strawberry blonde locks done up in a messy bun.

Both her and William were gifted with naturally maintaining their attractive appearances and looking younger than they were compared to most adults their ages, but Clara always looked particularly girlish when she let herself ease. To Michael, this ‘night look’ made her look like something between a young woman in college and a teenage girl at a lazy sleepover.

Maybe those were things she wished she could have been, in another life. Yet, Clara had unabashedly cast those possibilities aside when she decided marrying William was more important and ‘helpful’ to her life than frivolous things like sleepovers or more difficult paths like higher education. Although she had later come to confide in Michael that she probably should have done the latter, not considering how it might feel like another blow to his own painful feelings of questioning why his parents had kids to begin with.

Without fail, Michael kept the majority of his aching to himself and kept it moving. He was similar to Clara in that sense, but he didn’t have the avoidance of self-awareness she did. He just could never not feel how he felt. As hard as it could be, considering how Clara’s lack of introspection had impacted her life choices, maybe it was a good thing.

Clara strolled over to the couch and plopped down on her stomach with a light, playful chuckle, resting her head of messily gathered hair in her arms. Michael knew she was going to want the television on, so he saved himself the groan he would swallow if he heard her ask for it and simply did it before she said anything. The channel she liked was already on, so he left the remote down on the coffee table and sat down beside her waist with a blank, weary face.

Was he a loser for doing stuff like this? Was he being too nice?

A deeper question–did he really have a better choice? Because to Michael, he felt like if he ‘suddenly’ stopped giving his mother (the one who was at least the actively present and caring parent all these years) and his siblings comfort, everything would just explode around him. Things were already hard, he couldn’t take them getting any worse.

So, he silently sighed for the umpteenth time, briefly shutting his eyes before his gentle hands reluctantly went to the back of her shoulders, his thumbs working slow, deep circles over her sweater.

“Aw, how did you know I needed it there first, baby?” Clara asked with a wide smile, her dark circles dissonant with the somehow vivacious energy in her green eyes as she glanced back over her shoulder at him.

Michael weakly smiled back. “Because you always do, Mother.”

She giggled, resting her head back down and watching the television after making a satisfied ‘ahhh’ sound. Michael stared at the screen as well as his hands worked slowly, not wanting to add more memory of massaging his mother to his troubled mind. They watched for a few minutes while the random late night show ended. After a commercial break, in which Michael had listlessly reached the middle of her back, Clara suddenly gasped as her favorite show–ironically, a romantic comedy–came on, startling him.

“Oh, Mike, they’re playing it!” she exclaimed excitedly, “Great! I missed it last time, do you think it’s a rerun of the last episode or a new one?”

“Uh…” Michael said, his brows furrowing as he tiredly tried to figure it out, after his startle wore off, “I think it’s a…rerun, probably? It looks like it’s continuing from where it left off.”

Clara made a satisfied, excited sound again, eagerly settling back down to watch. Michael wondered if the irony of her loving this show was lost on her. Did she enjoy it because she simply liked it, or because it was subconsciously fulfilling to what she didn’t have in real life? Clara always watched the show as if she wasn’t comparing any of it to her own circumstances, like it was a completely separate thing from her.

Quietly yawning, Michael merely continued to massage her, his hands idly working into her lower back the way they had countless times now. It was easier to get away with not doing this as much during school months, because he had a ‘legitimate’ reason to not stay up so late to do it (though he often did end up doing it most times regardless). But over the summer, as it was now, the unspoken expectation from his mother was to provide more for longer, even if it was late.

He had asked her a few times if she would rather just get one of those fancy massage chairs or just go to a spa with the money William gave her every week, but no. She wanted Michael to do it.

His eyes were starting to feel heavy, so he pulled his hands back, ignoring the ache in his fingers. “Mother, I think that’s enough for tonight,” he yawned again, stretching, “I’m getting tired.”

Clara looked back at him, pouting. “Already?”

Michael tried not to frown. “I know. I’m sorry, I’m just falling asleep.”

“But I was taking care of the house all day, and I took you guys out to eat,” she said, her playful tone dropping a bit back into her usual, more weary and serious voice, tinted with slight displeasure, “You spent the whole day relaxing at your father’s store with your siblings, Michael. Don’t you think I need some–”

“Okay,” Michael cut in quickly, forcing a tired smile, “You’re right. Sorry. Where else do you want?”

For a moment, Clara was surprised, and there was almost a hint of something like guilt in her eyes before it faded into satisfaction. “Thank you, baby,” she said, her tone growing light again, “You can do my legs.”

Thankfully (?), Michael was too used to this to feel embarrassed. But maybe being embarrassed would’ve given him a way out she could begrudgingly accept.

Inhaling deeply and releasing it, he shifted lower beside her on the couch and made his slightly sore, heated hands slowly start working over her calves. She made a pleased sound again, and part of Michael almost felt like crying out of helpless frustration. He never used to feel so stupid when he did things like this, and it only seemed to be getting worse over time.

He knew Clara deserved more attention and care than she was getting, but god, how many more years would it have to come from him? Did she even realize how these things were affecting him? Or was she just shoving that down in her mind like she did with so much else, just to cope?

His throat felt tight, and as he mentally couldn’t stop imagining finally letting his bottled feelings burst, telling her that he was tired and fed up too, and that he felt like a loser, he felt so goddamned alone and used and uncertain if he was even loved for himself by anyone in his own family beyond what he did for them, he found his vision blurring with stifled tears. But his hands kept moving to soothe Clara’s years of thankless work ingrained into her muscles, albeit slower.

As with most things, it all circled back to his father in his mind.

Why couldn’t he just be here more, like he was supposed to as a father and husband? Why did he have to start being so out of reach?

Why did you leave us like this? Why did you leave me alone like this, Dad?, Michael wept internally, and he fought to hold in the sob choked in his throat.

The feelings he quietly accumulated over the years were getting more difficult to carry each day, and if nothing changed for the better, he knew it was only a matter of time until he broke under the weight of them.

Nearly overwhelmed by the sudden rush of emotions that threatened to escape him, Michael didn’t notice the front door open at 12:45am, the earliest his father had come home in forever.

Chapter Text

Although William kept his calm, faintly amused countenance, even he had to pause at the sight across the house before him. His wife, lounging on the couch (now looking up at him in shock), while his boy was seemingly trying to rub the back of her thighs but stilling, looking like he was about to break down sobbing. Michael’s eyes were closed tight like his jaw, his tear-streaked face lowered and his shoulders tense, slightly shaking.

Something deep and dark in William’s chest twisted with possessive rage and displeasure. Outwardly, his silver eyes just barely shadowed.

“I’m home,” William said calmly, the anger and threat in it voiced in a way for only his wife to pick up on, as unfamiliar as it was to her to hear from him.

Michael didn’t react immediately, believing for a moment that he merely imagined his father’s voice in his own inner desperation. But when he felt Clara’s upper body shift up suddenly as if to react to something at the front door, his watery blue eyes snapped open.

It was the most vulnerable he had looked in front of William in ten years. While his father initially felt a rage that demanded violence upon witnessing the scene, seeing his precious boy in such a state while his wife carelessly lounged and enjoyed whatever she was getting from him, the eye contact, surprise and raw vulnerability Michael met his gaze with took his breath away.

This was why he couldn’t let himself be around the boy for longer than a few minutes. William had the insane urge to drop all pretenses, take Michael in his arms and litter his tearful, gentle face in hot kisses, carry him into his bedroom and drink all of him down, taste and take everything. Possibly kill his wife as well, though that could happen before or after.

Instead, taking a silent and deep breath, William allowed himself a few more seconds of gazing at Michael in all his fragile, sweet beauty, before his steel eyes flicked back down to Clara.

“I–” Clara began, stunned, “...You’re home early.”

It sounded incredulous, more of a question than a statement.

William’s eyes bored into her while the rational part of his mind decided how to handle the situation without resorting to his baser instincts. After a long, tense moment, his colder calculation returned to him, like the fire in hell freezing over.

He resumed his calm movements, shutting the door behind him and setting his briefcase on the kitchen table. Michael and Clara practically held their breaths as he took his time, wordlessly removing his suit jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. The casual look only made him more intimidating as he smoothly strode over, coming to a stop near the couch and just looking, his expression unreadable.

William mostly kept his focus trained on Clara, internally like a predator silently deciding how it wanted to wrangle its prey.

Seconds after the tension became unbearable, William cut Clara off precisely when she opened her mouth to speak.

“Tired, dear?” William asked calmly.

She stared up at him, propped up on her hands. The danger in his gaze and the fear she felt was something she was now feeling for the second time from him, the first behind when she had ‘intruded’ on William giving Michael a kiss goodbye to his temple while the boy slept that morning years in the past.

However, her shock and fear melted into narrowed brows and indignant anger of her own.

“...William, whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re about to say, don’t,” she said, low and tight.

The nerves in William’s body clamoring for blood flared icily. He slightly tilted his head, eyes never leaving hers, even though he wanted nothing more than to keep gazing into Michael’s soul through his glassy blue windows.

“Actually, I’d like to hear what you have to say, Clara,” William said, chillingly level, “I suppose you might like to explain what’s going on with Michael.”

Her brows knit, shifting from angry to confused. “What? What do you mean, he’s fine–”

Clara glanced back, her eyes widening in shock once more, worse than when she had seen her husband open the front door.

Michael had been too stunned to wipe the tears off his face, and his bloodshot eyes glistened, still fixed up at his father. Whether it was in wonder, relief, or fear of anticipating some sort of punishment was blurry, but one other thing was thrillingly clear to William:

His boy was looking up at him like he was begging to be saved.

Though not out of anything pure-hearted, William found himself incredibly compelled to answer that silent plea, in his own way. He had never felt the urge to respond to anything that begged for help. The only things that came close were times in the past, before his distance, when a littler Michael cried, scraped his knees or had bad dreams. Only Michael had been able to cause these foreign, intense and uncharacteristic feelings in him. Evidently, that was still the case.

Meanwhile, Clara paled, genuinely caught by surprise. Why in the world would her son be crying? They were having a nice, normal night up until William came home unexpectedly, as far as she was aware.

“Michael, what–” she began, at a loss, “What’s going on with you?”

His attention briefly shaken from his father, Michael’s wide, shiny eyes snapped over to his mother’s. He knew the answer, but he couldn’t say them. Where would he even begin? He didn’t want to risk further upsetting either of his parents, either.

William knew his son was just so adorably lost and considerate…he wanted to tell him he didn’t have to say a word; he could just open his mouth and let his father fill it with his tongue, instead.

“Really, Clara?” William said, almost amused. “You’ve spent so much time with him, and you can’t tell?”

Michael blinked, struck hard by the possible idea that his distant father might actually understand him, after all.

Clara’s stunned face melted into anger and indignation again, growing a shade redder. “Excuse me? You come home slightly early once after ten years and see our son crying, and now you want to act like you know everything about his feelings?”

William wasn’t quite sure if he was imagining strangling Clara in order to calm the subtle twitch of anger in his fingers, or if they twitched because he ached to strangle her.

“Then perhaps you can explain his feelings to me, dear,” William said evenly, “Since you spent the last ten years so close to him.”

Her mouth opened and closed, but she doubled down before the realization that she didn’t actually know why their son was crying could fully dawn on her. “It’s obviously because of you,” she spat, “Michael is always upset because of you, William. Do you think he’d be crying out of nowhere if you were around more?”

She did have a point; ultimately, a lot of Michael’s anguish did stem from William’s withdrawal. The man knew that, of course. Honestly, he enjoyed knowing that Michael was still so affected by him, especially in the midst of his remoteness. It meant that Michael still felt things for him, positive or painful. But he smiled cruelly as he caught onto Clara’s mistake.

“Out of nowhere, is it?” William inquired, “So it isn’t odd that he happened to cry while giving his dear mother a massage while she enjoys the television?”

He could hear her teeth grinding, see her eyes flaring with hot anger and embarrassment. Michael looked down, ashamed but strangely relieved at the same time to finally have someone else see it and point it out.

“Tell me, Clara,” William said, calm and steady.

“Tell you what?” Clara snapped.

“Don’t raise your tone with me,” the man said, his voice lowering to a firmer, colder shade, “You will tell me how long has this little arrangement of yours been going on. Now.”

Fearing a messy outcome, possibly even divorce, Michael finally found his words again. “F-Father, it’s okay, it isn’t a big d–”

“Michael,” William said, so softly it made his son’s breath catch, “Don’t worry. Let your father handle this.”

William had to try extremely hard not to grin with delicious pleasure, seeing how something in Michael just melted and grew still at his gentle reassurance. With every little interaction, today especially, William started to feel more and more how deeply he and his beloved boy were still affected by each other, albeit in different ways. But it undoubtedly remained a two way street; distance had done nothing but intensify the feelings they kept within themselves towards each other. That much was clear.

On the other hand, Clara was fuming at the word ‘arrangement’ particularly. Contrary to her husband’s true nature, she didn’t consider herself a conniver or someone who ‘planned’ things in a malicious way. The insinuation that she had set herself up to use Michael for her own convenience for years felt like the most cutting insult and worst accusation she ever felt in her life.

The insults closest to the truth tended to hurt the most. But she wasn’t about to let herself realize it, among all the other things she buried about herself, William and their entire family.

“How…how dare you…!” Clara yelled, rising to her feet and trembling with fiery rage, fists clenched at her sides as she furiously gazed up at her unperturbed husband. “I would never! You’re the one who makes ‘arrangements’, you goddamned manipulative, selfish son of a–!”

“Clara,” William cut in with a coldness that could freeze a crowded room, “Tell me how long. Now.”

Both Michael and Clara went still as statues for a long moment, although Clara was far from quelled. Her chest heaved with hot breaths, her frame shaking faintly with outrage.

“You want an exact date? Because I don’t have one,” she seethed tightly, barely restraining her inferno, “How about a little after you started acting like your only job around here is to be a fucking checkbook?!”

William’s eyes darkened. Not so much because he gave a damn about her accusation–he knew what he had and hadn’t done, for arguably good reason–but because of the confirmation that his boy had been doing things like this for his mother for roughly ten years, give or take. And if Michael had done that, what else had he resigned himself to doing and enduring from her?

The possessive rage heated back up inside William’s chest like a hellish furnace. It felt insulting, on top of it all. Here he was, restraining himself from even being near Michael for long, using his work to keep his thoughts and obsessive desires in check, and his wife had been getting this comfortable with having the boy treat her all along, under his roof? With his Michael?

The man was well aware that his own choice of absence had allowed it to happen, for the most part. That wasn’t the point. The point was, no one was supposed to use or be that close to Michael but William, period. Not even if his sweet boy had only ever given himself to his family just to help keep them from falling apart any further. William could not care any less if the rest of the family fell apart, or even if it hurt Michael to let it happen.

“Come here, darling,” William coaxed gently, shifting his attention towards Michael again. There was a bit of fear in his glittering eyes, but William had no intent to punish him. He slowly stood up and stepped over to his father, as if moving too quickly or breathing too much would evaporate any of the gentleness he was being shown. Resisting the urge to grab Michael and kiss him senseless, William softly, firmly rested his hands on his boy’s slightly trembling shoulders.

Even though he didn’t know what to expect, Michael found himself shakily exhaling, his shoulders slumping in something like relief to simply feel his father’s strong, slender hands holding him in place, regardless of what it might lead to. Being called darling again by William was incredibly nostalgic and unfathomably comforting.

William had to bite the inside of his cheek so hard to control himself that he could taste the blood mixing into the saliva pooling in his mouth. He could only hope his self-control and physical pain would prevent his pants from getting too obviously tight in front of his wife and son.

“Are you alright?” William asked him softly, daring to push his control even further and lightly running his fingers through his son’s soft, tousled locks.

Michael had almost said yes just to try appeasing his mother and to prevent further conflict, but the question combined with the unexpected touch made his boyish figure shiver, his eyes faintly fluttering as another tear fell. He had longed for this for years.

“...No,” Michael said, soft and shaky, breaking all over again in a quieter manner. He lowered his face again, trembling as he tried to stifle his urge to cry, fighting to keep his hands tight at his sides. He wanted to hug his father so badly, but he feared ruining what he was finally getting.

All the while, William ignored the way Clara’s eyes flared with something like anger and betrayal, as if Michael admitting to his father of all people that he wasn’t okay offended her greatly. William would have felt more smug if he wasn’t trying to keep his face from looking utterly manic with pure delight at feeling and seeing Michael in this honest state, so perfectly broken, aching and desperate. He had wanted to see his soft little boy lose his polite, weary and reluctantly guarded exterior and drink in everything that spilled out of him, and now it was happening.

The man almost wanted to thank his wife for the part she unwittingly played in making one of his secret wishes come true.

Feeling his own hands nearly squeeze Michael’s slender shoulders too hard, William caught himself, forcing his grip to merely remain firm as his other hand left the hair he craved to grab a fistful of to instead wipe a tear away from those beautiful blue eyes. He could feel how Michael was straining to not hug him, and while it made William feel a heady euphoria to see the depth of his son’s need for him, he couldn’t allow himself to go there again. Not when he was on the verge of losing his own mind with a familiar possessive ecstasy he had felt to a dangerous intensity exactly twice in the past.

“Go on to bed now, Michael,” William murmured, outwardly calm and soothing, his blood hot and racing, “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine, I promise you that.”

Michael looked about ready to shatter into a million exquisite pieces. His lower lip quivered with barely withheld emotion as he gazed up at his father, his big, lovely eyes swelling endlessly with warm tears. The man was absolutely enamored, his pupils dilating at the sight before him. If Michael didn’t leave in the next few seconds, William couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t snap and take hold of that gentle, pained face to lick up and swallow down every tear he saw.

He nearly winced and grimaced from the restraint of his own pure need as Michael finally broke away, William’s ears ringing as he heard quiet, stifled sobs and those fast, light footsteps moving away behind him to go up the stairs. Everything in him screamed to forget all reason and go after him, take what had always been and would always be his in the most intimate ways possible–

But god damn it all, the fucking risks were too high and too many.

Channeling his frustration into a more productive outlet, William waited until he heard the door to Michael’s room shut upstairs, his intense eyes locked on Clara’s burning green ones and his body taut as a bow. Then, he stepped forward, looking straight down at her.

“Whatever you’ve been doing with my son,” William said, low and sharp, “You will not do it again. Do you understand me, Clara?”

“That’s not fair, William,” Clara insisted, her anger and indignation mingling with frustration and subtle fear, “He’s my son, too, and you don’t understand what–”

Not choking her felt like a Herculean effort. He knew she had always been headstrong and outspoken, but since when had she gotten this bold and mouthy towards him? Clearly, his distance had given her more leeway to feel like she could get away with it. Yet another unintended, unsavory side effect. William wondered what else he might find in his own house after ten years of living most of his life outside of it, if he just stuck around a bit more and looked closer.

As Michael cried in his room, staining his pillow with tears resulting from his torrent of mixed emotions, part of him couldn’t help feeling afraid (and morbidly curious) over what his father would have done if had seen how Elizabeth had acted towards him earlier. Maybe then, he’d be able to know if he was just imagining her behavior being unsettlingly intimate or not.

Then again, he didn’t know that William interpreted even normal, friendly levels of closeness of anyone towards Michael as a problem. He wasn’t exactly an unbiased judge, despite being capable of being detachedly objective.

“You don’t understand, Clara,” William interrupted icily, “My distance is not your excuse to use my son as your substitute for me, or for whatever you feel you’re not getting. Michael is not your servant, your boyfriend, or your husband.”

This had to be the most like a proper father he had sounded like in years. William knew he was being a massive hypocrite, considering the things he desired to have, take from and be with Michael, but he never could be bothered to care about that. Getting what he wanted had always taken priority regardless of principles and consistency, and now, he wanted to ensure Michael went completely uncoerced into being intimately servile to his own mother.

Clara's eyes went wide, struck into stunned silence by his mercilessly precise, cutting words, William pulling no punches. They touched past her tough wall of dismissal and denial, rendering her still and pale as the implication of what she had been doing sank in.

Sadistically satisfied, William felt smug with the impact and accuracy of his assessment. Her reaction spoke volumes to confirm what suspicions he had gleaned from just seeing her and Michael on the couch earlier.

“I give you enough allowance to go to any spa you like, my dear,” William continued after a quiet moment of tension, his voice and smile serpentine, steel eyes cruel and cold, “Unless there’s a certain reason why it has to be Michael soothing your aches?”

He really shouldn't have been one to talk, but it didn't matter to him; Clara’s eyes finally began to water, her lips and shoulders trembling. There she was, the fragile, hurting, painfully sensitive little girl he married beneath the brash, emotionally avoidant and outspoken woman she had become.

“...I didn’t mean anything…” she whined weakly, her voice breaking as tears fell, “Why–why would you say that…?”

William felt pleasure from seeing her like that, but it wasn’t like the bliss he felt with Michael earlier. This pleasure was more common, the sort he’d feel when he’d see the soured faces of his competitors after their businesses had closed, when he exploited the upper hand in financial dealings and saw the pain in the other party’s expressions, or when the lawsuits filed against him fell through and he saw the frustrated and defeated faces of those who had made their claims. A pleasure more akin to cold victory over an obstacle.

“I know it hurts, Clara,” William cooed, wrapping his arms around her just to twist the knife, “But try to think about Michael the way you wish I would, hmm? He has feelings, too. Even if you’d rather not see them.”

Something inside Clara snapped, and she choked out a strangled breath, breaking into loud sobs like she had the day her 13 year old self had rushed to him in tears, begging him to let her stay at his house and not make her go back to her parents. Coincidentally, the same day she pleaded for William to marry her after they had been together for a few months. He had even gone to her parents house afterwards to ask for their blessing, just out of curiosity, and it never ceased to amuse him how they had actually let it happen.

Indeed, it had been many decades since he had seen her this broken. Satisfying as it surprisingly still was, William much preferred Michael’s pain and crying. Hell, he preferred Michael in general.

“I hate you…!” she sobbed, weakly trying and failing to push herself out of his arms, “This–this is all y-your fault…! I love Michael! I–I would never…!”

The man had to hold back two urges; to chuckle in amusement, and to roll his eyes. Even now, the denial still lingered. But that was okay. He still wanted her functional enough to keep taking care of the kids and the house, and herself for that matter, so if a little denial kept her going, he’d allow it. As long as she didn’t overstep his invisible lines again.

He spent a few hours into the night coaxing and crooning, getting her back to where he liked her to be just as he had in the past when she first lost her patience with his distance and broke into tears after he held her and ‘apologized’. Once again, she fell back into the same pattern, the same old trap, rather than truly use her grit to change things and break away from him, kids in tow. Not like he would ever make it easy for her, especially if she ever dared to try and take Michael away.

As the night ticked by and Clara’s crying faded into exhausted sleep, William simply carried her up to bed and set her down to rest. While he got himself ready for bed around 3am, a thought he had been considering for years became more solid and certain in his mind.

The house was long overdue for the installation of hidden security cameras…everywhere, inside and out.

Chapter Text

William and Michael were inseparable, from the moment the boy was born.

Regardless of the ten year distance that William put between them, the mutual connection never faded, only growing and shifting. Adapting the way a flower might to being deprived of nutrients, removed from sunlight and left to survive in a darker, colder place.

Most times, the uprooting and pruning of closeness made most parent-child relationships wither.

The roots connecting William and Michael, however, were too deep for either of them to be able to ever stop feeling. And the more they lacked each other, the deeper those roots grew in longing for more, to return to the thriving state once present in the past, or something like it. Something they could both live off of without feeling their own versions of lack and hunger festering within them every day.

The question of why William had decided to mostly sever himself, on a surface level, from the mutual fulfillment between him and his firstborn was in the interest of selfishness and longevity.

June 21st, ten years prior. It was the afternoon of Michael Afton’s sixth birthday.

William opened the front door to his house, his ever present calm smile gracing his lips while he got settled in. A sense of something like contentment had become a familiar feeling to him, and to his pleasant surprise, it required no satisfying violence. This indescribable fullness in his chest, a place that had either been numb or racing with fire in the heat of darker impulses, was unlike anything he had ever felt in his life.

One would imagine it was because he reached a point where he arguably had it all; he was handsome and intelligent, already showing signs of success and drawing the interest and funds of investors in the new venture he created with his friend and partner, Henry Emily. He had an enviable house and car, a devoted, beautiful wife, and a perfect son.

The truth was, only one thing out of all of them had been able to blossom these inexplicable, addictive feelings inside of him, a man who seemed set for a life of charming, hollow masquerades and secretly enacted tastes for sadism and bloodshed; his little boy, Michael.

Despite his eloquence and intellect, William couldn’t quite explain how he had come to feel such foreign, intense feeling of possessiveness and adoration. Nothing had ever created those states within himself. Not even his wife Clara, as desirable and committed as she was. He felt ownership over her, appreciated her strong yet easy to predict and control nature, her shared appreciation for the finer things in life. She was loyal, forgoing her youth’s aspirations for ballet for the shiny prospect of living the ideal American dream with her ‘catch’ of a husband.

But he would not be broken in the slightest if he lost her. Nor did he truly feel any deep attachment to her or adoration. William’s feelings–or lack of thereof–for everything else paled in comparison to what his beloved child sparked in his blackened soul.

William strolled into the kitchen, holding a wrapped gift behind his back as he noted Clara leaning against the counter with that weary, slightly strained smile she had started to have over time. He could spare a guess as to what might have caused it, yet he preferred the self-involved bliss of basking in his satisfaction and warm sensations constantly filling his body and mind over his child to care. As long as she didn’t start to uncharacteristically give him issues or get in the way of the things he wanted most, William had no hesitation continuing to play the charming, oblivious husband.

“Afternoon, dear,” William smiled, his mind on the moment he would see Michael run up to him as always, as he planted a kiss on her lips, “Where’s my little darling? Not still sleeping in, is he?”

Clara accepted the kiss, but she neither relaxed nor returned it. Her arms remained tightly folded over her chest, her mouth drawn in a firm line like she wanted to say something.

The first pregnancy had helped fill out her figure nicely, William casually observed, aloof to her tension, setting the gift behind his back down on the counter for a moment as he filled a glass with water to sip. She managed to retain her slimness, while her hips grew curvier and her chest had grown more buxom. With her genes keeping her looking youthful (though she was by no means old, still being under thirty), Clara still very much looked like the determined, useful, loyal and ultimately naive girl that married him at thirteen.

While he hid his smirk in his glass, she finally gathered her usually strong nerve to voice her unease.

“No, he’s in his room, but he’s not sleeping,” she said in a sigh, taking a breath.

“Will, there’s…something we should talk about,” Clara said, weary and clearly trying to be gentle. Unusual for her, William noted mentally. She had become a bold, slightly unfiltered young woman over time, so he imagined whatever she had to say was actually making her think first for once.

“And what might that be, Clara?” William asked, his expression and smile calm and easy as he idly swirled the water in his crystal glass. He couldn’t wait to see Michael’s precious little face light up when he saw him, as it did every time, and when he gave him his birthday present–

“It’s about Michael,” Clara made herself say, and his hand stopped its subtle movement, “Michael and…you.”

Sparing a moment away from fixated thoughts of his boy and the flash of something familiarly dark in his chest, William couldn’t say he was completely surprised by what her ‘concern’ would likely be. The last six years had seen William shift much of his focus at home to Michael, spending countless hours with the child to dote, play and care for him as much as he could get away with. He needed to be near Michael as long as he could, to the point where he often considered telling Henry to take over the business for a while–the business that was one of William’s rare pride and joys–just so he could stay at home with his son all day, everyday. Clara didn’t have any issues with working, as long as William gave her a convincing reason to get back to the workhorse tendencies of her youth.

Indeed, Michael had that much sway over his father. William would have laughed in the past if he’d been told he’d genuinely consider putting his business interests on the backburner and let his wife venture out independently for the sake of being an adoring stay-at-home father. But here he was, with no complaints.

Though now, he did feel a less common flicker of displeasure in his guts.

“Michael and I,” William repeated, nodding slowly as if he was processing it and didn’t immediately dismiss her in his head, “What about us, Clara?”

Clara might have been more of a doer than a deep thinker, but she wasn’t utterly stupid. She had always known that William was the one she ultimately deferred to and followed, even at times when she may have disagreed with him. In addition, she knew how close and mutually adoring her husband and son were, and how neither of them would be happy with what she was going to push for. Clara was well aware that William, of all people, would not take lightly to being told what he should do when it came to things he found important.

But she was only saying what she thought was best. All she could hope is that her husband and son would understand.

“...I’m not saying it’s a horrible thing, but–”

William caught a glimpse of a small, familiar little boy starting to come down the stairs. Michael paused, his big blue eyes locking with his father’s slightly widened silver gaze, and suddenly William felt the displeasure and tension in his chest as well as his calculated focus on how to handle Clara fade instantly. The child’s precious, gentle face glowed as if he hadn’t seen William in weeks, though he had just seen him this morning before he left for work, and a beaming smile spread over his lips.

“Daddy!” Michael perked up, carefully but quickly heading down the rest of the stairs and rushing over, leaping up into William’s outstretched arms as the man instinctively kneeled down to embrace him. Clara felt her heart twist bittersweetly, trying to hide the mix of weary tenderness, guilt and a subtle grimace from appearing too obviously on her expression.

“There you are, Michael,” William crooned, soft and adoring, almost feeling relief spread through him like his entire being couldn’t rest unless his boy was in his grasp, “My little birthday boy.”

Michael giggled, his small arms wrapped around William’s neck and his legs drawn around his father’s slender waist as the man hoisted him up off the floor. He rubbed his soft, squishy cheek against his father’s lavender dress shirt clad, broad chest, and William chuckled warmly, holding Michael close and carding the fingers of his free hand through the boy’s soft chocolate locks.

They were the picture of a closely bonded, deeply loving father and son.

Meanwhile, Clara stood on the outside, her brows creasing with tension and hands tightening on her crossed arms. She chewed her lip, trying to be tactful, strategic, which never came easily to her. This was simply too big of a deal to not tread lightly, however.

Looking up brightly, Michael met his father’s warm gaze with the same. The possessiveness that Michael’s existence planted inside William thrummed with intense delight, like he was buzzed in the best way possible. A way he never even thought possible for him, considering his self-awareness of who and what he really was. Yet, it seemed Michael had added a new component to William. Maybe he could be an honest to God, good father after all.

“You’re not going to ask where your gifts and cake are, love?” William murmured warmly, grinning down at his boy. Michael giggled softly again, the sound and sight and feel of him sending waves of pure pleasure through him.

Clara briefly shut her eyes, because of how hard she continually realized saying her piece was going to be. Her jaw worked, tense and tight. William barely glanced at her. He didn’t care.

“No, Daddy,” Michael answered, flashing a blindingly innocent, big smile, “I have everything I want already.”

William knew his son was a sweet child, never causing problems or being demanding. He was the perfect kid, full of warmth, considerate, respectful and appreciative. So pure, so loving.

He knew, yet he could never be prepared for the way it always hit him so hard and took his breath away every time he was faced with it.

The man’s otherwise unflappable heart skipped, and with a slight catch in his breath, he squeezed Michael tighter to himself, burying his face in his boy’s soft t-shirt covered shoulder. His pulse pounded in a manner that only his son could make it pound. It was overwhelming, yet so incredible. William could never get enough of it.

“My baby boy,” William nearly whispered, his mind too preoccupied with heady, possessive joy to give a damn about how Clara’s expression kept getting wearier, “You’re such a gift, Michael.”

Michael smiled wider, his childlike giggles and laughs sounding out like music as his little arms squeezed his father back. “Daddy, that tickles!”

William was absolutely smitten, so enamored could spend eternity like this. Clara couldn’t hold her tongue anymore, and she finally spoke up again, her tentative tactfulness slipping a bit.

“William, can I talk to you in your office for a minute?” Clara said, closer to her usual louder and somewhat forceful way of speaking. She was still being mostly careful and not losing all her cool, but the tension radiated from her more visibly.

After a moment of inner annoyance and trying to come back down from his pleasant high, William exhaled and collected himself, externally calm when he lifted his head and looked at her again. Michael continued to hold onto his father just as the man held onto him, but he too turned his big, soft eyes to his mother in quiet attention.

Clara couldn’t find it in her to say what she needed to say in front of her son. She took a deep breath, fighting to keep her nerve. “...Michael, I just need to talk to Daddy for a little, okay?” she said more gently, though the weariness remained. Clara stepped forward to caress his warm cheek, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure if she just saw William imperceptibly move Michael backwards a tiny degree.

“But…he just came home…” Michael said, soft and a smidge dimmed, though not quite resisting. He loved being around William as much as possible, but he also loved his mother, and was too good-natured to want to give her a hard time.

William bit the inside of his cheek, trying to keep himself in check while his eyes remained glued to his boy, as if trying to steal every second of seeing him before he had to let him go. Clara noticed her husband's intense stare on him, making her heart clench along with Michael’s little voice and sad face.

“I know, baby,” Clara replied quietly, withdrawing her hand–had William just untensed a bit?-- “But it’s important. Me and Daddy will talk, and we’ll come right back, okay?”

Both William and Clara knew Michael didn’t want to acquiesce. While they both felt pain in their chest (albeit for different reasons), William also ached with adoration. The knowledge that his son didn’t like to depart from him, specifically, was a sharp delight twisting in his heart.

He momentarily wondered how okay Michael would be in the scenario where his parents ever divorced. Something told William his sensitive son would eventually be alright, as long as he stayed with his Daddy.

With a reluctant but relenting nod, Michael looked up at his father from where he sat in his arms still, his hands unclasping from around his neck to gently hold onto the front of the man’s dress shirt. William got an eyeful of that beautiful, soft and longing little face tilted up towards him, and he felt the urge to drink it all in. It almost felt intimate, more so than when Clara would be in a similar position (less commonly nowadays), her body and hands pressed up against his chest while looking up at him softly and wearily, awaiting a kiss. But that had just felt like playing a part to William, holding and kissing her because she needed to believe he was passionate about her.

This felt nothing like obligation or performance.

There was nothing disingenuous about the way William wanted to get lost in his son’s blue irises, to let his own hungry eyes linger a few seconds longer on Michael’s small, pouty lips and lean in to–

Teeth set on edge behind his outwardly calm face, William made himself plant a kiss a few inches to the left of where he really wanted to leave one, instead landing on his son’s warm, soft cheek.

God, even that felt too risky, too intense. He barely managed to pull away and set Michael down on the floor, resisting the need to gently graze his teeth over that plush flesh.

“We won’t be long,” William murmured, hushed and soft, his hand lightly squeezing Michael’s shoulder. The boy nodded a bit, then gave his parents one more look before turning away to sit on the living room couch in wait.

The man’s skin on his fingertips ached as he forced himself to let his soft little boy go. He swallowed silently, tearing his eyes away and masking his impatient displeasure with Clara. Clara exhaled deeply, running her hand over her face as she followed William to his home office, gathering her nerve for the impending discussion.

Once inside, William wordlessly shut the door and sat at his desk, watching his wife with external calm yet firm focus, bringing his rational mind back down to earth to calculate his responses carefully.

“Go on,” he said, level and expectant. The man already anticipated what she might say, and he steeled himself to rein in the unpleasant reaction he knew he would feel.

Clara didn’t sit on the seats in front of his desk or get more comfortable. If anything, she only grew more tightly wound.

“...Like I said, I think we need to talk about you and Michael,” Clara said, slow and tense, “I’m not saying it’s a horrible problem, but you two are really…attached, William.”

William was smart and self-aware enough to know what issues she likely had with it. That by no means meant he was going to make this easy for her.

“We are,” he said calmly, “What might be the issue with that, dear?”

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “William, let’s not do this. I know you’re too smart to not know what I’m talking about.”

His wife was a bold woman in many ways, but where did this blunt attitude towards him come from?

She was that bothered, was she now?

William would dig a little, unearth whether her ‘concerns’ were sourced from genuine worry or something else.

“Perhaps I do know,” he replied smoothly, “But I would understand even better if you were a bit more specific, Clara.”

The man held back a smug smirk as he witnessed her tension and fretting increase. Clara was growing more restless. She was never very good at explaining herself. Never comfortable with it, either, even after so many years together.

“I just…think that you and Michael should be little less…” she attempted, her brows furrowing as she tried to find the right words, “You should give him a little more…space.”

His inner amusement fell into a black pit. He anticipated she would say something like that, but hearing it, seeing that his wife had the audacity to say such a thing made something hot flare in his chest.

“...More space,” he repeated, with a trace of disdain, his slender fingers tapping gently against his desk, “And why would you think that, Clara?”

She sighed again, running her hand through her strawberry blonde locks as if mustering the words was taking significant effort. “Because, it’s not…good for Michael,” she said tensely.

William had to pause and stare at her, briefly unable to hide his deadpan reaction.

“How is it ‘not good’ for Michael?” he said, still calm but a hint flat. Was that really the excuse she was running with?

Clara shifted her weight, looking at him with weary strain. “I know he’s happy being so close to you, but he can’t grow up if he’s constantly thinking about you and being so attached to you,” she insisted. William separately felt deeply satisfied by her words, besides his irritation; she was basically admitting that Michael spent most of his time thinking about and gravitating towards him rather than her. “He’s…he’s going to have to start school soon. What if he can’t stand going out and being on his own because you– we, can’t be there with him?”

Internally, William delighted at the idea of his darling boy being unwilling to go anywhere where his father couldn’t easily go to be with him. He had to channel his satisfied smirk into a calm, faint smile.

“Clara, I understand what you mean, but you’re too worried, my dear,” William replied, masking his smugness, “Michael already spends at least eight hours away from me while I’m working, and he’s home with you daily without being overly clingy to you. School won’t be much different for him. And you know he’s a good boy, even if he can be sensitive. He won’t throw a fit, even if he misses us.” Misses me.

His counterargument clearly didn’t appease her. He figured that it wouldn’t, because school and Michael’s ability to adjust to a bit more separation wasn’t her real issue. William could practically see it written all over her face.

She fidgeted and squirmed, struggling with herself. A mockingly fond smile almost crossed his lips. Clara looked so much like her thirteen year old self, the little girl who never felt comfortable voicing her deeper vulnerabilities and feelings. Her parents truly did a number on her, whether they meant to or not. Made her so easy to read.

“...You focus on each other a lot,” she said, in a rare, small voice. He knew what she wanted to say was too much.

This was incredibly nostalgic. But if he didn’t say it for her, Michael’s birthday would be missed today.

“Are you saying you feel…” William hummed, as if he had to think about it, “...neglected, Clara?”

A flash of guilt and vulnerability rooted in deep childhood scars swept over her face, as well as defensiveness. “No, William,” she said, sounding more like an indignant teenage girl, “I just–I don’t feel neglected, I just…”

As entertaining as this was, he was starting to get bored with her. William wanted to get back to Michael, already. “Just tell me what you want, Clara,” he said, calm and gentle.

She grew more antsy. “I don’t want anything, William,” she said, like it was a selfish taboo to simply admit that she did, “You know what I’m trying to say.”

Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. What did she want, exactly? More time together, like they hadn’t already spent the better part of a decade or so together before Michael? With how much she often struggled to clearly define her thoughts, being more of a concrete doer, William considered that she might not really know how to describe what she wanted either.

William smoothly stood up from his desk. “I understand you have something important and difficult to say, dear. But today is Michael’s birthday. Perhaps we can save this for tomorrow, hmm?” he said, calm and level, beginning to walk out from behind his desk to leave the office and take his little boy into his arms–

One of which Clara had suddenly gripped at the wrist to stop him. She was just full of surprises today.

“Clara, what–”

“I’m your wife,” she said quickly, twinged with a small desperation.

William paused, looking at her. Clara could be so childlike when it came to expressing herself.

“...You are, dear,” William said slowly. “You’re a very good wife.”

Her green eyes shifted into a sort of innocent hunger or need. One she likely wasn’t aware of.

“Then you should be spending more time with me,” she finally blurted out, sounding nearly uncertain.

At least she spit it out. Not that he could honestly give a fuck.

“I know, Clara,” William explained gently, “But you also know how busy I am now, getting my new venture off the ground with Henry. Spending time with Michael when I come home keeps me going for all of us, dear.”

He could easily divide his time between his wife and son more equally if he wanted to. If.

“Yes, but what about me, William?” Clara said, not letting go of his wrist yet. “I’m here, too. You don’t spend any time with me anymore. It’s been like that since Michael was born.”

Oh, so she did actually notice something more. Although she seemed to miss what else that really meant. Why he was obsessed with spending as much time as he could near the child.

William was tempted to smile and say that they were spending time together right now, but he put that immature, snickering urge away. “That’s not true, dear. You speak as if you never see me.”

He specifically recalled planting a kiss on her lips when he came home earlier. She hadn’t exactly taken the chance to take it further…then again, he probably would have told her to settle down so he could focus on Michael, anyway.

“I do see you, but I–I want more than that,” she said, desperate and flustered with childish guilt, “I don’t want to just…take care of the house and Michael all day, and watch you two be together while I stand on the sidelines. I’m supposed to be closer to you.”

Again, while William understood her on an intellectual level, his inner humor at her fretting fell sharply. How dare she? She had the luxury of staying home to be with Michael and care for him. Clara had no idea that she was living William’s dream.

The man’s expression grew a degree cold. “Clara…I work every day to provide this good life for us, and when we decided to have a child, we agreed that I would keep working while you would stay here and take care of them. I’m aware that I lean towards Michael often, but I’ve done nothing to stop you from being ‘closer’ to me.”

“You don’t get it,” Clara said, pain appearing alongside her desperation and fluster, “You come here, Michael goes straight to you, you go straight to him, and I just–” her eyes grew glassy, “I don’t feel like I have any room to join either of you, when you’re together. It’s like you just forget about me!”

William would have laughed internally at how right, yet how oblivious to how right she really was, about her not being given the room and him forgetting about her. But he began to lose patience with her. He restrained himself from saying something cutting and gently but firmly unwrapped her hand from around his wrist.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but it simply isn’t true, Clara,” he lied evenly, “You know Michael and I both love you. There’s nothing holding you back from initiating or being closer.”

“Yes, there is,” she insisted, “You can’t see it because you’re not on the outside. What if I spent all my time with Michael and barely any with you?”

He fractionally frowned with displeasure, but only because he would never allow her to steal away his little boy like that. And honestly, William could go without spending time with Clara. Though he supposed that was her fear. Here he thought that her biggest concern was strictly how attached he was to his son, that she might have finally grown rightfully suspicious and concerned.

But then again, he couldn’t be too surprised. He had known Clara since she was thirteen. Deep down, she was always this desperate little girl, painfully sensitive, afraid of being ‘selfish’ yet wanting things to be just so to suit her needs, to have things her way.

“Even if you did that, I would just pull you aside so we can discuss our relationship maturely,” he lied again, looking her in the eyes with a subtle tone of an adult exasperated with a child, “You’re an adult, Clara. There’s no reason for you to wait on the sidelines for an invitation.”

Clara grit her teeth, her eyes watering and hands tight at her sides. He hadn’t seen her so close to crying in quite some time. It might have been more entertaining if the subject wasn’t so touchy for William. “An invitation? Is that what you think I’m waiting for? You’re my husband. You’re supposed to be the one ‘initiating’ with me, not making your wife feel like she has to wait for the right chance and chase you!”

“Keep your voice down,” William said, low and firm, “Michael will hear you. I won’t have you upsetting him. Not on his birthday.”

“There you go again, always putting him first,” Clara said bitterly, her tears finally pooling enough to fall. William wanted to slap her.

“He’s my son,” he said sharply, his composure slipping a bit as he squared his broad shoulders, steel eyes piercing down at her, “You want me to put you over Michael? Is that it?”

“I want you to act like you still want me!” Clara snapped, her voice cracking, but she didn’t back down as her emerald eyes burned, “I know he’s our son, but you can’t just spend all your time off with him and tell me I’m ‘free to join you’!”

“You’re being irrational, Clara,” William said tightly, a dark anger spreading fire in his chest as he fought the urge to speak more cruelly, “You’ve had all this time since Michael was born to talk about what you ‘need’, and rather than handle it like an adult, you’re choosing six years later on our son’s birthday to finally unload like a child throwing a tantrum. You know better.”

Clara’s stinging eyes flared in insulted, hurt outrage. “You–you think I had any time or energy left to have a full discussion with you?!” she yelled, her voice cracking and rising, “You have no idea what it’s been like for me, staying here alone all these years, doing nothing but taking care of this house and our son! You just go out and work, enjoying your business events and acting like I barely exist when you come home! And I just stayed here, not saying anything just so I wouldn’t give you a hard time! Did you ever stop to ask me if I’m struggling?!”

William stared at her, debating how much of his temper he could get away with losing.

“What exactly do you want me to give you?” William asked after a long, tense silence only filled with Clara’s heaving breaths, low and cold.

“I told you,” she said, pained and tight, “I want you to act like you remember I’m your wife.”

“And what does that mean?” he asked sharply, “Stop being vague and tell me, Clara.”

She fretted again, her teary red face growing anxious and hotter. “I…I just want you to…” she trailed off, her voice going small and shaky again.

Really? William thought. All this, over what? Sex?

“Clara,” William said, dead serious and not at all amused, “Are you telling me you want more romance? More intimacy?”

Judging by the way her mouth opened and closed, how she suddenly couldn’t meet his eyes and just squirmed where she stood, it appeared he landed the mark.

The effort it took not to roll his eyes was considerable.

“Well?” he said, “Don’t just fret like you haven’t already been to bed with me. Use your words.”

“What is wrong with you?” Clara strained, face scorching, “This is exactly what I’m talking about! Why are you talking to me like that? You never made me feel like I had to stand here and humiliate myself trying to ask you for these things before Michael was born!”

Admittedly, William had lost most of his interest in her, sexually and otherwise, after Michael graced his life. Spending time with the boy was just that much more satisfying than sleeping with his attractive wife. That, and her current attitude was only making any trace of willing desire or lust he had left for her dip into the negatives.

“I’m asking you to tell me what you want, Clara,” William said, stepping closer to gaze down at her intensely. “You wanted me to listen. I’m listening. You’re my wife, as you said. You’re also a grown woman. One who I’ve known to be far more outspoken than this.”

She was often vocal and expressive, but she wasn’t used to being the one initiating things, romantically or sexually, despite being the one who was desperate to be in a committed relationship with him. In the past, William would just…always make the first move, in his smooth, charming ways. Clara hadn’t realized how much she actually enjoyed those things until he slowly stopped doing them after Michael joined their lives.

Clara looked up at him, flustered and indignant. “Y-you already know what I want, how specific do I have to be?!” she protested, “I swear, it’s like you don’t even want me like that anymore, either! You’re too happy being a bigshot with your work and Michael’s father to want me in any way, is that it?!”

William had at least given her a chance. He might not have followed through with what he gave her the room to ask for, but he gave her the impression of a chance. Frankly? He was over this.

“If you’d rather keep complaining rather than be a woman and say what you really need, then clearly, you’re not ready to have this conversation,” William said, cold and exasperated.

Being as she had already allowed herself to become this painfully vulnerable, his response only made her feel like he had slapped her. Clara knew he had to be aware of how sensitive she could be when she tried to open up; the fact that he no longer treated her with the charm and initiative she was once used to only sent her reeling.

True to her bold, action oriented yet emotionally volatile and foresight-lacking nature, Clara did something before she thought it through once again.

Her burning, wet emerald eyes and chest flared with hurt and fire, and her palm cracked over William’s cheek hard.

William’s face, at the side it had snapped to towards his desk, went deathly still and silent.

His mind was nearly blank. As fractions of a second passed, he felt the old familiar urge to cause excruciating pain to another human being, far beyond what could be considered proportional retribution. Never in all their time together did William seriously feel one moment away from killing Clara.

Just as he began to feel the blood rushing hot in his veins in a way that almost felt too good, turning his stinging face forward again to turn his blackened eyes to Clara and reach his hand towards her, they heard a little, wet hiccup.

Both parents instantly shot their wide eyes over to the office door, cracked open a few inches to reveal Michael peeking in, his face contorted in utter sadness and anxious fearfulness, his big blue eyes glistening with falling tears while his lips quivered. He was trying very hard not to cry.

How long had he been there?

William’s violent rage almost peaked at Clara for daring to make his darling boy cry, seeing and hearing what he had, and on his birthday no less. But the inexplicable instinct to forget everything and go to his son triumphed over everything else.

“Michael,” he said, instantly rushing over and kneeling down, putting his hands on his trembling little shoulders. The calming effect he felt from touching Michael was like a stream of cool water into his burning blood. They really could live without Clara, William thought to himself while shifting his hands up to cup the boy’s soft, wet cheeks, thumbs stroking the tears away.

Clara hesitated, yet as she stepped closer behind William, the man shot her an icy, warning glare that froze her where she stood.

Taking a deep breath, William felt the ice melt in his steel eyes as he turned forward to look at Michael again. His son was so achingly precious, even when he was so sad.

“It’s alright, love,” William said, soft and reassuring, his rage out of sight before Michael, “Everything is fine. Don’t cry, darling.”

Michael sniffled, trying to be good and not start weeping. “D-Daddy…” he stammered quietly, making William’s heart twist with pain and affection like nothing else, “Y-you’re hurt…”

How? How was it possible for something to be so sweet and perfect?

“Oh, my little boy,” William breathed, pulling Michael’s little body and face tight into his chest, his strong, slender hands secure on his trembling little back and his head, “Daddy is okay, love. Your mother and I just had a little disagreement, that’s all.”

Clara stood there, still red in the face and glassy eyed, guilty yet strained at seeing the two together again like magnets while she once again felt no right to join. Her anger at her husband hadn’t extinguished, it merely waited beneath the surface, festering.

Meanwhile, Michael shook a little harder, his wet face buried in William’s shoulder and soaking his dress shirt, but…he wasn’t hugging back. A pang of unfamiliar anxiety shot through his father. Why wasn’t he hugging back? He always did.

The boy pulled his face back a little, looking down instead of at William, and the latter stared at him, his mind and pulse racing.

“You…you’re fighting b-because of…me?” Michael trembled, soft and shaky. The notes of shame and guilt William heard from him, for the first time ever, made William finally understand what it felt like to have his heart screaming in agony. “M-Mommy hit you because of…me…”

Despite their conflict, both William’s and Clara's eyes widened in horror. It would be the only moment their emotions were in alignment.

“No, no, baby,” William said, his heart beating painfully hard and fast; was this what panic felt like? “Look at me, Michael. None of this is your fault. Please look at me, darling.”

Quivering all over, Michael’s brows were knit, his little flushed, teary face slowly raising as his glistening, beautiful blue eyes and innocent hurting knocked the air out of William’s lungs.

“...I’m sorry…” Michael barely whispered, his soft voice a broken breeze, “I-I’m…sorry…”

William very nearly could not breathe. He was struck hard by a maelstrom of spinning emotions–excruciating pain, immense adoration, rage, panic, and the swelling in his hammering heart that he could only describe as love. His eyes frantically glanced over Michael’s gentle, aching face, his control almost rendered helpless.

For the first time in his life, William truly had no idea what he would have done, had Michael not made a move he never had before; tear away from his father’s embrace, even though it hurt him, and tearfully run upstairs to his room in misguided, innocent sadness and guilt.

Michael blamed himself. Of course he blamed himself. Why wouldn’t he? He was too soft and sweet to let himself believe that his parents’ fighting wasn’t truly his fault. He’d rather point his finger at himself than them, even on his own birthday.

William remained frozen there for a long few moments, his arms hanging in the air in front of him, feeling the cold absence of Michael and the wet stain on his shoulder burning into his skin.

Slowly, like a machine, William stood up to full height again, his back to Clara. She said nothing, didn’t move an inch.

It had been a long time since he felt himself empty of all emotions, unfeeling and close to inhuman.

He turned around, his expression unreadable as his silver gaze held Clara’s. After another long, deafening silence only faintly disturbed by the distant, muffled sound of Michael stifling his tears upstairs, William wordlessly closed his office door again, this time locking it. The click sent a chill over Clara’s skin, her breath close to being held.

William walked in front of his wife, eyes piercing down at her in a way that made her feel like he was looking inside every component of her being. She stared back up, barely moving a muscle. He could see her jugulars pumping on either side of her throat.

His cold, slender hands came up to touch her shoulders, expressionless as he ghosted his fingers down and rested his palms on her hips. Clara’s face flickered with a hint of anxious confusion…and as William pulled her forward against his body by her curves, a soft gasp escaped her. Her heart thudded against his chest, her skin flushing with nervousness and…another sort of heat.

“...You wanted me, Clara?” William said, his voice soft, though the softness did not reach his eyes, “You want me to make you feel like my woman again?”

Her face flushed a shade darker, her breath and body beginning to shiver faintly. “...William…” she began, torn between subtle anxiety, confusion and growing need, as disoriented as it felt.

The man gently caressed her hips and waist, his handsome face like stoic, cool marble. He seemed to be waiting.

Clara swallowed, feeling a bit dizzy as she realized all over again how attractive the man she had pleaded to marry was. “...N-not…just that…” she said, her eyes growing half closed as her pulse stuttered.

“What else…?” William asked quietly, his deft hands lightly kneading her waist, running slowly over her hips and ass, even as he felt nothing but calculation.

“I…I want…” Clara swallowed again, bracing herself as she dared to place her sweaty palms on his chest, “...I want…another child.”

Was she fucking stupid?

Besides the intimacy, this is what she had truly wanted? Had she not complained earlier about being left in the house to slave and take care of Michael for years? Or was all of that actually fine, as long as she felt like her handsome, successful husband was remembering to give her the ‘ complete package’?

William knew Clara was never much one for deep thought, but he almost wished he could open her up with his tools and try to understand what went on inside her mind. The best he could gather was that as her own parents hadn’t paid her much mind, and as William had fulfilled that absence to her as both a husband and ‘caring’ figure who was now giving his attention to Michael, that she craved his attention back on her. Like the little girl she was, wanting her ‘fatherly’ partner to cater to her whims and needs.

Besides, William himself did not want or need another child. Not when he had the perfect one for him already. If he had any more, he would likely ignore them in favor of Michael, as he already did with his wife. But evidently, Clara either didn’t realize that or didn’t care.

“Another?” William asked softly, hands still gently working up and down her sides, “Why, Clara?”

She swallowed thickly. “I’ve been…wanting it for a while…” she said quietly, “It’ll make us a…better family. We’re both still young, and…I always thought it was better to have more than one kid…with how your…business is going so far, we could…handle it.”

William gazed at her, unreadable and silent. He almost didn’t know what to make of her words. Instead, he asked himself a simple question: would he take spiteful, sick satisfaction in giving her another child to wear herself out with and let her continue to take care of both Michael and this hypothetical second child almost single handedly, just to punish her?

Logistically, she was right; he would be able to afford to. He was sure that his preference for Michael above all would never change. If the money ever got tight–which he doubted–he would always make sure his little boy had what he needed no matter what. William didn’t care if it could mean kicking Clara and whatever other child they had to the curb. That would be her cross to bear, considering how shockingly shallow minded she was now proving to be.

“Are you sure, dear?” William asked gently, the words hollow, but still giving her a chance, “You know that you would have to raise two children while I continue working? That I might have to work even longer hours just to keep us provided for?”

Clara looked down slightly, breathing shakily through parted lips. “...I know…” she said, subdued but unfortunately hopeful, “But…we can do it, William. Having another child…I think it’ll bring us closer again.”

She was so unbelievably wrong. William would prove it to her.

For the next hour, William fucked Clara hard over his desk, his eyes cold as he made sure to give her the intimacy and second child she had wanted when she decided to ruin Michael’s special day and make his little boy cry because of her bullshit. Bullshit, in his surely unbiased opinion, of course.

Clara, misinterpreting his force for passion, remained as in the dark about William’s true nature, his intentions with her and Michael, and lack of love for her, as well as for the child they were about to create.

When he finished, he was sitting back on his office seat, his expression unfeeling and calculating as a trembling, naked, breathless Clara leaned against him on his lap, his dress shirt draped over her. He traced his fingertips over her back, not out of any fondness, but out of a cold sense of ownership over something he would slowly destroy over time.

Without a word, William stood up with her in his arms, gathering the rest of her discarded clothes into her lap and carrying her through the house, up to their master bedroom. He just knew that Michael was still in his room, quiet now. He could feel it, sense the little presence still behind the closed door to his room.

He set Clara down to rest on their large bed and removed his dress shirt from over her, covering her with the sheets merely to keep her body obscured in case Michael walked in later. William promptly cleaned himself up and changed, his face blank and barely moving.

Once he made himself presentable, he left their bedroom and shut the door, walking down the hall to Michael’s room.

“Michael?” William said softly, with a light knock, “May I come in?”

For a moment, there was no sound besides quiet breathing. Perhaps he had fallen asleep.

However, a few seconds later, William heard the sound of sheets rustling, little footsteps padding slowly to the other side of the door, and…slowly, it opened a bit.

Michael peered up at his father, small, soft and weary, still carrying innocent sadness and guilt in his puffy, reddened eyes.

The unfeeling hollowness vanished from William when he saw him again, and he knelt down, warm and gentle again.

“There you are, son,” William cooed, feeling his heart in his chest again, “Can I talk to you, darling?”

Michael wanted to say yes, immediately. But he anxiously glanced around the hall to check for signs of his mother. Partially because he was innocently worried about the earlier argument he had walked in on, the loud, muffled sounds he had heard from his father’s office over the last hour…but also because he wanted to hug his father, and didn’t want his mother to see it since it seemed to make her sad and angry.

William instantly took notice of Michael’s anxious searching, and without missing a beat, he gently took a hold of his boy’s little hand and gave it a soft squeeze to calm him down and get his attention.

"Don’t worry, it's just you and me, Michael," he said softly, "Can Daddy talk to you?"

Michael didn't pull away from his hand; his little one squeezed his father’s back instinctively. "Is...is Mommy okay...?" he asked, his gentle voice a bit raspy from crying.

The man’s heart clenched at hearing the unfamiliar, painful sound of his son’s voice being strained, and his expression instantly became even gentler. William lifted his free hand and ran his fingers through Michael’s silky hair. He gave a soft nod and spoke again, still warm and loving despite the state of complete lack of emotion he had just been in while sealing his wife’s fate with her own wish.

"She's perfectly fine, she just needed to talk with Daddy about something private, and then she needed a nap. Your mother is just as well, darling."

Michael’s weary, big, puffy eyes fluttered a bit at William’s touch, and after a few seconds with another glance just to check if Clara might see them...the boy immediately sprang into his father’s arms, tight and close, with a soft whimper.

And just like that, William’s bliss was restored.

He closed his eyes, wrapping his arms snug around Michael and nuzzling his face into his son’s hair, inhaling and exhaling a deep breath. He felt the childlike scent of apple shampoo fill his lungs and wanted nothing else on earth but to just stay this close, forever.

“I love you, Daddy…” Michael said, soft and shaky, “I’m sorry for crying…”

William’s grip tightened a fraction, his cold heart filling with warm adoration and possessiveness. “I love you too, darling,” he murmured near Michael’s ear, “You don’t need to be sorry for anything. You did nothing wrong.”

Michael sniffled, pulling back a bit to look at his beloved father. “D-do we…have to separate more, now…?” he asked, voice trembling, not fully knowing or liking the implication of the word ‘separate’. It felt like a sad, adult word to him.

At the question, William’s arm pulled Michael back in again, holding him impossibly closer. Almost to the point of pain, yet not quite.

“No, Michael,” William said, his tone a shade darker, “We never have to be separate, darling. I’ll never leave you, and nothing will ever come between us. Nothing.”

The boy made a little sound, like a soft gasp of relief and hope, then sniffled and trembled in his arms, clutching him so tight his little arms and fists hurt.

William’s arms tightened like steel bands around his son, and there was an intense look in his eyes as he securely cradled Michael into his chest. The child broke into soft sobs, his face buried in his father’s shoulder.

“I l-love you, Daddy…” he wept and hiccuped, “I-I love you s-so much, forever, I p-promise…”

Forever.

The rushing swell in William’s chest felt like a beautiful, painful wave of euphoria, and he could only hold Michael even closer as his own heart beat against his ribs. His darkened silver eyes burned with the depth of possession and protectiveness for his boy alone.

He spoke softly, but his deep, firm voice was full of iron-strong promise, "I know you do, darling. I know. And I love you just as much. You are Daddy's favorite over anything, Michael. You're mine. You belong with me. Always."

Michael looked at him, his big blue eyes reddened and wet, tear flooded and loving. Utterly soft and innocent, needful. He breathed in soft, shaky puffs of air and nodded, never breaking eye contact with his father.

William bent his tall frame down further, his face closer to Michael’s, and his hand moved to his son’s cheek, gently caressing it. “My little boy…” he murmured, brimming with deep fondness.

The boy choked out a soft sound, but even as he cried and trembled, a tearful, shaky smile grew over his pouty, quivering lips. Something about it sent a sharp, strangely painful yet sweet twist through William’s heart. He leaned in closer where he knelt, cupping Michael’s soft, wet cheeks in his palms.

"Smile for me, love," he whispered, his tone firm yet gentle, "I want to see you smile. I want to see my little boy smile again. Can you do that for me?"

Michael nodded slightly, holding onto his father with one tight little hand, his other arm rubbing his wet eyes. The boy took a shaky breath, then looked at William with the biggest smile he could muster, his soft blue gems bright and glistening.

There was nothing more beautiful to William.

“Good boy, Michael,” he cooed, soaking in the pure vision before him, “That smile is only for Daddy, isn’t it now?”

His son nodded eagerly and shakily, little hiccuped giggles coming out amidst his shiny tears.

At those precious giggles, William’s heart felt like it was breaking and swelling at the same time. His possessive adoration flared in his dark eyes, and he swiftly hoisted Michael up into his arms again like earlier, like the two always enjoyed. He cradled the boy against his chest, his son’s small arms wrapping tightly around his neck. Michael’s face nuzzled his shoulder, right where he wanted to be.

After a moment of relieving contentedness, Michael glanced up at his father, his expression still a smidge guilty, but also slightly sheepish and happy, like he wanted to say something he knew he probably shouldn’t while being giddy about it.

William smiled fondly, gazing down and caressing his son’s back. “What is it, darling? Do you want to ask me something?”

"N-no..." Michael said, shaky but smiling sheepishly as he giggled, "I...I wanna tell you something, b-but...it's a big secret, Daddy. You can't tell Mommy..."

His father curiously tilted his head, his smile shifting into a playful, warm smirk. “A big secret? You can trust me, Michael. I promise I won’t tell your mother.”

The boy nodded, anxiously but eagerly looked around with his wet, puffy eyes, then shifted to whisper in his father’s ear.

"...I love you more than I love…Mommy..." Michael whispered, innocent and a little shyly guilty as he leaned back to nervously wait for his father’s reaction. William knew his son loved him tremendously, but hearing him say that he loved him more than his own mother...

His eyes widened a bit at the secret declaration, his heart aching in such a strange, but utterly lovely and sharp way at what his beloved little six year old son just admitted. He gently clutched Michael to his chest again, feeling almost overwhelmed by the mixture of feelings stirring in his long-empty heart. But he managed to speak through it, his voice soft and gentle. "Oh, my little love...you don’t know how much I adore you.”

Michael shivered with relief and happiness at his secret being welcomed warmly, giggling a bit despite his aching throat. He reached up to take William’s face in his shaky little hands, and pressed a big, wet kiss to his cheek, looking at him with his glistening blue eyes full of affection.

"I love you more, Daddy," I beamed, innocently adoring and bright.

That something Michael had planted within William kept twisting in writhing in painful pleasure. The man drank it all in and nearly shivered, carrying his little boy into the living room to sit on the couch together, Michael still wrapped in his arms. 

His gift to his son remained on the kitchen counter, the birthday cake was ready in the fridge…it could all wait until later that evening.

Right now, he was coursing with euphoria, and with Clara sleeping off her own exhausting high of pleasure from earlier, Michael was all his to enjoy.

Chuckling lightly, William continued to playfully nuzzle and nip at Michael’s cheeks, feeling the heady bliss from being so close to him in both the physical and emotional sense. The boy squeaked happily, giggling and squirming a little though not in an attempt to get away, he was just enjoying his father’s attention as always.

“You’re mine, darling,” William crooned, his lips curling against Michael’s ears and slender fingers ghosting gently over his son’s sides. Michael giggled and squirmed even from the warm, fuzzy tickling feeling, but there was no desire to escape.

His earlier sadness kept subsiding, replaced with reinvigorated happiness, playfulness and genuine, loving adoration for his father. "You're mine, Daddy," he said back, smiling big as he innocently imitated him.

While William knew on a rational level that Michael was likely just being playful and unknowing, a strong shot went through his guts hearing his boy claim him back without fully realizing it, another blow to his usual inner self-control. A breathless sort of sound left William, and he pulled Michael taut against him once more, nose buried in Michael’s neck as he inhaled that sweet, fresh smell of innocence and the soapy, crisp apple scent.

“That’s right, love,” William murmured, lips lightly grazing his soft skin, “Daddy is all yours.”

Michael giggled happily, shifting up a bit to hug his father’s face into his little chest like a treasured teddy bear, loving and playful, yet also somehow soothing and gentle in a way that was simply innate to his nature. "My daddy," Michael said, softly adoring, childishly oblivious to the rapidly decreasing restraint of his father as he unintentionally fueled his possessive fires, "Only for me." 

A low, tight sound like a stifled growl rumbled in William’s throat, his teeth gritted from the sheer euphoric intensity assaulting his sensibilities with everything Michael innocently did and said. The addictive rush he only ever felt from his son kept hitting a new height, making the blood in his veins scream for more, more of what his boy was giving him, beyond the usual.

Unaware of the danger, Michael giggled and laughed at his father’s growl, feeling it tickle him, and he grinned big, holding his little hands up like claws, cutely imitating his growl with a childlike one of his own like a lion cub.

That impossibly precious sight only made William’s heart hammer harder against his ribcage. He clutched his boy tighter, as if in hopes that he could fill his black soul with Michael’s dazzling light.

He looked at his child with a cocktail of possessiveness, adoration, and something exponentially feral shining in his glinting steel eyes. William nipped Michael’s neck and cheek with his teeth, a playful act that went much deeper than the latter could know yet.

Eternally sensitive no matter how many times William had nipped at him since birth, Michael’s beautiful laughter rang out like sparkling windchimes, tearing up and flushing as he squirmed harder. “Daddy, that tickles!”

William had to stop, leaning back just enough to drink in the view, his strong arms still tight around his son’s little torso. His own eyes gleamed with adoration and awe. “...You’re so perfect, love,” he said, something strange in his voice.

Michael giggled again, hugging his father back tight around his shoulders. His soft little mouth nipped William’s cheek back lightly in happy mimicry, then made another cute, childish growl.

A gentle kitten in the lap of a hungry wolf. Both brimming with love of their own, but intense love all the same, for each other.

Had Michael ever nipped him before today? Put his little teeth on his father’s skin? William could barely think about the answer right then.

A strangled groan escaped his lips. This was almost completely beyond words, and yet he found it inside himself to speak, his voice tight with a spinning mixture of rare, intense emotions. 

"You little brat,” he chuckled hungrily, squeezing Michael’s squishy little body tighter against his firm cage of muscle again, resuming his biting at his boy’s neck and cheek as he held him tight and captive. But Michael felt no unpleasant sense of captivity. There was a distinct absence of fear or real urgency in the way he cried out and writhed, his sweet laughter filling the living room. The boy was struggling without actually meaning to get away.

The man grinned wider at Michael’s ‘attempts’ to escape, the sensation of him utterly trapped in his strong, iron grip only pleasing him more.

His voice came out as a low, possessive purr. "Do you think you can out muscle me, little one? You aren't going anywhere. You're mine, Michael."

The child squeaked again and laughed, hot and breathless from feeling so joyful, so tickled. "I know," Michael giggled, beaming so hard his cheeks hurt. He began to slip a bit deeper into innocently running with the intense exchange with his beloved father, his head feeling a little dizzy from all the laughing and happy feelings. "I'm yours forever and ever, Daddy!"

Heart vibrating in his chest, William’s darkened eyes flared with possessive bliss. He clutched Michael even closer against him, his grip unyielding and tight despite how oddly tender it was, as if his boy was precious and fragile…and yet, so completely within his father’s power that there was no chance of ever breaking free.

“My little love,” William adoringly growled, “My boy.”

In response, Michael made another adorably vivacious, bright eyed, childlike growl back while giggling, climbing higher on his father’s chest to playfully bite at the shell of his ear and his cheek. "My daddy," he said in gleeful affirmation, full of genuine love.

William couldn’t describe how incredible it felt, having his perfect child claiming him and working over him, innocent as it actually was from a sane person’s standpoint. And when he suddenly felt that small, impossibly soft mouth affectionately and gently biting at his earlobe and neck, a loud gasp tore from William’s throat somewhere between agony and ecstasy.

His mounting, feral and possessive need blazed hotter in his veins every second, his typically calculating mind foggy in a way only similar to the pleasure of sadism. But even that paled in comparison to how exquisitely his boy made his insides coil and burn.

He was utterly entranced by Michael, addicted to his love and clinginess, feeling it was like nothing he had ever felt before.

The laughed sweetly, thrumming with bright, buzzing energy as he clung to his nearly wild eyed father, nuzzling his neck before smiling up brightly at him with his glittering blue eyes.

"I got you, Daddy!" Michael exclaimed, victorious. William’s born-cold heart melted, a strangled, rapt chuckle bubbling out of him.

“You always get me, little one,” he breathed.

Michael giggled, then took his father’s fixated face in his small hands, getting up on his knees in William’s lap and pressing innocent, adoring kisses all over his face in a sort of loving, playful attack.

The man could hardly take it, gasping and groaning loudly as he closed his eyes at the onslaught of his boys’ shower of warmth. He was utterly unable to speak, or do anything besides enjoy the feeling, being utterly possessed by Michael’s touch and pure, sweet energy.

His heart was completely full at the innocent and loving way he was being claimed and covered with affection, affected in ways he had never felt with anyone else, and he firmly wrapped his arms around Michael’s little wriggling body again, clutching his child on his lap and pulling him up against his chest.

He opened his dilated silver eyes and looked down at his boy, his gaze utterly captivated. "My precious little boy."

Michael’s blue eyes blindingly shone up at him as he cuddled into his father’s tightening grip, flushed and happily breathless from all the laughing and ticklishness, and the slow way it was getting harder to breathe. "That's me!" 

William was a fire, consuming all of Michael’s air, the oxygen to his father’s increasingly manic possessiveness.

He chuckled, stroking his son’s head and mussing up his soft, brown hair. His voice was low and almost worshipful as he spoke, "You're my good boy, and Daddy loves you, and you're mine, aren't you? I'd never survive without you, love. You belong just to Daddy. Don’t you?"

Seeing his father’s fervor as simple loving excitement, Michael nodded happily, his own big eyes a hint glazed over with joy, growing exhaustion and oxygen deprivation that neither noticed, too swept up in the moment immersed in each other.

His mind getting a little fuzzy, Michael just responded with an enthusiastic but subtly subdued 'mm-hmm', then pressed an affectionate kiss to William’s jaw again.

The man was nearly shuddering at that point with the intense feelings he was drowning in. He clutched Michael closer to his chest, and his voice was low and tight.

"My love,” he strained, “You belong to Daddy, and you'll never, ever leave me, isn’t that right, Michael? You're going to stay my baby boy forever, won’t you?"

Quieter and tireder but no less fond, Michael smiled softly, a sensation like being warmly floaty drifting over him as the squeeze on his little body went vice-like.

“Y-yeah…” Michael said with some effort, gentle and sincere despite the constriction making him feel sleepier. The pain barely registered, and if it did, he didn’t mind it; he was feeling so much of his father’s love, so much of what he wanted to always be extremely close to. “Forever…”

William practically choked a sharp inhale, all his nerves firing and sparking with jolts of obsession, his eyes blackening.

“You…” Michael continued, softer and with more warmth, more difficulty, “Love me…more than Mommy, too…don’t you?”

It was both knowing yet vulnerable asking all at once. As if the inferno roaring almost uncontrollably inside of him could possibly be for anyone but Michael.

The man’s arms were crushing around Michael, who couldn’t tear his soft, glowing eyes off William, who could not look away from the perfect face before him either. Michael had so much of William–his features, his mind, heart and soul. Twisted as they might be, Michael’s existence had revealed to William that he, indeed, had the latter two within him after all.

“Yes, love,” William thrummed, eyes wild and teeth bared in a wolfish grin, “I love you more than her, more than anyone and anything, darling. Oh, Michael…”

He was in heaven, tortured with near-rapture, squeezing and squeezing. A strained little cough and dizzy, faint giggle left Michael, his chest so pressed to his father’s that the man could almost lose his mind at the feeling that his son’s beautiful little heart was beating into his own slamming heart.

“You like this, love? Like being held so close and strong?” William asked, on the verge of disturbingly childish, eager excitement himself. “Daddy’s hugs are only for you, my love.”

Inhaling smaller and smaller gasps, Michael somehow smiled and nodded as best as he could, trying to ignore his body’s alarmed instinct to struggle and feeling so happy even if he felt like he was going to burst.. .

…feeling like his heart was going to explode in a way he never felt before.

“For…me…” he forced out, lightheaded and warm, his soft eyes fluttering, “And…my heart’s…for…you…Daddy…”

That was too much. William couldn’t bear it. This boy was made from him, made for him.

Slipping off the edge into possessiveness and raw need that was just shy of unhinged, William choked out a hungry, tight growl, crushing Michael to his chest like the most precious thing in creation.

"Yes, your heart is all mine, and mine alone," he poured out obsessively, his tone aching with rapture and desperation. "I'm the only one you love. And nobody but me ever will be!"

Even nearing unconsciousness with a paling complexion, Michael’s fluttering eyes went wide for a small second from how impassioned his father had become and what he had said, but a sort of dazed awe and wonder filled his hazy blue eyes.

William continued, words spilling fast like a broken pipe burst open with scorching waters. "You are mine," he said, like he was in the throes of obsessive ecstasy, his voice hoarse, "Not just until the end of time itself. Your heart, your entire existence, everything, is mine and only mine, forever… you will never get away from me, Michael!”

However, Michael was barely breathing now, barely registering what William was saying and how undone he looked, how he appeared when unmasked.

All he could do was faintly mumble before he felt very sleepy.

“...Love…you…”

William shuddered , outside and deep inside himself in places he never knew were there, the closest he had ever come to losing his mind. Even when he had partaken in murder and torture, he had never lost so much control.

“Yes, baby,” he practically moaned, his own eyes fluttering as he held his most favorite body close, close, close, “You love me, you love me so much I can’t take it, darling…oh, my little angel…”

Silence answered him, besides his own feverishly racing, obsessive thoughts and electric blood pounding in his head.

His frenzied eyes snapped down to Michael, who suddenly felt unusually pliant.

"No, Michael,” William said, almost desperate and demanding, “No, baby…you can’t. You can’t stop yet. Not yet…!" he pleaded intensely, almost unseeing as his eyes darted near-madly over the boy’s soft face, "Don't pass out! You have to say it! Tell Daddy you love him again, say it, Michael!"

As Michael had stopped unintentionally, actively fueling his father’s insanity with his sweetness, the fire in William dimmed just enough for him to finally process what was happening.

He was squeezing too hard. Not enough to break bones, but enough to suffocate his son.

He almost, fatally, had not picked up on the lack of response as ‘soon’ as he did. And when he did, it was the equivalent of ice water being injected into his bloodstream.

Resurfacing from the deep sea of violent obsession he had almost lost himself and Michael in, William’s eyes cleared, and he immediately let go to lie his boy down flat on the couch beside him, everything within him going mechanical, his singing pulse taking its time separately to come back down.

Gazing down with extreme focus like he was handling a delicate bird that could expire at the wrong touch, holding all the power to shatter him if it did, William put his fingers over Michael’s little jugular vein. In the infinite stretch of brief seconds leading up to it, he was empty of all else. His insides were numb. For the first time in his life, he felt he would die if someone else did.

William felt. He couldn’t tell if there was a pulse for a moment. A deep, cold scream and raging insanity resounded inside his being in fractions of seconds, until–

Pressing just a little harder, he felt a soft beating beneath his fingertips.

The relief was like a flooded dam about to break, but he couldn’t stop yet.

Unblinking, his face like stone, a sculpture only meant for ensuring Michael was alive and alright, he shifted the fingers of his other hand to feel under the boy’s nose for breath. It was just as soft and precious present as his pulse. Faint like the gentlest of breezes wafting over his digits.

William had kept his right hand on Michael’s jugular, as if subconsciously clinging to that little thrum of life. Silently, his left gingerly pressed over his son’s small chest, right over his delicate heart.

The color slowly continued returning to Michael’s face. He looked tired. Peaceful. The most peaceful William had ever seen someone look after having a brush with death.

Mentally, his gears turned, a jarring switch from madness to calculation while he recounted the fresh incident. Michael had likely been fully asphyxiated for what must have been at least ten seconds–not good, but not long enough to cause severe damage. No bones had broken, miraculously, but bruising around his arms and midsection wouldn’t be a surprise.

“...Michael,” William said out loud as he looked down, now so calm it almost sounded thoughtful, reflective.

His obsession for his boy had nearly killed him.

It’s not that William felt guilt or shame, or anything else he should have felt; he, mercifully, was incapable of such emotions. It was for the best, really. What good would it do Michael if his father spiraled into depression or tried to take his own life out of horror of himself?

No, William could and would stick to his word for once. He would never leave Michael. Nor would he allow the boy to go anywhere he could not reach him. The man would not send him there with his own loss of control.

As indescribable as it had felt in their minutes of intense exchange, feeding into one another like nothing else existed whether they meant to or not, William would not stupidly put the one thing that made him feel truly alive at risk by his own hand again. Not until the possible day he might decide on a lover’s suicide or something of a similiar nature. For the foreseeable future, in order to keep Michael around, he would have to keep himself away. Distant, for his own sanity (not that he minded getting lost in his boy for a bit), and for the sake of Michael’s longevity and William’s unrepentant selfishness.

It would be hell for them both. Michael wouldn’t understand, assuming he would wake up not remembering what happened right before he fell unconscious. But he would be safer. Which meant William could enjoy knowing the boy was still alive and well, still in his life…from a large distance. As long as William controlled himself, kept himself away from his greatest temptation, the existence that had birthed his hungry possessiveness and strange, new feelings of a genuinely fonder nature, he could still have Michael. Not close. But he’d be there.

“Michael,” William said again, softer, but more intentional towards stirring his son. The latter faintly shifted, and for a split second, the man started to personally understand why people believed in higher powers.

Calmly, he gathered Michael’s little, lax body into his arms for what would likely be the last time until some future change took place. William wasn’t sad. He was annoyed with the limitations of the human body, of his situation and how he would have to actively keep himself apart from Michael just to keep him. It was self-serving and self-restricting at once. Not his ideal scenario, but for the purpose of maintaining Michael’s soft heartbeat and not damaging him irreparably (at least in the physical sense; eventual emotional damage from his unexplained pulling-away was obviously inevitable), he would make the rare compromise.

His obsession remained, and it still hungered even now, but Michael was just that important. He was an irreplaceable, fragile, beautiful thing that William would keep locked in a metaphorical clear box, there to observe and keep while maintaining the control not to shatter him into oblivion.

William carried Michael upstairs to his bedroom, laying him gently on his sheets and watching with full attention. Taking in every detail, little movement and breath with more focus than he even gave his own animatronics, business or past killings.

His deft fingers lightly caressed down the side of Michael’s warm, resting face, gently squishing the baby fat of his cheek between his thumb and index finger. How he loved this boy. The last six years up until now had been the closest to heaven that William was sure he would ever get. Now came the unpleasant, hard part; playing the long game, against himself.

How long would he last, William wondered, slightly more irritated than amused at the challenge. How long would Michael last, thinking his father had severed their connection as he would likely come to believe over the years?

As the night drew nearer, Clara had almost slept through to the next day. William waited on a chair in Michael’s room until the boy woke up, and despite a headache, some confusion and the ache around his little body, he seemed no worse for wear. That alone made William’s secret decision more tolerable. And (for better or worse) Michael only seemed to remember having a great time playing with his father and being super close before ‘getting tired and falling asleep’.

He didn’t know. He didn’t understand. It was good, useful. It was infuriating. The man wanted to go back on his aims already, he wanted to from the moment he conjured the idea. But he wouldn’t. Even if his mind and body were screaming at him like they were experiencing violent withdrawals, so soon into it.

William would be his usual outward self now, in the way he treated most people; with calm and that air of faint amusement, like he knew things others didn’t. A pity he would have to force himself to try and treat Michael that way now. As much as he realistically could with his need still as strong as ever beneath the level surface. The amount of self-control it took was more tremendous than ever, but he knew that with time and distance, he would better hone it. Not that he’d have a swell time caging himself further. It was already hard enough, pretending to be a relatively normal man and not a psychopath, a killer, a father obsessed with his eldest child and apathetic to the rest of his family.

Now, he would add yet another secret to his collection; the secret of what had happened on his son's sixth birthday.

Gently, William brought Michael downstairs to the dinner table and left for a bit to wake Clara, get her to make herself presentable for their close of Michael’s sixth birthday, a turning point for the entire Afton family that only William was fully aware of, due to being the driving force behind it.

Was Michael’s birthday a horrible day that year? Or was it good, because he survived, and his father chose to leash himself for a time, though not out of any real selflessness?

Soon, Clara came down, warm and glowing with a hand over her surely re-impregnated womb, as well as the belief that things were looking up. Michael was tired and achy, but happy…even though he already couldn’t help but notice his father being a little…different? Already, a tiny seed began to bloom in Michael’s young mind, one that would grow into years of pain, longing and wondering if he had done something wrong that day to make his father not like him so much anymore.

Michael made a wish– please, let Daddy always love me... –and blew out his candles. His sleepy eyes watched the smoke fade into nothing. William finally handed him his gift. A brand new Foxy the Pirate mask, straight from the finalized stock that hadn’t been brought to the public yet. 

Michael loved it. He loved his father more. He felt sad before he went to bed. And when Daddy suddenly started having to work much, much longer, his sadness only grew into more complex, painful emotions.

Yet…he couldn’t only focus on himself.

Clara was going to have another baby, and she seemed to lose her glow with each day William hardly came home but to sleep, freshen up or work (maybe spare a calm, amused look or word if she woke up early enough or stayed up late enough). Things he also often accomplished at his spacious office at the pizzeria, which was doing exponentially well with his nearly complete, outward devotion to it.

Michael couldn’t complain. Especially if William’s distancing really was his fault, though Michael couldn’t imagine what he could’ve possibly done wrong. He was just a child, but had he been too childish that day? Too happy and loving? Had he done something wrong before that day and never realized it?

Whatever it was, he felt he had to keep being ‘good’ (what that meant would change into meek docility, bottled feelings and keeping his family ‘happy’), like he always was. Maybe, if Michael showed really good behavior, it would sway his father back into the way things used to be.

Besides, his mother needed help; she tried to look happy, but she wasn’t. Clara started to shove things down farther, not wanting to feel the horrible possibility and crushing guilt that the change had been her fault as well. Perhaps, a voice Clara tried not to hear whispered, she shouldn’t have said anything on Michael’s birthday, after all.

But it was too late.

Chapter Text

Under the pretense of throwing his family a bone for once that summer in terms of a fun trip, William handed Clara five hundred dollars a few days later and told her she should take herself and the kids to a shiny new amusement park a few hours away. He also told her that he had already booked a hotel for them to stay the night, so they really should take the chance and enjoy it.

It wasn't the subtlest 'surprise gift’--Clara’s tired eyes had went wide with a mix of confusion, suspicion and something like anger at the sight of William so casually holding the neat stack of hundred dollar bills out to her, as if he really could have done so sooner, easily, but chose not to. And after her recent incident of practically being exposed and humiliated by her charming, neglectful husband, Clara felt the urge to take the cash and throw it back in his face. Maybe wipe the hint of smugness off of it, for once.

However, William still knew his wife well enough to see that enduring gleam in her eyes to see all that money being handed to her, besides her reservations. She’d never openly admit it–at least, not to anyone but Michael as her weary listener–yet William was aware that Clara would've been a bit happier about how life had turned out if the man would ‘spoil’ his family like that more often. Spoil her more often, as his toiling housewife of so many difficult years.

As expected, after briefly and concisely giving her some verbal details and instructions (because really, the trip was neither a true gift nor a request), William was swiftly out the door and back to work before Clara could start to catch up and fire off her questions. It would have been pointless anyways. He saw the falter, the acceptance in her tired eyes, even the glimmer of relief for being able to give the kids something nicer than summer than the usual pizzeria hangouts, and it was all the confirmation William needed.

Part of him wished he could come along, just for the sake of seeing Michael’s gentle, melancholic face change into something equally adorable. To witness his eldest possibly light up and enjoy himself at the amusement park, to see him grow flushed with excitement and adrenaline, screaming with thrills of joy in the sun on the rides.

Or, more likely, see the way Michael would just crumple further inside over being pushed into a sudden ‘fun’ trip by the father he wished would just come with him on. To spend some real time together, like they used to long ago. Especially after he had just shown Michael an unexpected hint of something like care and gentleness just a few days ago, while confronting Clara.

William smiled to himself at the thought while he drove to the pizzeria. His boy wouldn't have much fun at all, would he? Never seemed to have any, since his father pulled away just to keep him alive.

The man had to wonder, if he ever got into the situation again where he had Michael all to himself again and allowed his obsession slip as it had on his son’s sixth birthday, would he end up killing him in the heat of passion this time?

A few days passed. Clara, torn between begrudging and somewhat warmly enthusiastic, got the kids ready for a long drive and single night hotel stay. The children had mixed feelings as well. Elizabeth was outwardly the happiest, though all three shared a similar undercurrent of bittersweet sadness like a shared, persistent affliction.

Evan merely went along with it, too little and too quietly anxious to know what else to do. Michael’s face just set into a tight expression, keeping his screaming in his head where it wouldn't alert anyone to how insane his father’s distant and calculatingly 'kind' actions were torturing him. Why couldn't he just be like other dads and go with them, treat them as he should've been treating them all this time? Why was he keeping himself at arms' length again with that same calm, subtly bemused smile, after he had finally shown him some gentleness just the other day after all this time?

But the question went unasked. It would be beating a dead horse at that point, and nothing would come of it but more pain and frustration.

They were off the following Friday, set to return the next day around the evening. William put his bets on Clara’s tendency to stay out longer than necessary just to enjoy life away from their tense household, feeling rather confident his family would come back near midnight. Plenty of time.

As Clara drove off, William was just a couple blocks behind their house, waiting in his car for them to leave after having pretended to have left for work. His eyes had lingered on Michael, silently hungry when he observed him walk out in his barely hidden, tight lipped gloom and delightfully form fitting tank top and jean shorts.

The smallness of Michael’s waist felt impossible, unfair even. William’s narcissistic pride swelled, knowing that boy had gotten so much of his own looks built into that growing teen body, but fuck, Michael was so much more boyishly slender. He just looked so breakable. Emotionally and physically. The perfect package for his father.

Swallowing down the urge to give into his growing arousal, William schooled his demeanor and drove back into the driveway of their home in wait. He had connections, being the shady man he really was, and he had called some professionals to come by and install those hidden cameras he had long considered having.

He soon saw a regular looking work van appear down the street. William simply got out, calm and focused while speaking to the discreet workers, letting them into his property and directing them. The men worked swiftly, wasting no time, each of them holding a certain look in their cap shadowed eyes like their line of work had made them see things they couldn't un-see. Possibly, something they didn't exactly want to un-see, judging by how unbothered their dark eyes appeared. Truly, they were men befitting of their trade.

It took the entire day, but William had known it would even without their briefing of the fact to him. He watched them with sharp eyes, feeling an inner twist of dark thrill at what the secret violation of his family’s privacy would give him in terms of control…but also, a flicker of displeasure. Surprisingly, William wasn't exactly fond of the possibility that he might see Michael in any more familially inappropriate situations, mostly due to his own possessiveness and rare sense of jealousy.

He was well aware of how hypocritical it was for him to not want his wife using their eldest son for her own satisfaction, considering his own, far worse desires for the boy. But as far as William had lived, those rules and principles applied to everyone except himself. The man never felt guilt about it, or anything else he'd ever done wrong on his long list of sins; he never would.

As the men made their hidden installations, drilling tiny holes for optimal vantage points in each room and running wires through the walls, William’s mind reserved a space to think about how Michael must be right then at the amusement park. Was he finding the faintest speck of happiness there? Or was he growing more miserable with every moment, especially as he would certainly be seeing other fathers there, present to their children?

Eventually, the workers left for the night, set to finish the job early the next morning. William saw them out and exhaled a breath through his nose, taking a walk through the house and imagining what kind of things happened in them he might have been oblivious to all these years. The concept was irritating, almost embarrassing. He never liked the idea that others might be getting away with things that would make him feel like he didn't have the control he thought he did. He was the only one who was supposed to have that edge over others.

And the fact that Clara, of all people, had apparently been indulging in his little boy as some sort of stand-in to placate her unmet needs with…

Well…she was lucky to be Michael’s wearily beloved mother, directly linked to the boy’s fragile sense of normalcy and tenuous happiness. Otherwise, William would have done something. What, exactly, would have been up to his mood.

Overnight, William rather enjoyed having his house to himself for once he could scarcely remember the last time it had ever happened. Clara had been glued to his side ever since she met him and rushed into a marriage with him.

Even before they had any children, she had either attended the ballet classes she once attended (classes that she split the costs of with William as she was working a simple job at the time, though he was the one she left ‘figuring out’ how to sign up for them to him, as well as driving her to them), or helping William (for free) with his own work before the eventual opening of his and Henry’s business…William had often been busy himself, or closely monitored Clara back then.

William didn't really have a reason to stay home and enjoy it before, oddly. The house was more of an investment to him, as well as a personal mark of success and affluence; besides that, he had his ambitions to pursue, his devoted, naive wife to keep ensnared. That used to be a little more entertaining.

But now?

While it would probably always amuse him to lead Clara on even with her latent tiring of and irritation towards him, William found himself wanting the house empty of everyone but himself and Michael, more than usual. And with the almost complete installation of the hidden cameras, William anticipated that his cruel desire to keep playing his game of torment on his wife would shift into something less impish and increasingly…punishing.

Having spent the better part of the evening inspecting the house and getting some work done in his home office, William leaned back in his leather chair and sighed. He could use a break. A rare kind.

He rose, smooth and slow as his pulse quickened a tad with dark anticipation, his strides echoing in the quiet halls. William walked upstairs, his strong yet slender fingers tracing the polished wooden banister, a subtle smile stretching over his lips. He soon faced the closed door of Michael’s room.

Closed, yet painfully easy to get into, if William simply used the barest effort to get close. Just like Michael’s wounded little heart, he figured. But he wouldn't…yet.

Tantalizing as the silver platter Michael always laid on in his minds’ eye was, he still didn't want to risk losing all sense of control and accidentally killing him in the blinding white heat of obsessive need and possessive adoration. Though the idea did make William’s fingers twitch. Just a little.

However, deep down he knew he valued Michael too much to use him up all at once like that. William had a claim on that boy’s life, but he didn't want to take his life.

As William opened the door to Michael’s room, the thought of living without his eldest son in any way–either due to the boy meeting an untimely demise or even simply maturing and becoming more independent, or trying to move out–it hit the man surprisingly hard with what he could only imagine was a sharp, quiet pang of dread, desperation.

Oh, the things only Michael could make him feel…it was almost bittersweet. William found his calm again a moment later. He would move heaven and earth in pursuit of preventing any of those unsavory possibilities.

His silver gaze swept over Michael’s room. A wry, fond sort of smile curled his lips; it would appear relatively normal for a teen boy to the eyes of strangers, despite its slight emptiness. The bed was made, but not without some wrinkles and a certain shift in the covers that was likely where Michael had sat earlier to put his beaten little sneakers on…

William hummed softly, stepping inside and tracing his fingers over the spot. It could draw a chuckle from him, the way Michael's room radiated loneliness like the boy himself.

He continued to inspect the space like he owned it (and he did technically, now didn't he?), outwardly calm yet internally thrilled to be there again after avoiding it for so long. The sight, the scents, all familiar, all laid out in the open…it felt like being in Michael’s head, in a way. William could only imagine what else went on inside of it nowadays.

The man loomed near Michael’s dresser against the wall, his hand roaming over it as he walked to the mid-sized closet and opened it. His fingers delved into the hanging fabrics of various shirts, invasive but strangely gentle.

William eyed a particular form fitting tank top, not unlike the one Michael had left the house in earlier. He pulled it out on its hanger, his jaw clenching in desire. It was so unbelievably small. He could practically feel the way it would hug Michael’s tight, lithe waist, like a tease.

Running his fingers down the midline of the shirt, William’s mind flashed with the image of doing so to Michael’s actual body, and another twitch of want went through him.

A slightly rough, breathless chuckle left William. Of course, only Michael could render him like a sort of needy schoolboy, a stalker getting all hot and bothered just touching a damn shirt. But he couldn't complain. He didn't feel humiliated. He felt good. Very good, in fact.

Sure, he preferred the real thing, but knowing his own violent capacity and obsession, William figured it best he just enjoyed this close-bit-still-safely-distant taste of his beloved son instead. ‘Safely’ being largely relative.

Shamelessly, he held the innocent yet teasing white tank top against himself in a kind of mock embrace, William felt a shiver of heat under his skin. His strong, lean arms tightened around it, and he sighed, almost shakily, closing his eyes.

The memory of how he had held Michael so tight on his sixth birthday, to the point of suffocation, flooded his veins with a frustrated wanting. If only William could just take his boy and hold him like that again, as if trying to crush him into his chest, merge them together…

Michael certainly looked like he was cut from the almost exactly same cloth as his father, at least solely in terms of appearance. The same handsome, lean build, same hair, same features…just softer. The soft half to William’s sharpness. Was it so much to ask, to want to sew the two of them together irreversibly?

As far as William was concerned, he could find some solace knowing that him and his boy were bound deeply. Simply in less intimate, clear ways than he preferred them.

Swallowing the warm saliva that had pooled in his mouth, William reluctantly put the hanger and shirt back in its place inside the closet. He nearly shut it before his eyes glanced downwards and to the side.

In the dark corner of the closet rested a hamper. At the very top of it laid a pair of worn, dark blue, plaid boxers.

Something within William tightened in hunger. He stared at the airy fabric, his mind both blank and running a hundred miles a minute. The man had his pride, unquestionably. But his pride always felt separate, compartmentalized when faced with his cravings for the owner of those goddamned boxers.

His hand moved on its own, slowly picking up the item by the elastic waistband. He held it out almost casually in front of him, one hand at each side of it to hold it straight. William bit his cheek, his gaze hard and intense.

“Fuck…” he cursed under his breath, strained amidst his heated admiration for how tiny his son's waist was.

William knew he should stop. He was only making it harder than it already was to be restrained about Michael. But how could he resist, getting this chance at such an enticing, secret close up of what he’d been missing out on?

As long as William found his composure again and kept it like he tended to, this would be harmless, really. He could take it.

So he continued, his heart pounding increasingly harder with each second. William held the boxers before himself still, picturing how incredible it would feel to grab his son’s slim hips in his hands, to be the one who pulled the flimsy fabric off of him and spread those soft, lean legs open–

A low grunt sounded in William’s throat, sounding through gritted teeth. He exhaled a heated breath, bringing the boxers right up to his face and closing his eyes and he inhaled deeply, unabashedly. Michael’s scent lingered on them, the natural scent of his body mixed with his body wash. It smelled sweet, grassy. Fresh and virginal. Combined with the natural musk, the scent was intoxicatingly heady.

Williams’ slacks grew tight with his arousal. This was the closest taste of something so violatingly intimate he had ever gotten from Michael.

So far, his mind corrected him. The closest taste so far.

The thought of experiencing more was almost too much to bear.

Having the entire house to himself, William allowed himself the sick, euphoric pleasure of an indulgence beyond the usual cigarettes and swig of pricey scotch. He kept the boxers pressed to his nose with one hand, breathing in deep, slightly quickened breaths as his other hand deftly, eagerly undid his belt buckle, button and zipper.

That hand slid down under his black briefs, stroking at his hardening cock as he groaned lowly, his mind racing with fantasies of Michael pressed up against him, his boy’s gentle hands pleasuring his father instead of fucking massaging his mother.

The memory of seeing how Michael's soft, weary face had grown flushed and aching with tears the night William had come home ‘early’, catching the act…part of him was still possessively enraged at Clara for it, jealous that she had a way to get away with feeling Michael’s touch on her. Often, apparently. But the beauty of seeing Michael so tearful and vulnerable…it almost made it worth it.

It was certainly sending a hot jolt of fire down William’s core, straight to his throbbing length. He paused only to briefly move the boxers out of his face and spit down in his palm before continuing to rub hungrily at himself, the boxers bunched in a tight, white-knuckled grip in his other hand while his mind sped forward.

What would it be like, feeling Michael’s hands on his body the way Clara ‘innocently’ got to? For all his willpower and restraint, William couldn't lie to himself. He’d get hard as a steel rod if Michael ever simply gave him a shoulder rub, nevermind massaging more of his body as he had done for Clara on the couch. It should've been infuriating, embarrassing to his pride, but the only thing that really infuriated William was the way Clara apparently had those delights all this time while he didn't. His consolation was his efforts to make sure she didn't have those pleasures again.

But perhaps it was his fault, in part, that he was no longer close enough to Michael for something like that to come off as normal between them. Maybe he shouldn't have pulled away from Michael on his sixth birthday after nearly suffocating him out of obsessiveness, or spitefully given Clara two more kids just to punish her with her own desires after inadvertently making Michael cry that day.

Maybe, William thought as he kept stroking his spit slicked cock faster and harder with his nose buried in his son’s used boxers, he should have just divorced Clara. He could have kicked her out, never had any other children, and utterly smothered Michael in his adoration until the boy grew used to it. Dependent on it, on getting every drop of his father’s love…accepting it in all its forms, as William would've groomed him to take it.

There weren't many times at all in William’s life where he felt he had made the wrong move. Not isolating Michael and getting him desensitized to the taboos he wanted to drown them both in was one of them. Possibly the biggest one.

A sense of anger started to seep in, slightly interrupting William’s hungry chasing of forbidden pleasures. He wouldn't have that.

He turned, shifting into Michael’s bed on his knees, his pupils dilating and lust spiking again as he did so, imagining the various ways his boy could look beneath him on it. Willing or not, crying, inviting, horrified, shy, longing…each was a beautiful vision. William wasn’t sure which he desired most.

His hand kept a firm grip and intense pace, but he needed more. Something to really give him that fucked up edge of twisted bliss. The answer was in the palm of his other hand.

Panting and hot with a wolfish grin, William took Michael’s boxers in his sickened hand, shuddering and chuckling in dizzying, dark pleasure as he wrapped the fabric around his hard cock in his grip.

“Oh, love…” William sighed in satisfaction, his eyes closing, head tilted back as he jerked himself off with his son’s boxers, his hips twitching at the thought of Michael there before him on the bed, sucking his thick cock with those sweet pouty lips, looking up at his father with those soft, longing blue eyes and flushed all over.

William possessed a vivid imagination, if his business was anything to prove it. Although he often liked to casually fantasize about Michael when he wasn't keeping himself too distracted with his work, being no stranger to it, the imaginings felt a tenfold more intense this way. In his son's room, on his bed, using his undergarments to pleasure himself to those delicious thoughts, now with a new dimension of real details.

Shifting closer to the top of the bed, his free hand against the wall as he jacked himself right over Michael’s pillow, William felt the lustful heat coming in waves. He briefly held his boxers-draped hand still, fucking his hips into it at an unforgiving pace, imagining it was Michael’s soft, warm, wet mouth and throat instead.

“That's it, Michael…” William groaned to himself, biting his lower lip in ecstasy, “Take it like a good boy…”

This was fine. He could let himself indulge this once, get a little carried away. It wouldn't drive him even closer to the edge of snapping later on and taking what he wanted from Michael. It wouldn't.

As the pleasure intensified in lockstep with his mind’s generous showcase, William’s eyes darkened with a fraction of his obsessive desire. He briefly opened them, panting and shifting to lie back on the mattress, his hot skin tingling like it was reacting even to the feel of lying on Michael’s bed, especially in such a manner.

Really, Michael should be flattered if he ever simply realized what he could do to the otherwise unshakeable, imposing and seemingly always in-control man his father was. The way he could make him writhe with want, make William fuck upwards into his own hand like he was at the moment, like a teenage boy in heat, without even knowing that he had that effect on him.

William’s free hand snaked up under his now uncharacteristically disheveled dress shirt, panting and groaning as he raked over his flexing, sweat-sticky abs and pounding broad chest. He wanted it to be Michael’s hands on him. He wanted to be thrusting inside his perfect little boy, hearing those sweet moans and gasps Michael would surely make, seeing his beautiful son hot and vulnerable, lost in the throes of forbidden pleasure from his adoring father. It was unbearable.

“Michael…” William breathed, his voice gravelly, strangled and hungry. There was a note of desperation in it, and it would've made William stop to ponder about how little control he really had when it came to Michael, if he wasn't about to cum for the first time in a long while.

He had even avoided really pleasuring himself, just for the sake of keeping himself from getting too excited and deciding to chase more pleasure with the body he wanted to feel it with most. All for the intent of stating calm enough not to end up putting Michael’s life in fatal danger again. Not unselfishly, of course. But William needed this release. Just this once. And Clara was nowhere in his mind.

She was still quite attractive and looked younger than she was, but the attraction just wasn't there anymore these past ten years. Not even in a purely physical sense. How could William have any interest in her anymore, when his son was single handedly undoing him like this with no effort or knowledge of it?

“Michael," William gritted out tightly again, his blood pounding in his head as the image of the boy trembling and split open on his cock drove him over the edge, the heat coiling in his loins. “Michael…!”

The room filled with the sounds of William’s heaving moans as he came almost painfully hard into the boxers firmly grasped around his cock, filling it with gushes of searing wet heat. The act itself only added to William’s arousal, and his back arched with near guttural, strangled groans tore from his throat, his free hand clenching Michael’s covers so tight he felt he could tear them.

His chest rose and fell sharply with hot gasps, his tall, strong figure reduced to a faintly shivering mess of need and desire. William felt his cum leak down his shaft, partially obscured by the grip he still had around it with Michael’s boxers. A familiar buzzing filled his head, the sensation of his obsessiveness like a white hot spark threatening to overload his controlled mind with too many euphoric chemicals.

It felt dangerously similar to how William had felt when he had been squeezing a younger Michael too tightly in the past, out of sheer possessiveness and raw adoration. Worse, even.

The psychotic urge to cast aside all self-interested caution and practicality reared its head, roaring for William to hop in his car, drive straight to the hotel Michael was likely asleep in right now with the rest of their family. To break right in, get his hands red with the blood of the wife and other two kids he truly did not want or need, and fuck into Michael right there on the mattress in front of them, while they were either bleeding out or watching with dead eyes. William could have him, and he would drink down every scream, every tear. Unrepentant and savage in his claim.

However, amidst the insane ringing in his skull and violent urges flooding his system, William suddenly realized that he didn't want Michael to be terrified of him that way. Not because William felt bad or horrified at the idea of it. But because he knew with strange clarity, just then, how he wanted Michael if he could really have him. If he’d let himself have him.

He wanted Michael to still love him. To still need him. To run into his arms and his arms only, not scream and try to run away from him. As futile as that would always be.

Why he suddenly thought that, why it even mattered what his property felt about him when it was already always his anyway, William couldn't quite say. He was still fighting with himself to come back down, taking deep, shaky breaths and mustering all his self-control not to do something that would be immensely gratifying but ultimately land him in prison and probably get Michael separated from him forever. He refused to lose his boy. He would not let Michael be able to truly hate him or feel disgusted by him. He needed those soft, blue eyes to stay longing.

Slowly, the feelings of an impending loss of control and the incessant buzzing faded back into a calmer state, relatively speaking. William sighed deeply, sweaty with his eyes closed as he felt the path of destruction growing more distant like a fork in the road, fading out of view as he managed to take the reins again towards a more favorable path, whatever it may be.

He almost had to laugh. There he was, nearly unraveled by his own obsession, his hands feeling numb from his violent adrenaline and intense but subsiding desire for lustful carnage, Michael’s boxers strewn over his gradually softening, slick cock like a used cumrag. He had narrowly risked losing everything due to his impulses, as he had before. But once again, William somehow escaped the consequences of his twisted nature, even as it had nearly shattered the barrier he mostly contained it behind. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t fuel his ego.

Though it did feel a bit bruised at the same time, knowing that Michael could ruin him and his control like this, even unintentionally and obliviously. It made William feel…weak, his will not entirely in his grasp, which meant him putting himself at risk where he otherwise wouldn’t feel compelled to allow himself. That had to be his biggest, if not only, true gripe about his obsession besides not being free to openly satisfy it.

However, the point remained. William would not get in his car, drive to that hotel, slaughter his wife and two youngest kids and fuck his son into a crying, bloody, traumatized mess tonight, after all. He wouldn't go to prison or lose Michael. Instead, he’d bask in the afterglow of his intense orgasm on his son’s bed, wash up, clean up the evidence of his lust and go to bed. The hidden cameras would finish getting installed into the house tomorrow, and William could continue on, being granted the secret insight to know what was going on in his family while no one would know what he had done. What he had almost done.

His slightly tired but satisfied, dark eyes opened halfway, and he chuckled lightly, gazing up at the ceiling as he lay in his mussed state. With an amused yet strangely soft feeling reminiscent of fondness, William sighed, internally musing about how Michael must have spent countless nights, looking at it the same way.

Perhaps Michael was still awake in the dim hotel room right now after his day of loneliness and aching at the amusement park without his father, his sad blue eyes staring up at the ceiling, too.

Chapter Text

The next morning, having woken up earlier to groom himself into his usual countenance of a sharp, clean man and not what he truly was, William took his time going over as much as he could in Michael’s room. It had been far too long since he poured over all the little details. Soon, with the installation of the cameras, he could see it daily…and much more.

William hummed a dissonantly pleasant tune, eyeing the space. It appeared even emptier than the night before now that the whitish morning light filled in all the dark shadows. There wasn't much besides the little trinkets on the dresser beside some family photos–interestingly, the one with him as a little boy being held by William was pushed the farthest back, dusty yet still in clear view. It was from when Michael was still a blissful only child.

Michael’s desk also had some papers on it. Drawings, the man realized. Rather good ones, if he was being honest. William was almost flattered to see that a surprising amount of them were of his very own animatronics. Just how deep did his quiet, intangible hold over Michael go?

He picked them up, scrutinizing the cartoonish depictions of the machines in a mostly humorous or ‘cool’ looking style. A faint huff of air left William’s nose, a fond, amused smile tugging the edge of his lip. Considering Michael’s tense, somber nature of recent years, he hadn't expected to see that sort of levity from him. Though perhaps, it was simply how he coped.

Regardless, the business side of William couldn't help thinking that Michael very well might end up creating some promotional artwork for his pizzeria one day. The thought made a twisted, warm pride wash through him. His little darling, working for his father, giving him his time and talents…

Peering through further, William finished the small pile and began to set them back down on the desk in a similarly strewn manner as Michael had left them. Then, he noticed the fabric mat over the wood seemed a few centimeters higher than it should've been; such was his attention to detail as a man who prided himself on well-measured craftsmanship.

“What's this, Michael…?” he mused to himself, gently pulling the thin stack of sheets out from below the mat.

William was excited to excavate as much as he could, getting closer than he had allowed himself to in years, even in indirect ways such as that. He expected to find something explicit, at the very least. Michael was a good artist and a lonely teenage boy, after all.

What he found instead were various smaller drawings that must have held a personal significance to Michael that only the boy himself understood.

A broken–or possibly, just disassembled Foxy alone in a heap against a pencil shaded background. It brought to mind the old Foxy mask William had gotten Michael on his fateful sixth birthday all those years ago. Thinking of it, he realized that mask had to still be somewhere in that room. There was no way Michael would've parted with the last keepsake of affection his father gave him.

Near it were a few attempts at drawing Spring Bonnie’s smiling head, all apparently having come out wrong in some way despite looking decent enough from an outside perspective, the last one the most heavily crossed out in what William imagined to be frustration or sadness. There were dry little marks around the bottom of the page, like droplets of water had fallen there.

Judging by the less skillful quality of the drawings, they had to be a bit older.

His brow arching in genuine intrigue, less invasively excited now and more curious, William lightly brushed his thumb over the deeply pressed, dark pencil marks on the page, then flipped to the next one. His slate eyes widened in no sort of pleasure.

In the middle of the page, a lightly sketched image of a gravestone among soft, fading grasses, the graphite smudged to give a foggy effect.

William, evidently, was not a man who enjoyed being left in the dark. And not knowing exactly what the image was meant to mean or what Michael was thinking when he drew it made a cold, sharp sensation flood his veins.

Despite being a murderer himself, William never truly entertained the idea of death when it came to his own person. It felt more like something that happened to other people, and as narcissistic as it sounded, he held a sense within that whispered he could find a way around it.

But the idea that Michael could even possibly be thinking of embracing death…not only was he continually to be unlike his father in every way. The boy was unknowingly making himself more delicate and precious to William’s obsessive mind, fueling its desperation as if reawakened with a splash of ice waters from the depths of hell's freezing rivers.

For a long minute, William didn't move or say a word. His sharp grey eyes bored into the dull grey drawing, looking for clear meaning, or as if to banish the concept just by staring it down.

Clearly, William’s choice to keep eyes on his entire house from now on was the right one. He didn't simply just want to know what else was going on there, around his boy; he had to know. His mind screamed for it, demanding unabashed access to anything that would let him see inside Michael’s heart. To know whether his most valuable treasure was anywhere near the edge of taking itself away from him.

“You…” William seethed, tight and hushed between gritted teeth as cold, possessive rage filled his guts with solid ice. The urge to get his hands on Michael and shake him hard, give him a sharp slap to the floor and hold him impossibly tight rose like leaping flames.

He narrowly stopped himself from crushing the drawing of the gravestone into oblivion, closing his eyes to take a deep, shaky breath and tilt his head back with a sigh, his broad shoulders slumping a bit.

He wanted to scream. How dare Michael do something to give the tiniest insinuation that he was thinking of death? Yet, the rational part of William reminded him that the image could mean anything, or nothing of concern.

There was a ringing at the door downstairs. The group of shady installers had returned to finish the job.

Steeling himself, William slowly put the papers back under the mat, his earlier sense of wicked delight and intrigue gone.

He was going to keep a tighter watch on Michael from now on. He was going to know what went on inside his eldest son, slowly but surely. Even if he had to tear him open and rip every emotion out.

—

The hidden camera installation was finished, and the men promptly left like ghosts after receiving the latter half of their payment, as if they were never there.

Normally at that point, William would have left for work to keep up his guise of distance and not tip off his family to anything being unusual. It would be the third ‘surprise’ in a row, following his unexpected earlier-than-past-midnight arrival home the other day, as well as him throwing money at Clara to get her to take the kids on a short trip.

However, William was still too tightly wound over the grim drawing he had seen earlier to care about maintaining his aloof, charming image entirely. He wanted to see Michael up close when he was brought home. As if he needed proof of life from him, warm and in the flesh.

Drowning the uncharacteristic desire to call Clara for once and demand to hear his eldest son’s soft voice, William instead stalked back up into Michael’s lonely room.

The old Foxy mask had to be in there, somewhere. A few hours remained until Clara would later bring their children back home from their amusement park trip and hotel stay. He had plenty of time to rummage around.

William carefully searched through a few spots where a mask of that short length could be hidden. It didn't surface under Michael’s bed, nor in any drawers. As the room was fairly open and bare, it only left the closet as a reasonable place to stash it.

With his height, it was easy to look at the highest rack. There was nothing but old, seldom worn clothes and random items among shoeboxes.

Frowning slightly, he knelt down before the altar of Michael’s clothes in the closet to search around the lower edges. There wasn't much there at a glance, besides a few pairs of shoes and the hamper in the corner (the pair of the boy’s boxers William had used the night before were cleaned and put back on top).

…Although, now that the room was brighter, William could notice that the hamper wasn't exactly snug in the corner. There was a small, dark pile of clothes tucked behind it. Roughly large enough to be fit to hide the little mask.

Gaze fixed on the spot, which had been shadowed and overlooked in last night's lustful excitement, William reached over to move the pile.

Gazing back at him was the eyeless stare of the faintly dulled but otherwise pristine, small Foxy mask. The last tender thing he had given his son before heaping confusion and heartache on him with his distancing, arguably for Michael's own survival, and William's sanity as a man who could behave enough to keep his freedom and his son alive.

If William was a shred closer to a normal father, he likely would have grown misty eyed, felt guilty over all the things he had and hadn't done.

Instead, he slowly picked up the mask, quietly inspecting it. There wasn't a single crack or chip. Apparently, Michael had taken care of it. Or long abandoned it to it's safe, hidden corner. William preferred to think the former.

Old memories stirred in him, his chest fluttering faintly as he remembered the small face he so adored back then, all soft rosy cheeks and breathtaking, big blue eyes. With how suddenly William had pulled away, he could hardly recall whether he had seen Michael ever wear the mask.

It had been somewhat oversized when William gifted it to him, cutely so. The lightweight, red and pinkish plastic decently would've been struggling to stay up on Michael’s precious little face. He would have made that perfect, sweet giggle…

William blinked, attempting to ground himself in the present lest his obsession seep out once more. But it was so difficult to want to keep holding back, especially after the events of recent times. All the tiny tastes he allowed himself to savor were pushing his typical control.

Still knelt down, William held the mask out at Michael’s six year old height level, hands cupping either side of it as if he was holding the boy’s smiling face. A subtle, deep sense of adoration washed over him, melting away the freezing ice of his possessive rage and displeasure from earlier.

“Michael…” William sighed softly, his vivid imagination painting the sight of that once happy boy before him, the one he had nearly crushed in his embrace and suffocated in a near-blinding fit of need.

He gently, closely cradled the mask to his chest. His pulse quickened, but the moment was shockingly warm in its own strange way. Anyone else would find it disturbing, but William couldn't care less what anyone else might think. He never genuinely had, never would.

His slender fingers traced lines over the side of the mask, ghosting over the curves of the plastic ears. “My little one…” he murmured.

The boy wasn't even there, yet he still possessed the rare ability to soothe William out of his cold moments of silent anger that could threaten rash violence. It happened back on that sixth birthday, when William’s icy state of calculation and unfeelingness had faded upon seeing Michael’s soft, tearful little face from behind the door of the very same room. It happened now, despite being miles apart.

The next few hours passed in a relatively calmer manner. William kept an ear out for the familiar hum of an engine in the driveway while he relaxed on the couch. With the Foxy mask on his crossed thigh, one hand caressing it, the other holding a short glass thinly filled with wine to put himself back in a cooled state, William felt a wry smile coming on.

No one in his family knew that they had just about lost the bulk of their privacy. The same way no one but him knew that he had once unintentionally asphyxiated Michael on that very couch in his crushing embrace so many years ago. Luckily (or not so luckily), Michael himself still hadn't seemed to remember anything about those brief minutes of madness. The way they had fed into each other like fire and oxygen, brimming with sheer adoration for each other until it all got dangerous.

William knew why he continued to choose to hold back from being close with Michael again, but god, did he not want to anymore.

He held up the small mask, pressing a small kiss to the forehead of it in the place of his son’s. How he would smother that face in unbridled adoration if only he could, without risking prison time or losing Michael.

—

Soon enough, William put the mask back upstairs in Michael’s closet, hiding it beneath the dark pile of clothes he had found it under. Around half an hour later, having eaten a late meal (the leftovers in the fridge were rather good; at least he could appreciate Clara’s cooking, if little else from her anymore), William just finished washing up his plate and utensils when he finally heard the hum in the driveway.

An anticipatory tingle buzzed in his chest, knowing Michael was finally there for him to see again. The image of the gravestone Michael had drawn rose back up in William’s mind, with the unpleasant sensations it brought on, but he could quell it now.

The man casually dried his hands off on a kitchen towel, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter as he heard multiple footsteps approach the front door.

It clicked open. Clara walked in first, weary from the drive back and forth from the miles-away amusement park and hotel. She glanced at William, but just made a light scoff and shook her head, still irritated with him over their latest issues. That was nothing new, and he didn't care. Clara simply walked upstairs, probably to take a shower.

William bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to grin. His wife and kids were utterly oblivious to every heinous thing he had done while they were away. They would certainly never imagine that he'd been in Michael's bed last night, finding his guiltless pleasure with a pair of the boy's boxers in his grasp.

Rather than leave for his office to let the grin out in private, he instead calmly watched his youngest two children come in after their mother. Evan was holding onto a new, medium sized bear beside his usual Fredbear in his small arms, looking as Elizabeth instantly tried to school her childlike joy over the trip in front of their father. She had been wearing a little plastic tiara, likely a cheap prize from a game, and quickly tore it off to meekly hold it behind her back.

“Oh–Daddy?” Elizabeth piped up, sheepish yet surprised and obviously happy to see him home early, despite fighting to hide it and ‘behave’ like the good girl she believed she had to be to eventually earn William’s attention. “You're here?"

William hummed, arms remaining crossed, glancing at the two coolly. His eyes were already back on the door, expectant of the last boy that would come in.

Elizabeth’s face fell noticeably, dashed by how quickly her father had brushed her off this time, not even giving her the barest decency of a nod or a full word. She was used to barely getting his attention, just as they all felt they struggled with, but what he had just done hurt worse than usual.

Some quiet steps later, Michael finally walked in, carrying two small school bags of his siblings’ overnight essentials over his suntanned shoulder, as well as his own larger bag over the other. Behind him, he tugged Clara’s travel luggage behind him with one hand. The boy had been packed like a horse.

Carrying Elizabeth's and Evans' things, William could tolerate. But Clara’s? After the heated discussion William had made with her just around a week ago about treating Michael as her little manservant, husband replacement?

Before William could finish uncrossing his arms to straighten, intent on having another private word with his wife, Michael stopped in place upon seeing him. The eldest boy stared at his father, not having expected to just see him standing there instead of being at work. Some kind of reaction began to form in him, though it was interrupted when Michael glanced down and saw Elizabeth’s big green eyes watering, her young face tight with barely held back pain.

Michael instantly put aside whatever he was about to feel about his father being home again after pushing them out for a sudden trip, following his little sister’s trembling gaze as it flickered between him and William with wide, alerted eyes of his own.

An uncommonly experienced, unpleasant twisting feeling coiled in Michael’s stomach. His eyes darkened slightly, and William almost felt breathless seeing how much more his eldest looked like him when he made a face of cold anger. But it was also displeasing. Michael should never look at him like that. He never had before.

“Something on your mind, Michael?” William said, measured and a hint condescending.

"What did you do?” Michael said, his soft, weary voice tight and low. It would be easier to enjoy how surprisingly sexy it was if William’s chest hadn't flared with contained fire. He tried to keep the impulse to do anything rash and self-indulgent at bay.

The man’s expression dropped from mildly, innocently mocking and 'playful' to flat and unamused. “Watch your tone, boy."

Michael didn't continue, but William could tell he wanted to. The eldest boy sighed deeply, tilting his head back a bit and closing his eyes a moment, eerily similar to how William had done earlier to recompose himself. Perhaps they shared more minute similarities in behavior than he thought. Maybe it wasn't just their physical features that were heavily shared.

The idea of Michael, his softhearted and quiet boy, having a latent temper was both oddly arousing and irritating to William’s sense of authority. He wanted to stoke those tiny sparks to see if they’d create a beautiful inferno, as much as he wanted to snuff them underfoot.

Seeing the way Michael put all the travel bags down to kneel and scoop up his siblings with such practiced ease and protective care–another thing William was equally enamored and pissed to only now be seeing–made those conflicting desires clash harder.

Elizabeth made a sad whimper, burying her face in Michael’s nape and clinging to his shirt as she trembled with the effort of not crying. Evan simply looked down at his toys, sensing the tension and trying to suppress his own sensitivity as well. Michael didn't want to put himself in the position of constantly being the one to soothe, especially with what Elizabeth had done last time when he held her and her mouth had found his neck–but what else could he do? He couldn't stomach seeing his siblings in pain. Especially because of their complicated, callous father.

“You're okay," Michael murmured softly to the kids in his arms, “I’ll take you both upstairs to rest.”

William’s jaw clenched, his eyes boring into the scene. Michael looked so fucking perfect, holding William’s other two children like more of a loving mother than Clara ever could have been. It made William wish he could put a womb in the boy to fill with children of their own, bizarre and depraved as the thought was. Yet, it also irritated him to see Michael giving his warmth to others, being strong despite his own brokenness.

Then, there was the issue of how William saw Elizabeth’s petite body pressing itself to Michael’s in a way that was just a bit too close to purely be sad and seeking comfort. William had already felt rare jealousy over Clara having Michael's gentle, slender hands on her body. He was not going to take being jealous because of Elizabeth, too. How much more insult would he have to take?

A jolt of that inner itch twisted in the man sharply, hungry and angered in similar measures. For better or worse, the disparity held the man in place while Michael didn't even give him a second glance, walking his siblings upstairs.

This was not how Michael’s arrival back was supposed to go. William wanted to see the longing in those soft, blue eyes again, intensified by having been made to go have fun somewhere without him. He craved to see the weakness, the loneliness and aching that was almost always there. The look he’d seen when opportunistically and hypocritically defending Michael from Clara merely a week ago.

Not to be spoken to in (rightful) accusation and ignored.

Being home with the family while remaining in control and detached was proving to be deceptively difficult. If not only due to the way Michael could single-handedly make him want to drop all masks and behave with violent honesty.

Some minutes later, Michael bravely came back downstairs alone, avoiding looking at William as he made a beeline for the pile of packed school bags and Clara’s luggage. A twitch of possessive rage burned through his father that he didn't see.

He bent down to swiftly pick up the items in front of him. William set his jaw firmly, his fists clenching and unclenching quietly with the desire to stop barely pretending to be a ‘good’ father. He could easily grab Michael's collar, drag him into the locked, soundproofed basement downstairs and fuck that new attitude right out of him.

He could wrap his hand around that slender throat and squeeze until those pretty blue eyes rolled back. It wouldn't be the first time he’d choke the air out of him.

But it was the first time William had a genuine urge to punish Michael. To intentionally hurt him out of anger, rather than as a side effect of imagined, brutal lust.

Michael gathered the articles and straightened, carrying his family’s weight on his lithe frame in more ways than one. His father almost let him go uninterrupted, until Michael lifted his gaze to him from across the kitchen, his eyes uncharacteristically sharp with displeasure, tension and accusation.

William’s brows narrowed subtly, and his own piercing silver eyes flared a touch, his broad shoulders squaring further. Exciting as it was to see Michael start to face him more like a strong young man than a hurting, oblivious little boy, he wasn't pleased.

“I suggest you stop looking at your father that way," William said, authoritative and warningly low.

Michael furrowed his brows further, frowning and clenching his fists in an unintentional, natural mirror of William’s expression of anger.

“I don't get you," Michael said tensely, finally allowing himself to let out a sliver of his honest thoughts. He had grown increasingly fed up with William and his recent behavior, the switch he had made from distant to briefly gentle to distant again, and now mocking.

Having been so used to Michael as a withdrawn boy who kept such audacity locked within, William’s eyes fractionally widened, his hands curling into fists.

He never thought he’d want to actually harm Michael, besides the acts of optionally consensual, hard fucking he imagined making him take daily. But here they were.

William could take a trifling attitude from anyone with a smug laugh and counter to put them in their place, not stooping to feeling insulted or frankly bothered by it in the slightest, because none of those other people meant anything deeper to him. He could take it…from anyone but Michael, as he was now quickly finding out.

“Excuse me, child?” William said sharply, ignited at the little display his eldest was giving him. He tried, frankly, to keep the note of thrill out of his voice.

Michael was afraid of his father in that parent-fearing way inside, but his current emotions found the chance to override those inhibitions.

“Stop doing that!" Michael snapped back in frustration, his shoulders tensing up with leaking anger, “Stop acting like you don't know exactly what you're doing! Like you don't know you're hurting us! You made Elizabeth cry! We just got home!”

Oh, this was all very new indeed.

It was hard to tell what guided William to close the distance before he realized it-–the deep, dark thrill he felt over interacting in such a heated way with Michael, or the rage at his own son’s ability to be angry at him. The man got right in Michael's space, bodies almost touching, and stared directly down at his revered secret obsession like a man about to put his eager hands on his child.

“You don't speak that way," William said, more of an order than anything entertaining argument back, a growl in his voice as his eyes blazed like molten steel, “Especially not to me. Do you understand, boy?”

Michael gazed up at him, his face flushing with the heat of adrenaline, indignant anger, shame, and pain at the fact of having such an unsavory interaction with his beloved father after they had had a rare warm moment days prior among all the distance. It had taken a lot of bottling for him to finally speak up and be this openly bold, and to make it worse, he was now being told he was not to express himself. Not even to defend his siblings.

You don’t speak that way, the words echoed in Michael’s mind, sure to haunt him the rest of the day and days later. He felt incredulous, humiliated like a puppy being scolded for barking after it's sibling pup got kicked.

The boy grit his teeth, his gentle face contorted tightly with a painful multitude of emotions as his eyes grew glassy. His lips were curled in an open grimace, reddened and faintly quivering.

God fucking damn it.

William couldn't decide if he was unbelievably turned on or on the verge of cruelty. Then again, that had always been a thin line for him.

Michael unwittingly saved himself after their eyes had remained locked for a few long moments, briskly walking away and leaving all the luggage in a sad heap where it was as he went to his room, one arm obscuring his eyes. And William somehow let his son leave, not going after him to do whatever his sadistic hands craved to do.

He went cold and stoic once Michael disappeared upstairs, the sick lust and violent rage still hot and writhing in his guts. William stared at the steps where he had seen Michael disappear for a silent minute, then wordlessly left the house to get in his sleek car, headed straight for his office at the pizzeria.

Michael had gotten himself into this predicament, really. He just had to go and be unusually stupid. Exciting, absolutely. But stupid.

Now he was probably crying on his bed, just as he had as a child on his sixth birthday, out of sight and alone. Some things really hadn't changed, after all.

The difference was now, William could–and would– watch.

He would watch him from the hidden eye in the top center of his bedroom. From the tiniest, least noticeable, drilled hole just beside the base of the ceiling fan.

Chapter Text

That afternoon, William’s blend of twitching rage and desire was slowly quelled into a calmer state. Watching Michael cry softly into his pillow poured cool water over the molten steel that had burned in his chest…it was a nostalgic sight. Seeing his little boy in tears like that again, almost twice in the last two weeks alone. William felt a bit spoiled, anger aside.

He leaned forward in his office chair, sighing as he trailed a fond, slender finger over the screen, the little camera just peeking out from beside the base of Michael’s ceiling fan letting him watch his son from above. Like a voyeuristic, darkly loving angel.

“Oh, my darling boy…” William hummed, almost gently, playfully chastising, “You’re so much better this way. Soft and hurting. You wouldn’t be so sad right now if you hadn’t decided to push Daddy, would you?”

No matter. It was all precious, really. William had admittedly enjoyed the brief, heated exchange, and it had ended in a way he was currently taking pleasure in. He felt rather satisfied, all things considered. The rest of the evening was spent split between William watching Michael slowly piece himself back together as best as he could and keeping an eye on what the rest of the family did, while making sure to get through some paperwork that had been piling up on his desk. He had to at least look like he was working, if Henry popped in.

—

For the next few days, William resumed his typical long hours at the pizzeria, now remaining an hour or two longer into the night just to keep a sharp eye on the live footage. Nothing too eventful had happened yet, which should have been a good thing, though part of William itched to see something. Things couldn’t be so bland as they seemed thus far; after the little incident the other day, with Elizabeth tearing up after being treated especially dismissively by her father, and the subsequent argument that happened privately between him and Michael, the Afton household was slow and heavy with a quiet gloom.

Then again, perhaps it was always like that in recent years. Maybe it was just more pitiful than usual after William had graced them with his ever-warm presence the day they returned from the amusement park trip.

Clara stopped bringing the kids over to spend the day at the pizzeria, as neither she nor the kids felt inclined to stomach doing so as they had in the beginning of the summer, but mostly because William hadn’t expressly told her to continue doing so. With his new views, he preferred them to stay home all day anyway. The irony of how he spent more time watching them all now, more than ever, was not lost on him.

William kept busy regardless, taking business calls and going through paperwork with his mind half elsewhere, silver eyes continuously drifting back to any movements on the screen like magnets. The insight, while feeding his sense of control and pleasure, was becoming surprisingly addicting and distracting already. But if William could contain his urges to slaughter his family and fuck his son, especially as much as he had felt the intense desire to do lately, he could handle managing how much he spied on said family and son.

William took a breath and exhaled, leaning his tall figure back on his dark leather seat and sweeping his gaze over his desk. Interestingly, his distractedness almost seemed to make him more productive, his workspace a bit emptier of documents than he usually got it due to being less picky with what he handled as he tracked the monitor before him. His ashtray, which had been used more often before the start of this particularly intriguing summer, held more dust than any ashes in it. Recent events apparently were enough to sate his need for a kick from mere cigarettes.

He heard the familiar footsteps of his partner, the slightly heavy clunks of Henry’s work boots, unlike the smooth tapping of William’s polished dress shoes as he walked closer. William calmly switched the screen to the store’s security footage, a smile spreading over his lips like the glide of plaster over a wall.

“Jesus, you’re still in here?” Henry asked, brow arched in a mix of amusement and slightly playful concern. “You’ve been even more glued to your desk than usual the past few days. We’re not going bankrupt or something, are we?”

William’s smile grew, his sharp eyes crinkling at the edges. Henry’s smile flickered.

“...Are we?” Henry asked again, uneasiness creeping into his tone.

After a pause, William tilted his head back in a velvety laugh, then leaned forward and tented his fingers, elbows on his dark wood desk. “Of course not, Henry. The lights are still on, aren’t they? And you see how busy we still are. If this year will be anything like the last few, we’ll hit our highest numbers by next month.”

Henry blinked, then sighed deeply, his shoulders slumping, chuckling weakly. “Oh, thank God. Don’t scare me like that, William. But…” he said, taking another breath and pushing his glasses up, “If you’re not busy trying to keep us from running ourselves into the ground, what’s been keeping you so holed up in here? Everything okay with the wife and kids?”

A little pinch clenched in William’s chest, unfamiliarly. He was always ready to answer such questions with an easy smile and reassuring, subtly dismissive response. However, things had actually happened lately between him and his family. Him and Michael. Some unpleasant, some unbearably thrilling.

Not to mention how he had jacked off with a pair of Michael’s boxers in the boy’s bed to a hot, writhing, orgasmic conclusion that almost ended in William deciding to drive through the night to kill three-fifths of his family and rape Michael before their dead bodies in their hotel room…but Henry didn’t need to know any of that.

“Things are the way they usually are,” William said evenly, picking up a thin stack of stapled papers from the corner of his desk and disinterestedly flipping through it. It was a few months worth of compiled reports from his technicians, detailing the unsavory smells and odd behaviors coming from the animatronics, requests for William to lift his order to not allow inspection of their torsos…orders that even Henry questioned before, but had yet to violate even as the original creator of said machines. Why did Henry put so much trust in him? That question always seemed to come back.

However, in terms of William’s family, Henry didn’t quite buy his friend’s vague answer. He never truly had, more so as years passed and he could see the tension in William’s family as he grew distant yet remained charming as always. But he also seldom felt comfortable to overstep and press for more honest answers, despite being rather close for years. It was just one of those subjects that went unspoken.

Though, seeing as Clara had stopped bringing the Afton children over to spend the hot summer days at the store lately, and William appeared quite alright with that yearly routine being broken, Henry couldn’t help saying a tad more than he tended to about it.

“...And…?” Henry said, slowly and carefully, trying to maintain the delicate balance of respect and gentle pressing.

William noticed that the other man hadn’t simply made the usual weary smile and moved on, his gaze flicking back to him.

“And, that’s all,” William said back, calm and measured, his smile level with the papers still in his hand, “Is there something you needed on your end, or were you simply coming in to check on me, old friend?”

Henry bit back a sigh. While he admired William’s ability to verbally weave through and direct conversations the way he did–the skill had been a large part of their mutual success, after all–he didn’t like it when that skill was used as a cop out.

“Well, I was checking to see if you had somehow gotten chained to your seat,” Henry said, half wry and half weary, “But I just wanted to let you know my daughter is going to be tagging along here for a few days. My wife isn’t feeling well, and I figure she can get a break while Charlie plays here.”

“Ah, Charlotte,” William said, setting the papers back down, outwardly looking calmer and less piqued to being verbally slippery with Henry, “Of course, she can stay here. Though I’m afraid I have my hands a bit too full to be on constant watch for her, and I doubt that’ll change any time this week. Do you mind keeping the dear girl close to you while you work backstage, my friend?”

Truthfully, William didn’t give a shit about Charlotte. She might have been his singular friend’s child, but she was just as disinteresting as most other people were to him. He didn’t loathe her, though; the only thing he really had against the little girl was the poor timing of her need for a babysitter and place to waste time because of her sick mother. He had his own family, his own son, to watch for hours.

Unfortunately, William couldn’t just say so.

Henry smiled in weary relief. “No, I don’t mind at all. Thank you, William. Just wanted to let you know first before I went ahead and brought her. She’ll be around tomorrow.”

He sounded happy to say that Charlotte would come along to work with him, a little excited even. She hardly ever did, tending to wait at home for Henry to return, and soon she’d be there in the pizzeria…at his side, probably listening to Henry’s enthusiastic yet tricky to follow information dumping. Getting taught by her loving father about the machines that created their unique business and legacy, smiling and probably still wearing that silly little green bracelet…

William took a second too long to respond, but said something decently warm back before Henry left his office. His fingers idly rubbed against his inner palm as his other hand rested over the stapled papers, an itch of something like envy raking inside his ribcage.

He wanted to do that and more with Michael. But as things were, it would simply be too out of the blue to achieve. Would Michael even want to come back to the pizzeria for something like that, after the way their recent interactions went?

His sharp jaw clenched a bit, absently moving fingers tightening into a slight fist. The idea that Michael could ever lose the longing he carried to reconnect with William was something the man had long been aware of, but it never actually felt like a real threat until now. His son had talked back to him for the first time just a few days ago. Looked at him with anger and accusation in those soft, sweet blue eyes.

William’s attention went back to the computer on his desk, switching the store footage away to pull up the home feed again. Michael was there in his room now, sitting at his own desk, listening to music on his headphones and Walkman before his drawings. He couldn’t see what face the boy was making due to the camera being in the center of the ceiling and Michael facing the wall, but William could picture the closed eyes and gently weary expression, the parted lips that would match Michael’s slouched posture.

The drawing of that godforsaken gravestone was likely still there, just under the fabric mat where William had found it.

A deep, slow twist of something William couldn’t name coiled within him. It didn’t completely matter if Michael ever ended up not wanting to bridge the gap between them anymore. Nor did it matter how Michael felt about their strained relationship, or how he was feeling in general at any point. William would not lose him or let him go. He wouldn’t. Regardless of the means.

—

Some days later, William managed to keep his composure and continue balancing his attention between working and watching his family for anything notable. He felt a strange, growing urge to snap at someone, which was unlike him. Charlotte’s presence was surely a contributing factor. Not because she misbehaved at all–she remained quite respectful of the business and William, obediently staying by Henry’s side for hours each day and out of immediate sight. It was because William just knew that his friend was happily getting a fraction of the closeness he used to have with Michael just across the building. It wouldn’t have bothered him as much before, but the more he watched Michael while not having him, after seeing the way his son had expressed disdain for him days ago…it was eating at William, grating on his nerves way it typically didn't.

He had to stop looking at the home feed an hour into the workday, falling back to his old relief by taking a cigarette and getting out of the office for a bit. Some deep puffs later, William flicked the ashen item to the street just in front of the store and ground it under his expensive dress shoe, feeling a neutral sort of state wash over him. He didn’t sense his usual bemusement, although he didn’t sense his latent frustration as much either.

Settling back into his office seat, William reflected on his decision to have cameras installed in the first place. He had wanted them for some years, but now that he had them, he found he wasn’t taking as much pleasure in it as he thought he would. He certainly didn’t regret the choice, but his household had shown to be surprisingly uneventful so far. Most puzzling of all, he didn’t exactly let himself ogle Michael much. The most he allowed himself was enjoying the sight of his son changing in his room, and even then, William would glance away from the monitor when he saw Michael do things that would leave him bare. Things like changing his boxers, or showering.

William knew, after some solitary pondering over his business work and a short glass of whiskey, that his surprising lack of lecherous peeping wasn’t out of any respect, guilt or shame. He felt the inexplicable desire to…save those tantalizing sights. In case he ever got to see Michael’s full beauty and nakedness up close and in the flesh one day, by some stroke of luck that wouldn’t land the man in prison.

And how incredibly lucky I would have to be to have that on top of everything else, William thought to himself, a mental sigh as he made the typical business calls and paperwork, more bored than he’d been in years. He had gotten away with child murder so far, evading the consequences of kills he had made just a year or two ago in  the heat of his obsession’s unsatisfied frustrations. If the universe ever granted him the bliss of savoring Michael intimately, seeing him in his nude, beautiful construction…William would be more than pleased, knowing he was one of the most unfairly lucky, vilest men of his time.

—

As the day winded down past closing hours, William sipped his sliver of whiskey left in his glass, surprising himself with how he had almost forgotten to check the uneventful home feed. There really hadn’t been much to see thus far with his family being akin to quiet, gloomy ghosts that didn’t have it in them to talk much lately besides convening to eat. And with his odd choice to hold off on the secret leering to an extent, William was ready to just call it a night. Maybe he’d even do something he hadn’t done for a while just to shake off the boredom and go get drinks with Henry.

The other man had excused himself a few hours earlier in the day, apologetically explaining that he had to run back to his house to grab some blueprints, and later calling from said house to say he’d have to stay longer to tend to his wife, who had gotten sicker and began vomiting. Charlotte stayed behind at the pizzeria, and William had watched with a disinterested smile as she reassured her father that she could stay and play while he went. But she had gotten a little…tense, when William gently informed her that Daddy would come back later than she thought because he had to take extra care of Mommy. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t fight a cruel grin as he said it, watching her happy face fall and grow a little sadder. More nervous.

Still, the time had flown by that day, and William stretched, rising to stand. He nearly hadn’t realized it was five minutes to midnight. The employees had long left, the customers were gone…and he hadn’t heard a peep from Charlotte after speaking to her earlier. Glancing over the store’s security feed, he was rather impressed not to find her small form anywhere on them.

Something stirred in William, and it wasn’t concern.

He smoothly walked out of his office after making sure the pizzeria camera feed was still on the screen, eyeing the dimly lit store as he closed the door behind him. Charlotte was a playful little girl, but she wasn’t stupid. Not enough to recklessly endanger herself and upset her parents, or at least William thought so. She was so beloved by Henry and his ailing wife…William could only imagine, with a giddy tingle in his chest, what it would do to them if something happened to her.

But no…the girl was too close to Henry for the risk to be worth it. He wasn’t against indirectly causing her early demise, though. It would be irritating dealing with Henry for a while, and he would have to be quick in coming with an alibi over how could you let something happen to her when only you two were left in the store?!, and you’re my friend, you were supposed to watch her at least a little , she’s my daughter, for fuck's sake…!

William did have one little excuse ready. He had, in fact, explicitly told Henry he’d be too busy this week to watch her much. He did tell Henry to keep her near him. How sick was his wife for him not to have come back yet, or even called with an update by this hour?

Just for the sake of the camera showing evidence that he had at least looked for Charlotte, William walked a brisk lap through the pizzeria, pretending to check with some level of urgency. He was internally amused that she was nowhere in sight. Had she crawled somewhere tight and dangerous? Fallen asleep in a tiny bundle? Gotten lured away or hurt somewhere not easily findable? The possibilities were endless. Exciting. Having something to ease his boredom felt good, and it didn’t even have to do with Michael. Maybe it was doable, to go back to simply being distant and using secret bloodshed and violence as relief for his obsession with his son.

William circled back to his office, pausing and tilting his head to see the door ajar. His eyes hardened, and he walked in, seeing that no one was there. He sat down to check the security feeds again.

However, seeing that the home feed was already pulled up instead and that the papers on his desk were just faintly moved out of place, William’s blood turned to cold, soulless ice.

He was sure he had switched his monitor to only show the pizzeria footage before he left his office to ‘look’ for Charlotte. Had the little shit somehow materialized and seen what was really on his computer, of all things she could have messed with, before running back out of the room?

His face a mask, drained of all semblance of human feeling and replaced with deathly calm focus, William silently checked the store footage again. And there the scene was. Charlotte popping out of a tiny space she had crawled into near some boxes at the end of a hallway he had walked past but didn’t seriously think she’d be so daft as to hole up in for what, a nap? She appeared to have gotten up and nervously walked around the darkened store, seemingly hearing something–maybe his quick steps, maybe those of the animatronics roaming nearby–and hastily rushed back to ‘safety’. William’s office. The one place he did not want her.

As if guided by the hands of fate, the little girl anxiously took a seat on William’s chair, then quietly eyed the computer. Charlotte inspected the slow moving screensaver, then moved the mouth with a meek curiosity. William heard some clicks of the mouse, and he could practically feel the moment Charlotte unintentionally switched the feed and saw live footage of the Afton household. Part of him wanted to laugh at the idea that she might have been mortified seeing something like his wife or kids happening to be naked in the shower or using the toilet, but there was nothing like humor in him at the moment.

Predictably, Charlotte made a startled gasp, eyes going wide and unfortunately curious hands shooting to cover her mouth. She then ran out of the room, and ran…outside. Straight into the dark and dangerous night, hovering outside the store and in an innocent panic, not only over what she had seen, but because she seemed to realize that the doors were locked from the outside by the managers, until William would lock up from the inside and leave for the night.

He watched her, eerily still and silent as she began to knock and soon bang her little fists against the front door. Now, he could hear her. Barely. She had a quiet voice and seldom raised it; one could be excused for not catching her little, muffled, distant noise. Charlotte was weak…like her mother. She couldn’t even bang on the door loudly enough to sound like more than tiny, soft thumps. Like a faint, frantic and easily snuffed out heartbeat.

William could easily just rush over and go unlock the front door for her. He might have strolled over if she hadn’t had the unfortunate urge to check his computer. But now she knew something that threatened William’s control over his situation. She could tell anyone that he could see his whole family from his screen. She could, and probably would tell Henry. He’d be appalled enough, then he’d connect the dots and become even more revolted. He’d realize why William had been spending so much more goddamn time in his office lately than usual, if he didn’t get up right now and kill–

He had to stop and take a very slow, deep breath. Things were dangling on a tangible precipice right now. Henry could call or come back at any minute, and William only had an unknown amount of time to figure out how to deal with his potentially life-changing problem before then.

His eyes stared at Charlotte, crying now as she pleaded to the air and pointlessly rapped her reddening fists against the front door. She must have realized it was accomplishing nothing, because she backed away and started to rush around to the even darker back of the store, probably in hopes of the backdoor being mercifully forgotten and unlocked by employees. William paid them to make sure it wasn’t open by this hour daily. Evidently, Charlotte’s panic only grew as she cried and uselessly tugged at the door handle. It was rather difficult to see her back there, since some teenagers had come by a while ago and chucked rocks at the back lights of the store for kicks. William had put off getting the lights replaced and Henry had stopped reminding him about it.

Objectively, with the otherwise wide and decent view William had of the outside perimeter, he could see that there was no one around. No lurking dangerous to solve his problem for him.

But it did mean he would take a selfish moment to check what Charlotte might have seen happen in his house, just five or ten minutes ago. She could wait outside a bit longer. If anything, William could lie to Henry or the police that he was trying to see where she might have gone, since it was so dark back there.

He took a moment, rewinding the footage split across multiple windows on his screen a bit to where Charlotte roughly would have had a minute or two to watch. He did catch some quick movement, but it wasn’t clear at that backwards speed.

At first, he didn’t see anything unordinary or mortification-worthy, besides the secret camera feed existing itself. His family just appeared asleep. Clara was apparently sleeping on the couch. Interesting, but not surprising. Of course she wouldn’t want to sleep in the large, vacant bed she was supposed to share with William. Evan was asleep. The only time he wasn’t a little, oversensitive ear sore. Michael was laid out on his back over his covers, headphones still on and Walkman sprawled beside his lithe figure, clad in his usual t-shirt and shorts for bed. Elizabeth in particular seemed to be in the middle of tossing and turning when he hit play, and like a quiet mouse, she got out of her lonely bed and began to tiptoe into the unlit hall of the house's second floor.

William never found her particularly interesting. She was a needy little girl in his eyes, just like her mother. Needy in a way unlike Michael, fragile in a way unlike Michael. It did nothing to ever tug at him, and he preferred it that way.

Although now, seeing her take meek little steps that led into Michael’s bedroom as the boy slept…William, for the first time, was completely fixated on her every move.

Elizabeth slowly approached Michael, and from William’s clear top center view of the room, he could see the little tremble in her hands as she gingerly reached out to touch Michael’s forearm. She shook him lightly and was met with nothing from her eldest brother but continued soft breaths.

Something deep twitched inside William. He tried to reason with it, to convince it that his daughter likely just had a bad dream and wanted Michael to comfort her. Clara was never much of a good emotional comforter and hardly offered such things, and Evan definitely wasn’t a shoulder anyone could cry on without worrying about making him cry. Only Michael could and had ever really given anyone in the Afton family any real soothing and comfort, despite his own troubles and needs.

But as each second of footage ticked by gradually, the thing twitching within him began to writhe in a turmoil of possessive rage, appalled and sick with insult and envy. Because Elizabeth didn’t merely shake Michael harder to wake him, or give up and leave the room. She paused, then leaned closer and–

William nearly saw red.

She leaned in, carefully, shyly slipping her little hand into Michael’s gentle, stronger one and kissed his slender throat.

A small part of William was almost laughing madly. His own meek, love hungry and desperate little daughter was more like him than he ever cared to think. In whatever way, she appeared to have her own secret, budding desire for closeness to Michael. But Michael was his. His, his, his.

First Clara had her blatant fill of his boy as her reluctant servant, now this. This…small, infuriating act, this utter insult. From one of his own other children that he honestly cared nothing for, no less.

Was his whole fucking worthless family into Michael? Were they all getting a piece of his little boy, his most perfect creation, his possession?

And he was just here, the most obsessed and the least close to him?

How fucking long had this been going on?

A fire spread under William’s skin, crawling up his neck and throbbing in his veins. He tried to hold on to a shred of rationality. The thread snapped when he saw Elizabeth’s hand carefully leave Michael’s to tremble faintly over his waistband, dangerously close to his clothed groin.

He knew on some level that Elizabeth was just an innocent, unfortunate, affection starved child who likely didn’t understand what she was truly doing. Not like William was one to judge. Part of him went as far as to feel a hint of strange, inexplicable arousal at such a taboo sight, seeing Michael getting touched in his sleep and looking so maddeningly unaware and easy to taste.

But William could hear it, her barely audible, shaky little breaths.

The little bitch was excited.

Michael stirred softly, and she quickly but silently drew back, with a sort of practiced carefulness that spoke to having experience doing so. William had no illusions about it. It was not the first time.

Elizabeth quietly stepped back, flushed and wide eyed with the same sort of needy hunger he had seen long ago in Clara’s same green eyes when she had ruined Michael’s sixth birthday over her desire to have more of William back from their son, and in her bed, giving her this sneaky little wretch she craved for a second child. She scurried quietly out of the room, going through the dark hall and thrumming in her bed with that unsettling mix of innocent shyness and excitement.

What was it with these two little girls he had observed remotely, both being so stupid tonight? First Charlotte, then Elizabeth.

...

First...Charlotte. Then, Elizabeth. 

William let the feed continue playing. He got up, taking long steps as he wordlessly made his way to the back of the pizzeria. He couldn’t hear Charlotte’s continued, weakening cries and banging over the blood rushing in his head like waves of red slaughter, but he could feel her there.

He picked up a sanitized kitchen knife on the way, as the food prep area was right near the back exit.

As he opened the door and looked down at the crying child before him, startled and knocked back to the cold asphalt from how hard he shoved the door open, William could almost taste Charlotte’s blood seconds before he freed it from her youthful flesh.

It was incredibly dark outside that late night, and no one else was around.

Chapter Text

Killing Charlotte felt good, but not as good as it could have.

Her murder was two things; an extreme act of trying to keep one risky secret by burying it under an even riskier secret, and a moment of pure, hot rage. Was it a cold blooded kill, or a crime made in the heat of passion?

William didn’t spend much time thinking about the nuances. He stood there, crouched and bloodied with the vital essences of his business partner’s young daughter, eyes wide and blackened with a familiar weapon in his hand. He couldn’t take time to savor his release of aggression; he had to move fast.

Mind racing ahead of his body, William slowly retraced his steps like an animal reverting back to a clinical machine, swiftly removing his suit jacket and wiping off as much blood from his face and hands as he could with efficient swipes. He kept the knife hidden inside the bunched up, stained fabric, stepping aside from Charlotte’s pooling red and taking off his dress shoes to prevent any lingering blood on their undersides from leaving prints. Thankfully, she was killed on asphalt; there wasn’t any dirt nearby for his shoes to press clear marks into, anyway.

As he took deep, shaky breaths to come back down from the insane high and rush, William glanced around the dark back lot with sharp eyes. There was no one there that could be seen. And he still stood in the blackest part of the area, the spot that those teenagers from some time ago broke the outdoor lights with rocks. If he ever saw them again, he might feel generous enough to thank them with a free meal from the pizzeria. On the house, and with no honest explanation.

A drop of something cold and wet streamed down William’s cheek. Looking up at the abyss of dark clouds above, he realized it was starting to rain.

He smiled, heading back inside before he got drenched in yet another liquid. If fate continued to serve him, the rainwater would muddy any possible little evidence on or around Charlotte.

Keeping an ear out in case an employee–or Henry, happened to have come back in through the front, William discreetly returned to his office, changing out of his ruined business attire like a snake shedding its skin and shoving it all in a black trash bag along with the knife. He had particularly liked that suit with its deep shade of violet, but no matter. Suits could be replaced. His freedom couldn’t be, if he got caught.

He spent the next hour in a blur, a controlled and practiced process of tidying up loose ends after taking a young life on the pizzeria grounds. It felt closer to a chore each time, though with the new stake of the child outside being Henry’s , William felt some of that old pressure and thrill in his veins. A terrible enjoyment, only marred by the unsavory idea that being found out probably would end up with him getting taken away from Michael for good.

While William worked methodically and quickly, running through tasks and being sure not to miss anything to the best of his post-bloodshed rush (gather evidence, change clothes, put gloves on and clean up, replace the kitchen knife he’d taken with a new one…), part of his mind was preoccupied thinking of how to spin the whole situation.

I had been looking for Charlotte, after I realized how late it had gotten, and how you still hadn’t returned for her yet…, William’s mind spoke, testing the lines and adjusting them like he was writing drafts of a screenplay, Or…I’d been looking for her, but she was wandering all over the building and must have pulled on some wires, Henry. The security feed got cut off, and I couldn’t find her in the pizzeria or outside it.

Something like that, perhaps. William went onto his computer, pausing the footage at a point before Charlotte had strangely vanished off camera. She had wandered into the electrical room alone at a time, he found. And Henry had been teaching the child all sorts of things about machinery, wiring and such the last few days only. Was it such a stretch to believe that the little girl got too bold and explorative, opening up a shiny control panel and trying to test her new ‘skills’ on whatever she touched while waiting for her father to pick her up?

Now cleaned up and calmer, William headed to the panel in the electrical room, opening it up and locating the wires connected to the security cameras. But, rather than make it too clean and obvious by only cutting those, he tilted his head and smiled as he thought of how to imitate a more…childlike approach.

With his hands still gloved, he began to snip at all the wires with a nearby pair of small wire cutters, random and haphazard as a child cutting hair from a doll, then sticking little pieces of tape to “fix” and “reconnect” the wires as tinier, less deft hands would have.

Satisfied with the appearance of it, he hummed and unceremoniously moved some boxes and items aside on the floor unevenly with small pushes as Charlotte could have, if she left in a nervous hurry after realizing she had messed up something dangerous and important. Though in a different way, she really had, just by looking at his camera feed by innocent mistake. William went back outside in the rainy dark, being quick to open Charlotte’s cold, wet, bloodied little hand and get her DNA on the small handles of the wire cutter before letting it clatter on the asphalt beside her.

Her eyes were frozen, stuck staring unseeingly into the black sky above and unreactive as the rain hit them, pooling around her orbs and inside her bloodied, parted mouth. Henry always said she was a quiet, smart girl. She was certainly more silent than ever now…though as for smarts considering her actions earlier, William had his own private opinion.

Making haste to return to his office with only a smattering of raindrops on him and wiping up the slightly wet footprints he tracked inside, William deleted all footage from the point of Charlotte wandering near the electrical panel earlier. There was no video proof of her going into the panel, but he had to make do and lie through his teeth once he got asked about it eventually. Hell, he could say her cutting all those wires must have corrupted the footage more extensively. Using more technical terms would certainly put most people (and the disinterested, less apt portion of the small police force in Hurricane) glaze over in the eyes. And some of those back rooms in the pizzeria leaked…if anything, it was a known fact to most all employees that water could get into all sorts of unfortunate places there.

With the evidence cleaned up and set in a new way, the cameras cut and wiped…all that remained was the story William would tell, and for him to explain why he had driven away from the store after ‘not having found’ Charlotte before she was killed.

He wouldn't lock up the store. He’d have to look like he left in a mad rush to…what? Drive around nearby in a panic, as if he was frantically looking for his friend’s disappeared daughter?

That was one of the only few slightly plausible reasons he could think of. As long as anyone believed he had looked for her and drove out to find her before she ended up a bloody heap behind the pizzeria, it would just have to do.

As he began to leave in a simulated hurry, his office landline rang. Too little, too late. It was Henry. Probably only now calling to apologize profusely for taking an ungodly amount of time to tend to his sick wife. The woman must have unknowingly sensed that their child was going to die soon, from the short days ago that Henry told William she was unwell. It made more sense now, if that was indeed the case, why Charlotte’s father apparently hasn't even had the time to call back all these hours. His wife must have been vomiting blood, or hacking up her lungs.

“Goodnight, Henry,” William said into the still air of his dark office, letting the line ring as he left his door swung open, the bag of his trashed evidence in his other gloved hand, a faint, chillingly fond smile on his face, “Goodnight, Charlotte.”

—

William drove calmly and speedily through the rain down a lengthy highway after making his fake, frantic rounds around the near and far perimeter of the pizzeria, now having become ‘consumed by panic’ at not having found Charlotte and…

“Hmm…” he hummed to himself, thinking as his gears turned, “What should come next, Henry?”

A normal man in a panic would have called Henry, or the police, but maybe it could be reasoned that William had grown too frantic to even think of something more rational other than to search and drive desperately on such a dark, stormy night.

“In my panicked searching, I only realized I hadn’t called someone after I was already too far from any phones, and I had left my own mobile in my office as well…” William mused out loud, his smile stretching wider as he drove forward, presenting his play to the audience in his mind’s eye, “The only thing I could think to do was go straight home and call Charlotte’s father from the landline there…it was the closest option I could think of.”

He continued speeding deliberately but carefully down the wet, increasingly empty streets, pushed forward by his wickedness and desire to keep his freedom in order to keep his proximity to what mattered most–Michael.

After splitting into the winding path in a more forested, isolated area leading to the Afton household, William kept up his outward momentum. He glanced at the windows, seeing no lights on at the late hour, though he still remained cautious as he parked and appeared to rush out, keeping the compactly folded trash bag of evidence snug in the inside of his suit jacket.

His dear boy was up there, sleeping and oblivious to all that had happened. Michael didn’t know what his father had done again due to his twisted nature, his intent to keep his skeletons hidden, and his obsession. Nor did he know that his own little sister Elizabeth had set their violent father off by getting seen by the man on camera, touching her big brother and kissing him on the neck like only William craved to.

The rage was stirring low and hot in William’s guts again as he made his way into the house, his eyes keen to spot any silhouettes moving about. He went downstairs to the basement, carefully but swiftly putting his bloodied clothes in the wash with extra cleaning solution, while he quickly rinsed out the trash bag and the kitchen knife in it with gloves and whatever decent chemicals he had on hand nearby. The bag would join the inconspicuous trash outside in the bin behind the house, stuffed down below everything else for the trash collectors to pick up tomorrow, if he remembered correctly. And the knife…William wanted to find a place in Elizabeth’s soft insides to leave the blade. But the bottom of the trash bin would have to do for tonight, as well.

All the fast activity and focus were making him work up a sweat, but no matter. Risk and burning, envious rage at Elizabeth aside, William felt there was a refreshing feeling in him. Like killing again after months and his recent irritations had lifted some of the pent up itch inside.

Yet at the same time, seeing his daughter’s actions had only made it worse, too. He was used to barely sparing a glance at Elizabeth since the moment she was born, but now, he would somehow have to go further and mask his desire to destroy her in ways he couldn’t articulate.

William didn’t simply want to kill his second child, now that he had a minute to think about it. He wanted to ruin her, break her heart in a meticulously crafted way, just for her, before he ended her unwanted existence in his life.

After finishing up quickly, William took a moment, then headed upstairs to call Henry and tell him the fabricated, tragic string of events, leading with the moment he started to look for Charlotte after hours in the pizzeria, but couldn’t find her…

—

Of course, Henry couldn’t believe it. He was beyond horrified, cursing and flooded with desperation and denial and fatherly rage as he screamed into William’s ear from the other line.

“You’re fucking lying!” Henry screamed, and William bit his lip on the other end, hoping his grin wasn’t audible. “How the fuck does any of this make sense, William?! What the hell do you mean you couldn’t find her?!”

He could practically taste the other man’s tears, and despite their surprisingly good years of something like companionship, William found himself enjoying the moment.

“I’m trying to tell you, I looked everywhere for her, Henry,” William said back, trying to maintain a tightrope balance of sounding as realistically strained and desperate as a man as constantly calm and amused should sound in the situation, “I checked inside and out, but there was nothing. I don’t understand why she might have just…what, holed up somewhere? Charlotte is a smart girl, why would she–”

“Don’t!” Henry snapped, seething in agony, “Don’t you fucking say her name right now! She has to still be there! She wouldn’t hide or run off! What about the goddamn security cameras?!”

You’re going to lose your voice at this rate, my friend, William crooned, soft and mocking in his head. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or start getting annoyed, having to make himself take such loud blasts to the ear.

“I told you, they got cut off. But up to where I could see, no one else had come in before it happened,” William said, outwardly tense, just trying to get through to his poor friend, “The only person I saw get close enough to the wires when it happened was…”

“Who?!” Henry demanded, his words hoarse. William listened a bit closer; he could hear the other man’s wife sobbing in the background. Maybe vomiting anew. “If you were in your goddamned office, and she was just wandering, then–”

Henry froze, the false realization sinking in. It was better that he came to that conclusion on his own, rather than William spoon-feeding it to him. Telling Henry that it was Charlotte would be too obvious; it was better that Henry began to blame himself, believing that his enthusiastic teaching of circuitry and machinery to Charlotte the last few days might have spurred her to play with things she shouldn’t have.

“...Oh, God…” Henry choked out, the blood draining from his body, “William…you don’t think…”

“Don’t think what?” William said intently, coming off as focused and grimly serious rather than expressing any of his evil glee, “What are you thinking, Henry? Talk to me.”

There was a long pause, filled only by shuddering, shallow breaths from Henry on the line. William could almost see the moment Henry turned to look back at his mess of a wife with silent mortification and (misguided) guilt in his eyes.

If Charlotte had, in fact, possibly ventured to mess with a panel due to Henry's brief teachings making her feel some higher level of curiosity or confidence...then it would indirectly be his fault that the cameras had gone out. His fault that she could be dead, with no evidence of the killer on camera.

His fault, his fault, his fault. In theory.

He was a good man. Too kindhearted and quick to take the blame for his own good, and lacking the strength to genuinely believe that his longtime friend and business partner could seriously have done something heinous to his daughter.

William had to wonder if it was easier for precious souls like Henry and Michael to always blame themselves, rather than those they cared about deep down. Even if they were indeed smart enough to know otherwise, they couldn’t help it. Couldn’t bear pointing fingers. Especially at the man that they both held a degree of reverence for, despite William being the most obvious choice of what had to have gone most wrong for them.

When the fragile silence on the other line was interrupted by Henry’s wife breaking out into a hysterical, despairing rage at Henry for whatever he silently communicated was his fault, William knew he was on the right track. The line went dead, and he sighed contentedly, putting the phone back on the receiver in the kitchen.

“Daddy?”

Momentarily still, William turned slowly to see an unfortunately familiar pair of big green eyes and strawberry blonde hair, glinting faintly in the moonlight from the windows.

It felt deeply displeasing that he had brought the girl into the world just to spite Clara, only for her to get under William’s skin the way she had, with the little stunts she had apparently been pulling on Michael.

“Elizabeth,” William said, seemingly calm but devoid of feeling. “You’re up late, dear.”

She was predictably drowsy from being up so late into the night, the night that seemed to stretch on forever, but her eyes still held that same usual hunger for a crumb of love. Approval. Having her father’s eyes on her for longer than a few seconds, being spoken to, called dear, called by her name… it gave her a jolt of jittery energy.

“W-what…what’re you doing?” she asked, timid but shyly eager, her tiny fingers bunching in her little nightgown, “Mr. Emily sounded really mad…”

William figured his family would find out about Charlotte’s ‘disappearance’ and murder soon enough. Henry was either going to call the police or drive straight to the pizzeria himself, after his wife exhausted herself from screaming at him and beating her fists against his chest in helpless rage and torment. But Elizabeth was slightly ahead of the curve. Charlotte had seen something she shouldn’t have. Elizabeth was hearing, seeing, touching things she shouldn’t have…at least, in relation to Michael. William didn’t really care if she overheard his fake desperate call to Henry. He did, however, feel the remaining urge to turn around and strangle her for her neediness towards his eldest boy, and for having the gall to eavesdrop, and for being innocently foolish and desperate enough to make her presence known.

It was all quickly stacking up, and William found himself staring down at her unblinkingly, many beats longer than comfortable to the little girl.

“...Daddy?” she asked again, her voice becoming smaller and smaller, “Is…is Charlie…okay?”

William took a moment to consider how he’d approach the next few minutes. A smile spread over his lips, not reaching his eyes.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, dear,” he said evenly. Looking at her now, even in the dark, she really did look like Clara. But something in the hungry intensity of her big green eyes was like a mix of Clara’s enduring, girlish stare of neediness and William’s own fixation-prone nature.

He doubted Elizabeth would ever find what she thought she was looking for, in him or anyone else.

She shifted on her little slippers, cushioned and soft enough to keep her feet from barely making a sound. “Oh…” she said, fretting and timid, strangely jittery with nervousness and a happiness that was rather inappropriate considering what she might have heard from listening in to the grim call, though she could have heard less than William thought. Eyeing her, Elizabeth didn’t seem to know what to do with the rare minute of attention she was getting from her father.

“Not going to bed?” William asked, the darkness hiding the aggression in his open smile and the way his teeth were bared.

“U-um…I know I should…” Elizabeth mumbled, a shy, nervous thing before a man who had just killed a girl her age hours ago…and not even for the first time.

William tilted his head a bit, his gaze cold yet obscured by night shadows. “What do you want to do then, dear?” he asked, calm and smooth.

Elizabeth giggled, mostly from nerves than the tiny glimmer in her chest. “I want…I want to, um…”

Touch your big brother again?, William’s inner voice said venomously. He held his tongue. To say so would be satisfying, but would lead to the reveal of how he knew such a thing in the first place.

“Spend some time with Daddy?” he suggested, “Even though it’s very far past your bedtime?”

This was how he would destroy her. Slowly…with the crumbs of false attention she wanted to choke on.

Her green eyes lit up pathetically easily. It made his fist curl with disdain at his side, but Elizabeth didn’t notice. Too innocently–or maybe, not so innocently, as she made it a surprisingly blurry line–captured by the moment she considered so painfully precious.

“Yes,” she said quickly, then tried to catch herself to be something like proper, despite her meek giddiness, as if William hadn’t spent her whole short life dismissing her, and made her cry with barely any effort just the other day, “Yes, please…just a little, Daddy. Then I’ll–I’ll go back to bed.”

“I hope you do go back to your bed, dear,” William said, his smile plastered, unable to hold back the subtle snide comment, “Since you already seem so full of energy…why don’t you have a dessert, just this once?”

Elizabeth gasped, too awed and overjoyed at her perception of receiving fatherly warmth for the first time to really begin to grasp his hidden jab. She watched in eager delight and shy anticipation as William simply fished a tub of that blackberry gelato Clara had gotten them all a few weeks ago from the freezer. It smelled just a tad more sour than it probably should have when he popped the lid off of it, and he took smug consolation in knowing Elizabeth would eat it anyway, just because he was the one now handing a large scoop of it to her on a silver spoon.

“There you are,” he lilted, measured and cool, “One spoonful for my little girl.”

Her big eyes shone and stung a bit with emotion. She held the spoon with two easily breakable hands, hands that had touched Michael with alarming intimacy earlier that night, and ate some of the purplish, already melty gelato with her small lips growing cold. Lips that had kissed Michael’s slender throat.

Her lips being cold and slightly purple satisfied a fraction of William’s inner craving for her premature death…but he had already decided it wouldn’t be enough just to imagine her dead.

“How is it, dear?” he asked, his smile curling wickedly at the edges as he watched Elizabeth’s glowing little face get a little scrunched up from the slightly over-soured taste of what she was still making herself eat. She’d eat the whole container if he warmly asked her to.

“It’s…it’s good, Daddy,” she said, a bit shaky from emotion, though also a little strained from downing the less pleasant flavor. “T-thank you…”

William stared down. He remembered when Michael was ten years old. The man had already been keeping up his distance for four years by then, but he would have done anything to have this sort of moment with the boy...to feed him again, crouch down to the level of Michael’s beautiful, innocent blue eyes as he spooned little mouthfuls of the caramel flavored ice cream Michael always loved past those sweet, pouty lips until he couldn’t stand not kissing him anymore.

But now, here he was…living with his spite-driven choice to give Clara another two children he never genuinely wanted, staying with his wife, when he knew deep down he should have kicked Clara out of his house on Michael’s fateful sixth birthday. He could have, should have, had his eldest son remain his only child. William could have kept him alone with him for ten years at this point, if he had. The thought of all the moments he could have savoured with his darling son as he grew up, being lost to time and his own decisions on how to handle things, almost made William repeat his stabbing of Charlotte with Elizabeth. How else could he really express the tight, never before felt knot in his chest, achingly close to agony and despair?

“It’s good, is it?” William said evenly, hollow in a way Elizabeth was simply too young to grasp or understand, “Do you wish it was Michael’s ice cream in your stomach instead, dear?”

Elizabeth paused her small licks, her eyes widening. “...What…? What do you…mean, Daddy? Mikey’s not here, and…and he doesn’t have an ice cream right now…”

William didn’t know or honestly care if she understood and was just pretending not to, or if she seriously didn’t. He simply stared down at her for a long, silent minute, his faux smile having long faded.

“No, he’s not,” he said, pointed and dry, “But I’m sure you wish he was here, for you to take it from him.”

He began to walk away, leaving Elizabeth standing in place to stare at him with her spoon in hand, dumbfounded at the whiplash of his behavior towards her as she saw it, the tub of gelato on the center of the table where it was hardest for her to reach, and left to melt as the sun began to peek over the rainy horizon outside. He couldn’t care less about being a petty hypocrite in any sense. He just had to get a hint of it off his chest, and playing with his daughter’s emotions suited the task just fine.

William walked into his home office across the first floor of the house, actually feeling drained for once unlike his usual devilish vigor. He laid down over his couch, sighing harshly and resting his forearm over his forehead in the dark, his curtains drawn shut already with traces of cold, white light from outside spreading in a ghostly glow around it.

Michael is upstairs, he told himself, almost trying to soothe a bitter wound rather than only taking sick satisfaction in the knowledge as his sharp eyes began to grow heavy from all his earlier exertion. My little boy is right there…

William never felt sadness or real hurting. It wasn’t in his nature to feel such things. But as he drifted off, he curiously wondered if what he felt just then was the faintest fraction like the aching he saw Michael grow up with for the last ten years. The fully felt, heavy longing Michael had come to bear every day, in his own wounded soul…albeit, in a much more innocent way.

However, for that brief phase of stillness as sleep washed over William like a dark wave, pulling him under into its deep ocean, he felt just the desire to hold Michael in his arms. To cradle him over his chest overnight, as he had once done countless times when he was a smaller, happier boy.

When William was a more satisfied man.

Chapter Text

The next morning was a performance art, more so than usual.

William was still somewhat tired from his rigorous activities the night before. However, he had fallen into a rare deep sleep, lifting part of the wear from his muscles and clearing his mind.

Straightening upright on his home office couch and stretching his long, lean arms, William considered his options in the current situation.

He could try delaying the inevitable–informing his own family of the ‘unexpected tragedy’ that befell the Emily family just last night. But they would find out eventually, either through the news or the two grieving parents’ communication.

Or the sudden, complete lack of thereof. The way Henry’s call had ended, with his sick wife screaming hysterically at an audibly shell-shocked Henry…William wouldn't have been surprised if the two fell off the grid together.

Nor would he be inconvenienced by it.

The less connections to others his own wife and children had, the better. Their isolation gave William more control. Leeway. Not to mention, if Henry felt he had little choice but to step back from their shared business venture, temporarily or otherwise, it was all the better.

No more polite, friendly banter and subtle questioning to joust off cleverly. Just managing the business and his family. Less distractions, more time for what really mattered…

William got off his office couch, rolling his slender neck and broad shoulders to rid himself of the dull aches. He was fairly sure he had limited time to prepare himself for what was to come that day. Namely, the knock of Hurricane’s ‘finest’ officers at his door, with basic questions about last night.

He couldn't look too disheveled or too well-kempt. William was known as a charming, confident man with a family-oriented business; he had to appear together enough to look like a man who really had been trying to find Charlotte last night. But not together enough to tip anyone off to how suspiciously unaffected he truly was.

Lifting up a framed photo of a younger Michael from his desk to assess his own reflection, the photo smiling innocently at him, William gave his already messy, short hair a few run-throughs with his fingers. He looked decently tired.

His vision refocused from his reflection to the photo. Michael, five years old, grinning sweetly up at the camera for his father. There has been no need for a special occasion to take the photo. William simply had to capture the beauty, the innocence of his then-only child. Radiating all the purity his father never had.

What would that perfect face look like soon, when William told his family what happened to the Emilys’ daughter? The closest thing they had to family friends?

What would Michael look like, when the police came to question his father?

If the fear of William being taken away in a way the man himself couldn't control put the longing back in Michael’s soft, blue eyes with a new level of desperation…William felt risking prison time was almost worth it.

Straightening calmly, William smiled to himself before leaving his office to wake his sleeping wife upstairs. The sight of Clara actually using their marital bed to sleep on for once was amusing. Though, she wasn't the one he wanted to see it on.

“Clara," he said, sounding appropriately serious and weary as he touched her shoulder, “Wake up, dear."

She stirred, bleary eyed and surprised beneath her irritation. "William?" Clara muttered, yawning, “What do you want?"

He bit his cheek for a moment, holding back a cruel grin and a sharp tongue retort.

“Get out of bed first, dear. It's important."

Clara groaned, turning onto her side away from him, bunching up the wrinkled covers around her. “For the love of God, William,” she mumbled, rubbing her tired eyes, "You can't just show up any time and keep making us do whatever you–”

"Charlotte is missing.”

The woman paused, her eyes fixing on William in the moment before bewilderment. She was halfway there. But William knew what would get her alert, if that wasn't enough.

"What do you mean, missing?” Clara said tensely. A bomb, ready to explode on what would've been a normal day. And William simply loved ruining his wife's day.

He took a moment, as if he needed to gather himself to deliver the grim news.

“...Henry had been leaving her at the pizzeria the last few days. His wife was sick. Everything was fine, though last night…” William stopped, shutting his eyes in the facade of strain, "...I couldn't find her.”

Clara sat up quickly, the exhaustion still rimming her wide green eyes, but she was taut as a thread about to snap.

"...At the pizzeria?” Clara said slowly, a panic infused fury bleeding into her volume and twisting face, "You let her go missing at our business?!”

‘Our’ was an interesting choice of words, considering Clara did nothing for the business anymore but took care of William’s children so he could run it full time. That was less relevant at the present.

He wasn't surprised by her reaction; he fully anticipated another little meltdown. It seemed to be the only way Clara could respond to stress anymore.

“I didn't ‘let her’ go missing, Clara," William said sharply, portraying a grim weariness he did not possess, “I looked all over for her. For all we know, she could just as well already be d–”

"Don't!” Clara snapped, shooting up out of bed and pacing, her hands tangling in her messy locks, "God damn it, William! Can't you do anything anymore without making our lives worse?! The fucking police are going to think you did it! They'll shut down the business, and we’ll all be out on the street, because you had to watch their kid without asking me first!”

William took in her reasoning as she paced and knocked random things over, cursing and helpless. Clara had always been a woman who at least valued children, but perhaps the hard years had lowered how many of them she cared for. If anything, he could somewhat approve of the fact that Clara was thinking of the financial well-being of the Afton family…still.

“It wouldn't have made a difference," William said tensely, secretly enjoying getting under her skin right after waking her into a new nightmare, “If you had said yes, and you certainly would have even if you didn't want to just to save face in front of the Emilys, this could have happened to Charlotte anyway. This is not my fault, Clara. It's just bad luck."

“My whole life with you is bad luck!" Clara yelled, years of bottled frustration and buried honesty pouring out through the latest crack in her denial of how bad things truly were, “You–you bastard! You just had to get mixed up with someone else's kid! Henry has money, he could have afforded a goddamned babysitter! Why did you have to say yes to watching her?!”

For once, William had to admit, Clara made an excellent point. Charlotte possibly never would've stumbled across his pizzeria offices' secret video feed of the Afton household and consequently been murdered, if Henry had simply gotten a babysitter at home for a few days. It was pitiful…laughable.

“I can't believe this!” Clara seethed, "How the hell did she go missing?! You have cameras all over the building!”

William already had a story for that, but he knew it'd be a waste trying to tell her anything now, even if it was a lie. He merely held a hard gaze at her, maintaining the air of being quietly tense and mirthless.

“Clara, you need to stop fretting and listen," William said seriously, “When the police come here to–”

"No!” Clara nearly shrieked in a mix of terror and frustrated rage, tears starting to leak from her eyes as she gave William’s chest a shove that hardly moved him back, "No, William! I'm not doing this! You are not putting me and the kids through this! You talk to the fucking police yourself, you hear me?! We don't need this, after all the shit you've put us through!”

William noted that it took the death of a child, and the livelihood of herself and her family being at risk to finally do something like admit she was at the end of her rope and try to put her foot down.

“Do not interrupt me again, woman," William said, harsh and low, more like he was a man at his wits end in a terrible situation than what he really was. His hands shot out, taking firm grasps of her wrists. Clara was a physically rather strong woman, naturally, but William was stronger.

“Let go of me!" Clara yelled, hot, angry tears spilling as she struggled and writhed.

William scowled, forcefully pulling her in close with a sharp tug to his chest as his eyes burned down at her.

“The police are coming, and you will have to deal with it," he bit out harshly, “You know they will talk to you, because you're my wife. You know how it works. Stop behaving like a child for once and grow up."

Clara sucked in a choked breath, her eyes wide like she had been spat on. If there was anything William couldn't never get enough of from her nowadays, it was seeing her just like that. Holding the pain of the hurting, desperate young girl he married so many years ago all over her face. Shattering further every time he took a hammer to Clara’s tenuous grip on what she fought to believe was a decent life.

The click of the bedroom door opening behind them sounded softly, and with adoration spreading in his blood, William made himself look back at Michael with a tense expression.

Michael had been jolted out of his own uneasy slumber by the sound of Clara’s yelling and tossing of items around the master bedroom. Scared as he was to open the door, just as he did when he was a boy peeking in on his parents' heated argument on his sixth birthday, Michael couldn't stand by. Not when his parents were having one of the worst arguments he's heard from them in years.

“...Father?" Michael asked, his voice tight and small. He glanced between them, trying to rapidly understand the situation in addition to what muffled words he caught from outside.

William was still squeezing Clara’s wrists while his eyes stared at the boy, and as she was already a crying wreck, it briefly covered up her gasps of pain from how tight his hands were getting.

But as Michael's wide, watery eyes shot to his mother's state, William remembered himself just enough to let go and wrap his arms around his wife, even as she tried to angrily shove away from him to no avail.

“Michael," William said, his voice a low mix of stern authority and a soft murmur, “It's alright. Your mother and I are just talking."

The boy's eyes darted from her reddening wrists to the wet, contorted face Clara was making, to the items toppled over across the room. Shaken, but unconvinced. A little more was needed.

“Son," William spoke again, low and soft even with the hint of rare fatherly firmness, “Look at me."

Michael nearly held his breath, his vulnerable blue eyes locking with his father’s mercury pools.

Got you, darling, William thought, his heart’s jaws salivating.

Swallowing hard, Michael clenched his fists and tried to talk past the tight knot in his throat. “...What’s going on?" he asked reluctantly, brows knit in anxiousness. In truth, he didn't want to know more than the bits he already overheard.

“...Henry’s daughter went missing at the store last night," William said, evenly as he could. In front of Michael, it was a genuine struggle to not unravel…but not from stress or guilt. “And I fear the police may believe, at least at first…that I'm responsible.”

Michael froze. Charlotte was a nice young girl, around the same age as his own little sister. And Henry was a kind man, a loving father, even if Michael sometimes wished he could be a bit sterner with making William be that way again too.

Now, not only had an innocent child they knew since birth apparently gone missing–Michael’s own father was at risk of being hauled away in handcuffs, regardless of his involvement or lack thereof.

He already lost years of what could have, should have been good times with William. Despite their most recent ups and downs, Michael could not bear to lose any more proximity and access to his father than the man had already withheld.

Now, the world was once again being pulled from under him with the threat of more distance. More lost time.

“...No," Michael trembled, his voice cracking as he crumbled and clutched his arm, burying his face in his other hand, “No…Father, no…”

There it was, more beautiful and raw than ever. The longing. The fear of separation. The innocent, aching need for his beloved father.

“Come here," William coaxed, his gentle firmness masking his utter delight as he turned away from holding a buckling Clara, facing Michael and keeping his itching hands at his sides.

And with only a small shudder of hesitation, Michael finally did what he had been dying to do for years. What he almost did, but held back from doing the other night, when William comforted him after being stuck servicing his mother.

He rushed forward, letting out a choked sob as he hugged his father for the first time in ten years, with all the strength he could muster. Like pouring all his love into the embrace would make the world mercifully keep William out of harm’s way.

“Everything is going to be alright," William murmured into the boy’s hair, his arms sliding tight around Michael’s shaking frame. Hot chills broke over William’s skin under his clothes, sparking with pure euphoria.

Only Michael had ever had such love for him, emanating from his son through every touch, tear and word. While William was confident he would avoid the worst case scenario, he almost didn't care about any consequences right then. Feeling this again after so long–holding Michael so close, being held by his darling boy as the latter cried and trembled, all for him…there was nothing like it.

“I don't want them to take you away," Michael wept, his usual weary, reluctant guardedness broken, his tears soaking into William’s shirt, “I can't–I can't lose you more…! I can't lose you…”

A surge like a ray of sun breaking through the dark depths of the underworld shot through William. He knew, with reaffirmed certainty, that he would always be addicted to this. To the way only Michael could create such powerful, undeservedly heavenly feelings inside him.

“Oh, my son…” William breathed, barely holding back his urges. He had to hope that he sounded gentle, fatherly. Not enamored and obsessive.

Michael shivered, clutching onto the man hard as his own suppressed emotions spilled out into sobs. Soft. Breathy. Beautiful.

Would Michael sound that way if William made love to him?

The thought set William's teeth on edge, and he squeezed Michael tighter, his own heart and taller figure starting to shudder between panted breaths. What might be mistaken for a rare show of emotion and weakness were really the signs of a man obsessed, unraveling.

He knew he should stop, pull back, regain some of the control slipping through his fingers like sand. But it was incredibly hard to care about anything but the broken boy in his arms, and all the wonderful things he was unknowingly making his father feel.

William couldn't care less that Clara was crying in frustration, fear and deep weariness, sitting on the floor and leaning against the bed. He didn't care that his other two children were probably both shedding tears in their bedrooms as well, with all the yelling and breaking from their mother they overheard. He could barely give a damn about the police surely on their way over, or what conclusions Henry and his wife might jump to.

Threading his fingers through the unbearable softness and warmth of Michael's chocolate locks, William was almost heaving for breath. His nerves were on fire, and he could feel the blood rushing in his head starting to flow towards his groin. Unnoticed, yet, but not ideal.

“Michael," he whispered, almost desperate and reverent. A father loving his son. A devil getting a long missed taste of their favorite angel. “Michael…my little boy…”

It was like a hammer breaking Michael’s weary defenses down, and he held William impossibly closer despite how his arms ached. His father’s grasp around him was tight, almost painfully so in a way that felt vaguely familiar, but he didn't care if it felt like it was hard to breathe. Michael needed this more than anything, more than ever.

And if his father still loved him so much, after all, that the force of his love could break him…Michael could take being broken by it with a smile. A real smile.

“I love you," Michael choked out, a muffled whisper against his father's thudding chest. He knew that William might not deserve it after all he had and hadn't done, being so distant and callous. But Michael felt he had to say it to the man while he still could, with the looming threat of incarceration on the horizon.

An excruciatingly pleasurable zap beamed through William, and he bit back a low groan, his teeth digging into the flesh of his cheek.

“Oh, baby…” William murmured, strained with a trace of huskiness, “I know you do, love."

He couldn't help but shift his grip, pulling the tearful boy closer in a way that teetered on intimate. William’s control was slipping fast. His hands couldn't resist their separate movements, one tightening in the back of Michael’s soft mullet, the other trailing down to his lower back to pull their bodies closer, closer…

Michael’s muffled crying was just slightly interrupted as a small part of him grew a bit surprised. Confused. Although, it was difficult to see clearly through his outpour of emotions and fully realize that his father wasn't holding him closer out of pure love and untainted fatherly care.

William was nearly leaning over Michael now like a shadow at his taller height, his breathing ragged and hoarse as he felt Michael’s lithe, gentle body so perfectly close to his. Not close enough, however. Even with the subtly growing erection restrained by his black slacks, pressing faintly enough against Michael’s lower abdomen that the boy didn't realize it.

Something about the way he was being held, the way his father just called him baby... Michael wasn't in the best state to register it, but something made a tiny part of him pause inside for a brief moment.

He tried to catch his breath, blinking through his tears to try looking up at his surprisingly affected father.

“Don’t," William whispered, sharp and sudden. Yet, a thread of desperation belied his quiet, commanding tone, “Don't look up yet, my darling boy. I couldn't bear it."

Michael’s face was cradled tightly back into William’s chest, and it was only then that Michael began to hear the crying of his mother and distanced siblings again.

Only then, did he realize the smothering pain of how tight his father’s grip was locking their bodies together. Like William had actually been starving to do so all this time, even more than Michael himself, despite creating years of distance himself in the first place.

“F-Father…" Michael forced out, his voice a shaky rasp after crying while he tried to turn his face to the side for more air. He wanted to tell him to let up a bit. But the sudden paranoia of doing so somehow making the world take it as a sign that Michael was ungrateful, that his father should be torn away from him after all, made the words freeze in his throat.

And just when William was about to throw all rationality and restraint to the wind, his blood screaming for his lips to finally taste Michael’s, the sound of police sirens and the doorbell ringing stopped him in his tracks. 

It was painful that his obsession’s urge to devour was interrupted. It was lucky.

Chapter Text

William would never forget the moment the sirens wailed near the front door, and the banging and ringing on said door. The officer’s voice, loud and firm while declaring a need for entry.

Not because any of those things mattered to him. But because of what the intense combination of signals, audible threats all pointing to a man about to be torn from his family, did to Michael.

The boy froze, the color draining from his face like blood swirling down the sink. William had to wonder in the back of his dazzled, preoccupied mind if the ringing in Michael’s head was louder than the cacophony flooding the house from inside and out.

“N…no,” Michael said, a faint stammer, “No… Father…”

William’s veins were alight, blazing desperately with unbearable heat. Need. The way Michael’s soft voice twisted when he said Father, broken and delicate like glass shards in his pretty throat. And his big, beautiful blue eyes, frozen lakes one could fall into the palpable depths of.

So badly, William wanted to drown.

For a man who felt himself burning with what could only be life at the moment–as well as one who believed he could make his life’s torch burn eternal somehow, someday–William found himself, for once, craving a sweet death in the deep waters of his son’s agony. He nearly forgot to breathe where he stood, holding the boy who felt like he was losing the man he missed most all over again. To others, William would reasonably look like a man shocked and silent with dread as he anticipated the police hauling him away. In truth, his stillness was that of faint threads of self-restraint straining to hold onto a mask of normalcy, control…and that of the most intoxicating suffocation he had ever known.

“Michael…” William breathed, strained for air. His hands were nearly crushing his eldest to his front. If he could, he would squeeze. Squeeze harder than he had on Michael’s sixth birthday. Squeeze until his son shattered into pieces he could meld back into his flesh and blood.

It wouldn’t be a foreign intrusion. Michael was his flesh and blood. It would be a long awaited, inevitable rejoining. Michael’s birth had split them into two, William felt, and he had to bind them back together somehow. Two into one. 

“ --to fix this!” Clara yelled raggedly, her hands beating and shoving with minimal effect against William’s back being the only thing disrupting his spiral into molten, obsessive thoughts of reconnection. “How the hell are you going to fix this, huh?! Go talk to the police now, you goddamned arrogant bastard! What’s the use of being so fucking smart if you’re so–”

William didn’t care.

He would usually at least have the decency to feel a flicker of irritation, or at least amusement. But in the moment, he truly felt nothing in regards to her, his younger two kids crying in the hall outside the master bedroom, or anyone, anything else.

The man almost did feel, however, the faintest sensation of something close to regret. Regretting that he still had enough self-awareness and control to not act in violent honesty on the spot. To not just let himself have what he wanted.

“My love,” William said, painfully soft and even, looking down. He forced his hands to let up on Michael just a bit, one still wrapped entirely around the boy’s trembling shoulders, the other coming to cup his cheek and tilt his tearstained face up. “Look at me.”

Michael shakily obeyed, the fragile waters of his blue eyes meeting his father’s intense silver gaze, the latter past its melting point beneath the surface.

Oh, how he wanted to delve in, extinguish his white hot steel in the oceans of Michael’s irises. His bleeding heart. His body, his soul.

William swallowed dryly.

“We are going to be fine,” he found himself saying, stringing together an answer that miraculously didn’t sound like insanity, superficially. “I told you on your birthday years ago…we never have to be separate. I’ll never leave you, and nothing will ever come between us. Nothing.”

But he did not define ‘we’ as the entire Afton family. Not did he make clear what ‘fine’ would look like by his standards, for himself and Michael.

Michael’s brows pinched, a faint glimmer of foggy familiarity appearing in his fixed stare. The words felt like a vaguely remembered whisper. A promise from a dream, another lifetime.

The boy swallowed tightly, almost as unaware of Clara furiously yelling and shoving items around behind William as his father was. His eyes finally shut tight, teeth clenched in a lip quivering grimace. Pain, vulnerability, endurance, longing. Helpless, innocent love he was still holding onto. Some of the things William adored seeing in his boy most.

With tangible unwillingness, Michael’s hands slowly loosened from gripping the back of his father’s dress shirt, falling lax at his sides in resignation. He knew he had no choice but to do be without him yet again, due to circumstances he couldn't control, and for an unknown amount of time.

Feeling his son release him hurt William. Excruciatingly, sweetly. Having the one thing he desired most and having to soothe him into letting go…for now.

A familiar lack settled in the center of William’s chest, a complete void only avoided by the heady buzz in his head, throat, fingertips.

He would come back…Michael would be there at home, his troubled mind racing with thoughts of his father even though the man hadn’t been there for him all these years like he should have.

Where would William ever have and genuinely want to savor that kind of devotion in anyone else?

No one loved him like Michael did.

And no one needed Michael like he did; worshipped the boy like an angel, revered and hungered for like innocence bound to a bed. Idolizing him, with the urge to taste, to have him, in the most desecrating ways.

Putting his son on a pedestal above the world, while craving to throw him into the dirt and take, take, take, at the same time.

Inhaling an unsteady breath, William could only stare intensely down at Michael as his head hung low. His parted, chocolatey bangs fell softly over his wet eyes, shadowing them into what almost looked like grim, dark sockets.

The drawing of a gravestone that William had found hidden under the mat on Michael’s desk blew past in the man’s slowly regathering mind.

Michael had already been through a lot. William felt compelled to ensure he could take more. The alternative was simply unacceptable.

As Clara finally sat on the bed, her red face buried in her hands as she tried to think of how to keep their family’s world together, William wordlessly reached out and cupped Michael’s wet cheek one more time. Holding the only world he needed in his hand.

“You are my son,” William said firmly, unblinking in his fixated intensity, “You are stronger than all of this, Michael.”

William thought for a moment in rapid calculation. He didn’t quite want Michael to be strong in a real, independent way. Rather, be dependent enough to endure and not leave his father for any relief or release elsewhere, in their world or the next. But the encouragement wasn't entirely false, somehow. Just not meant in the typical sense.

What father would want a son like this to be strong enough to leave him?, he asked internally, incredulous at the thought swirling in the back of his skull.

The boy didn’t look up yet, slightly resisting the light pressure William exerted to tilt his face back up into clear view.

Something more was needed. The police banging on the door outside could wait a moment longer. There was something William had to see before he buried every impulse and walked outside like a normal man. He could not leave without knowing his hooks were, and would remain, buried deep while he was gone for a bit.

As if his hands were possessed, William lifted the other to brush through Michael’s soft brown locks gently. His skin sparked with electricity, but he held any sign of it in.

Michael stayed, still subtly trembling where he stood, eyes downcast. Nearly defeated by the recurring pattern of never quite having what he felt he needed to stay with him consistently. However, his heart briefly skipped as the strength in William’s hands made him look up again with slow force.

His bangs were still in his eyes. William’s gaze bore into his anyway.

The moment lasted almost a bit too long, and seconds later as the banging and ordering continued outside, compiled with Clara’s crying and that of his little siblings, Michael glanced over his father’s stony face. William adored how he could practically see everything inside of Michael; his anxiety, fragility, deep tiredness, uncertainty. His hurting. A touch questioning in his visage…and a growing anger. A barely there bud, to be swiftly nipped before it could have a chance to bloom.

“...What?” Michael said tightly, his voice hoarse and tense. He didn’t want his father to go, but he didn’t like being forced to look up when he really, really didn’t want to face anything right then. His bleary eyes widened as his father leaned down into his space, inch by inch. “What are you–”

A familiar, yet long lost sensation of William’s lips brushing his forehead made his mind blank. It was so soft, so faint and delicate that Michael nearly didn’t grasp what had been done.

His father’s lips continued, planting light kisses over his brow and forehead, the crown of his hair. The boy stood stunned, each ghost of contact feeling like intense zaps on his suddenly hypersensitive body. The last time he remembered being kissed by the man so beloved to him was ten years ago.

And he knew not how William was melting inside like scrapped metals thrown into a pit of fire, each kiss and caress walking the needle thin lines between calculated love-bombing, genuine obsessive need, and guiltless manipulation.

One of the best parts was, no one was seeing it. Not Clara or the kids outside, sobbing uselessly into their hands. Not the police crowding their front lawn. The moment was reserved for father and son alone to witness and experience.

God willing, it would always remain that way. Their feelings, between them, with no one to disrupt what they did not know.

Every fiber of William’s being screamed to let himself taste his son. The pouty lips he craved for years. They were so close, so unfairly close, so easy to steal the first kiss from. When he would taste him one day–and William was sure he would, with how much he was slowly unraveling this summer alone–he swore to God that it had better truly be Michael’s true first kiss.

The thought of some undeserving boy or girl from his school having taken it, or worse, even Elizabeth having snuck it for herself already while Michael slept, almost made William snap and break the nearby vanity mirror.

Yet, there was just something about the way Michael still felt and reacted so purely that reassured him. Calmed the possessive rage flaring in his blood. William was convinced he could have tasted it if anyone had kissed his boy on the mouth before him.

“I love you,” William breathed against Michael’s eyelids, shivering a bit from the tantalizing way his son's soft lashes fluttered like wet butterfly wings against his skin, “Be strong for me, Michael. I won’t be long.”

Michael froze. Over the last ten years, part of him had increasingly considered accepting the scary idea that he might never hear his father tell him he loved him again. Especially not in any sort of way that felt real.

Yet now, there it was. A confirmation of that love, like a blow to the core with a sledgehammer in the most unexpected way, at an unexpected and dire time. It shocked Michael. It burned on his skin, in his aching heart.

It was…wonderful.

William continued on without giving his son time to think, and pulled Michael’s stunned face upwards a bit higher, not unaware in the slightest of how it was putting strain on his son’s neck. But Michael couldn’t even bring himself to say a word, much less complain.

One more kiss, firmer and longer lasting than all the rest, planted itself lovingly on Michael’s warm, salty cheek.

Then, with all his strength and before Michael could bring himself to react fast enough, William let him go and left the bedroom, his face stoic while he strode downstairs to finally answer the front door. He licked the tears on his lips as he went, the act and taste making his knees weak, a faint sigh dangerously close to a groan escaping him quietly.

He swallowed thickly, his throat tingling and head swimming with euphoria as he pulled the door open. William appeared outwardly grim. But most of it was due to how internally focused he was on the fresh pleasure vibrating in his nerves, and not letting it show. Ironically, it made him look utterly serious from an unknowing outsider’s view.

His steel gaze looked over the faces of the police officers. One was talking, all were watching with various degrees of subtle individuation in attentiveness and personal reactions behind stoic exteriors.

The world looked so…ugly, right then.

As if he stood before a swarm of unnecessary mounds of articulating, dull flesh, speaking gibberish, telling him what he could and couldn’t do. Coming between him and the most–no, the only beautiful thing in the world. They just had no idea what they were really doing.

When the officers began to take William towards a flashing police vehicle, he merely walked along, his tongue carrying the flavor of Michael’s sweetly salty tears as it slowly raked over the back of his teeth. The man was savoring the earlier intimacy just as his mind worked to get his way again in the present and near future, like separate gears in a clock ticking in unison, each with their own individual activities contributing to a collective goal.

There was no way William would allow being taken in for questioning over Charlotte’s demise, or how it might be connected to the past disappearances of children in proximity to the pizzeria, to lead to any real prison time away from Michael. He would make sure of that.

Chapter Text

Michael could barely bring himself to move, much less breathe anything but shallow gasps.

His body was stiff yet trembling faintly as a swell of emotions–anxiety, most of all–made his heart pound too hard. His wide, watery blue eyes fixed down to the spot on the carpet his father had just been standing on in front of him, as if looking away made him feel like it would make it impossible for William to ever be able to be there again.

The police sirens were still audible, and for a moment, Michael almost found desperate solace in it. It meant his father was still just outside. He could go run to him if he felt the universe wouldn’t punish him for moving.

But the punishment came anyway in the form of a heart shattering sound of a police car door opening and closing shut, followed by the hum of the vehicles pulling away from the front.

Just like that, William had been taken from him. Not by his father’s own choice, as the man had maintained his unexplained distance for years. No, this time, the separation wasn’t entirely in William’s control.

The ringing in Michael’s ears, the raw, fresh feeling on how his father had just held him so tight, kissed his face and hair, told him he loved him again for the first time in a decade…he couldn’t bear it. His breathing grew shaky, ragged, a million thoughts, regrets, memories and worst case scenarios flooding his mind. Choking him from the inside.

He could vaguely hear the sounds of his little siblings crying, scared and confused in the hall just outside the master bedroom he and Clara were in. His mother’s angered, helpless crying turned into a childish sort of rage.

“Fuck!” Clara screamed, too wrapped up in her own emotions to tend to anyone else’s–not that it was ever her strong suit, or conscious focus, “Michael! What the fuck did your father get himself into now, huh?! He’s going to ruin our lives!”

Michael flinched, his eyes glued to the carpet, vision blurred. He parted his lips, but he had no answer. Even if he did, he had no strength to speak it yet. Only a faint breath left him, his efforts going to nothing but his racing mind, pulse, and bare effort to not break down completely.

Clara shot off the bed, her face hot and wet, twisted in a seething fury. “I don’t need this! I didn’t give him so many years of my life for this fucking mess! Why can’t that man do one thing right?! Now it’s all on me to take care of everything!”

The weak threads of an answer tried to weave themselves together in Michael’s rattled head. He wanted to say that she was, at the very least, jumping to conclusions that William would certainly be found guilty for something huge. Though, Michael knew his mother well enough to know that if he tried to say something like that right then, she would utterly flip her lid.

He also knew that his silence would have a similar, but just slightly less intense effect. He was stuck enduring, either way. As usual.

Fighting the hurt in his throat over her words and the entire situation, Michael fought to shift his focus to something he could handle. Anything, just to avoid falling into the gaping hole in his stomach, threatening to swallow him into despair.

Michael couldn’t find the right words to say to his fuming mother yet, but he sucked in a shaky breath, gritting his teeth and willing himself to not break. Evan and Elizabeth were nearby. He could shift his attention to them. Give them the care he wasn’t going to get, just to distract himself and try to make things a little better. Maybe Clara would calm down if she saw that he was still being responsible, trying to take care of the family as he always did in his own way…in William’s place as the closest thing to the father. The husband, the reliable man of the house.

Wiping his face with shaky hands, Michael forced himself to turn towards the open door, rigidly preparing himself to stay outwardly quiet. He wanted to cry, curl up on his father’s often empty side of the large bed and drown himself in the recent memory of what felt like his love.

But if Michael did, he feared he wouldn’t be able to get back out of that spot for days.

“Where are you going?” Clara snapped harshly, her green eyes bloodshot and burning.

“I…I’m just…Evan and Lizzie…” Michael said, stiffening as he looked back at his mother, his voice faint and hoarse. He didn’t feel it in him to string a proper sentence together. Especially when his mother was like this. Whether he answered or not, Michael knew the outcome wouldn’t be so different.

“Yeah, go take care of them,” Clara spat venomously, as if they weren’t all her own children, just guests that had more priority than her, “But who the hell is going to take care of me if your father goes to prison for anything, huh?! Who, Michael?!”

Michael stared at her, his glassy eyes blank and his heart numb. He couldn’t tell if the resentment in Clara was really meant for his father, or if it was starting to bleed into her perception of himself. Like he was supposed to be her provider in William’s place, and that somehow, he was failing at it horribly by taking one step to go tend to his own siblings instead of…doing whatever Clara felt she needed.

As far as he knew, Michael had nothing to do with the why of what William had supposedly done to result in him being a police suspect. At least, not in a way he or anyone else realized.

The boy opened his mouth to say something, but the words died on his tongue. There was little reasoning to be done when Clara was so upset. He had learned that years ago as a child.

And so, Michael stood there, tense and unsure what to do with himself. Clara’s hard gaze burned at him, the features of William so clearly etched into her eldest son’s face fueling the fire in her guts. But the faint glisten of Michael’s soft blue, haunted stare just slightly touched her.

“Just go!” Clara yelled in frustration, pacing and running her hands through her messy hair tightly while she muttered under her breath, “That arrogant, stupid bastard…he just had to say ‘okay’ to watching someone else’s goddamned kid for hours…”

Michael hesitated in case Clara changed her mind about letting him leave, but quietly forced himself outside the room, his movements feeling mechanical and his gaze blank and almost unblinking. He took in the sight of Evan and Elizabeth crying, both still in their pajamas and messy haired. They didn’t deserve to be woken up to the sound of their mother screaming at their father, of things breaking in their parents bedroom. Of William, the father they barely had around since birth, leaving the house to go with the police.

“M-Michael…” Elizabeth wept, her voice shrill, cracking, “What–what happened? Why did Daddy leave?”

Michael wanted to die, hearing that question.

It was expected. It was the same question he asked himself every day since the day William suddenly pulled away from him after he turned six, though for reasons that didn't involve law enforcement until now.

His face was ashen, his insides feeling hollowed out like they’d been scooped out of his body.

Elizabeth looked so much like their mother. To Michael, this little girl was who Clara really was beneath her hard yet fragile exterior. Just another poor soul who longed for and hurt over a man who held little apparent interest in them.

Yet…why did that interest still seem to exist so…intensely, from William to Michael, himself? That embrace they had just shared minutes ago felt absolutely nothing like detachment from William.

Am I...the only person Father ever really lov–, Michael thought, the words stopping sharply in his mind. His jaw tightened to the point of a muscle ticking in it. He couldn’t think about that, not right then. Letting himself get lost in that train of thought and emotion would pull him under, leave him sick and practically bedridden with heartache.

Productive. Useful. Helpful. Unselfish. Michael had to be those things. Especially right now.

His sight only blurred a little bit with tears again before he blinked them away, his face set in an expressionless stare. It was the closest thing to calm he could manage. Better to cling to feelings of numbness and emptiness than painful, fiery emotions that rendered him incapable of doing.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Michael said, the words intended to comfort, but the delivery uncharacteristically hollow. He didn’t mean to sound vacant. But it had to be enough that he could even speak them with his raw throat.

The two kids quieted a bit, still tearful, though their little faces looked…confused. They had seen Michael cry, ache. However, they didn’t know what to do with their fatherly big brother suddenly being unable to muster his usual weary warmth.

They would have already been picked up, cradled in his arms again like Michael always did when he comforted them, played with them or just carried them around. Now, the eldest boy just stood there staring down at them, as if he was one of William’s de-powered animatronics, lacking the electricity to spring to life and make children smile.

Elizabeth sniffled, apprehensively coming forward a bit, raising a shaky hand in hopes of hooking her thin fingers into Michael’s pocket.

Before he even realized it, Michael wordlessly stepped back, his eerily vacant expression unchanging.

He just couldn’t do it today. Couldn’t bring himself to comfort anyone, even if he’d hate himself for it later. Not when he felt like he was dying a slow death inside.

“...I’m sorry,” he said quietly, staring down at the teary, confused kids before walking downstairs, his jaw set and hands curled into loose fists at his sides. For the first time, Michael walked away from being there for anyone in his family as they suffered, so that he could have a moment to be there for himself. Alone.

Elizabeth paled, her eyes widening as her young mind registered the reality. Her hand hung in the air, a suffocating sense of fear of abandonment hitting her like a ton of steel, crushing her like an existing cage that shrunk smaller around her without warning.

Evan watched, innocently confused and surprised with his Fredbear clutched to his little chest. “...Mikey?” he asked, his small voice shaky. Tears trembled and fell from his lashes, but he wasn’t hurt or upset; despite being eight, Evan had always been the least demanding of his big brother. As a sensitive child himself who also often felt better when he spent some time alone, he almost felt a glimmer of…youthful understanding.

“Why…” Elizabeth said, strained and breathing unsteadily, green eyes burning a bit too similar to her mother’s in indignation, yet also too similar to the unwitnessed possessive displeasure in William’s steel gaze, “...why did he just… leave?”

Evan flinched a bit at the incredulousness in his sister’s voice, the word ‘leave’ spat like a dirty word. His lower lip quivered softly, and he anxiously looked down at the top of his Fredbear’s head, his tears leaving dark spots on the worn purple hat and warm yellow fabric.

“I…I-I think…Mikey just…n-needs some alone time…” Evan stammered quietly, afraid of how Elizabeth would react. “He…loves Daddy…a-a lot…”

Elizabeth’s face snapped down to glare down at Evan, her eyes flaring hot with venom. “I love Daddy a lot,” she said sharply, “And I love Michael a lot! Daddy–he’s not here! Michael can’t just–just leave like that!”

Small, frightened and helpless, Evan started to cry again, clutching his plushie with his little shaky arms. He nearly said that she looked like their father for a moment. Something about the piercing, callous demand in her irises disturbingly similar to William. But the tight knot in his throat wouldn’t allow the words to tumble out.

His sister heaved, too young and inexperienced to handle her rush of confusing, powerful emotions. She just wanted her big brother to hold her again, and didn’t she need it?

Unable to stand the image of Michael’s haunted blue eyes and stoic face seared into her mind, Elizabeth shifted to focusing on reacting to her mother angrily pacing and talking to herself in the master bedroom and her little brother to quickly run down the stairs.

Michael was walking steadily but with minimal movements, akin to an automaton, silently walking to the front door where his father was last closest.

“Michael,” Elizabeth called out, desperate as her bare footsteps slowed halfway to him.

He didn’t stop. She knew he had to hear her, and he didn’t stop. He never did that.

“Michael!” she shouted, her thin voice intensifying with childlike anger. To the eldest boy, he couldn’t even bring himself to grimace at how uncannily similar this felt to what became of their parents' relationship. Himself as William, walking out without a second glance as a strawberry blonde, green eyed girl desperately demanded things of him he didn’t have to give. It was sickening, and Michael clenched his jaw while nearing the handle.

“Don’t leave!” Elizabeth screeched, anger bursting into panic as she hastily stomped after him, throwing her arms around his hips, “You can’t! I need you!”

Michael’s blank stare turned into a silent glower aimed straight at the door. “Get off,” he said, low and tight, “I need a break.”

Elizabeth nearly gasped, feeling as if she had been slapped. Unfortunately, it only threw gasoline on the raging fire of her desperation.

“I need you now!” Elizabeth yelled, each word punctuated with force. Her brother grew taut as a wire; he was tempted, in his own growing yet held back anger, that he had possibly spoiled his family by being so accommodating and available. It was as if him saying he needed a break was a foreign, unacceptable concept to a ten year old Elizabeth. Yet, he hated himself for letting her get used to being coddled by him so often to begin with.

None of this was Elizabeth’s fault, Michael knew. It was between Clara and William, in his perspective, everything a result of questionable choices and two adults staying together when they probably shouldn’t have.

But as Elizabeth roughly tugged on his shirt, her thin fingers and nails raking into his lower back with force that was dubiously unintentional, the slight pain grated on Michael’s dwindling nerves.

“Stop it!” Michael finally exploded, his gentle face twisted with rare rage, unbottled and spilling as his hands roughly grabbed her wrists behind him, “Can you stop it for one bloody time?! Fucking hell! You’re all so goddamned needy and spoiled! Grow up!”

He regretted the words as soon as they started coming out. But as Michael stood there, heaving and trembling with white knuckled fists, his eyes burning holes into a stunned Elizabeth, he didn’t take them back.

If William was there and able to hold in his own wild laughter and pure adoration, he would lovingly tell Michael that with what Elizabeth had done to him while she was sleeping, she deserved more punishment.

Though, he wasn’t there. Instead, the two siblings stood there, eyes locked on each others in loaded silence.

Elizabeth stared, dumbfounded. Michael watched as his blood sparked with heat, his breaths coming in low pants with the faintest rumble of his soft voice laced in, like he had just ran for miles. His sister’s face was pale, but slowly reddened. Her eyes glistened, but as Michael blinked away his red vision, confusion came over him as he saw Elizabeth didn’t look sad. He couldn’t tell what she was feeling.

It was as if some strange gears were turning in her system, flooded with feelings she was still too young and unguided to identify and handle properly. Michael knitted his brows, his panting slowly subsiding as he tried to just understand what he was seeing.

She glanced over his heated, impassioned face and lithe figure taut, radiating aggression rather than his typical softness and weary calm, leaving it unclear if she was looking for something or…seeing him in a renewed awe. Seeing something she might terribly like in him.

“...What?” Michael finally asked, his voice more gravelly than usual due to crying and yelling as much as he had that day after just nervously getting out of bed, having heard their mother yelling at their father.

Elizabeth flinched a little. Her small, freckled face grew redder, but the sobbing Michael expected never came. Instead, a strange, sheepish grin shakily spread over her lips, her eyes oddly bright and glassy.

She couldn’t be blushing. That look on her could not be any sort of bizarre…excitement.

Michael stared down, something unpleasant settling in the pit of his stomach. He had just yelled at her for the first time in their lives, and it wasn’t over something trivial.

“...Why are you looking at me like that?” Michael asked, quiet and tense as discomfort made his heated blood chill slightly.

A tiny hint of something like a shy, confused little giggle escaped Elizabeth, her frozen grip on the hem of the back of his t-shirt shifting into her thin arms snaking around his hips again. But it felt different this time. Not just clingy and desperate. Familiarly invasive…off.

“...I love you, Michael,” Elizabeth said, weirdly jittery with an odd wonder in her large green eyes, “You’re always so nice to me, but you’re so…big and strong, too. Like Daddy.”

Blinking in uneasy confusion, Michael tried to understand. He might have inherited a very strong resemblance to William, and certainly was growing into that same classically handsome build, but he wasn’t anywhere near as ‘big and strong’ as the man, as he was now.

But then it hit Michael. His little sister didn’t even seem to fully understand it herself yet. However, Michael was a sixteen year old high schooler. A pretty boy who, even while being seen as too reserved to be approached by most, grew to recognize when girls would openly swoon and giggle from a distance. The same weird, buzzing energy, heated faces, bright and intense stares.

And while he still did not want to believe he was seeing anything concerning close to that towards him from his own sister, it was just too blatant to be comfortable sticking around for.

His eyes widened, and he instantly released her thin wrists, backing away like he had touched fire.

Elizabeth gasped, half startled and half remaining in her mix of a confused yet disconcertingly fixated, jittery state. “What? Why did you let go?”

Why did he let go?

Did she want Michael to manhandle her?

He had to just be overthinking it. Too much had just happened with his father just being driven away by the police, and he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“...I need some air,” Michael said tensely. He stepped closer only to take the doorknob into his hand, twisting it open quickly.

Elizabeth tried to slip into the backyard with him just as fast, but he instinctively stopped her, grimacing as he put his hands on her small shoulders and saw her eyes light up strangely.

“No, Elizabeth. You stay here.”

“I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

The anger started to stir in his guts again, mingling with growing unease. “Go to your room and go back to sleep. It’s too early.”

“I’m only going if you come too,” Elizabeth said, the poutiness of her words fitting of her age, but the low tone of it startling. Michael paused, looking down in incredulity.

“Upstairs. Now.”

“No,” Elizabeth whined, stamping her foot.

It was when Michael tried to slip out himself one more time, with her quickly trying to cling onto his hips and follow, that he lost his patience.

Without even thinking, Michael’s hands shot down as he spun around, grabbing her under her armpits and pulling her off the floor. He held her at arm's length, wordlessly taking brisk steps back to the stairs.

Elizabeth gasped, starting to flail and struggling helplessly. “Wh–hey! Michael, no! Put me down!”

He grimaced, his guts writhing, disturbed by the intensified resurgence of heat in her face and the grin in her voice. Moving single-mindedly, he quickly carried her upstairs. He saw in passing that Clara had settled enough to wearily just sit on her and William’s bed, stewing in her stress, and he didn’t wait even when he saw his mother’s eyes widen. Evan had seemingly retreated to cry quietly in his room.

“What’s going on now?” Clara asked, the latter half of her words slipping into exasperation more than confusion.

“I want to go outside with Michael!” Elizabeth yelled, kicking and fighting, but her face was bright and smiling widely.

“No,” Michael said firmly, “Keep her here. I need to be alone.”

The uncharacteristic note of command in Michael’s voice, reminiscent of William’s own ability to speak that way, made something flicker in Clara’s gaze, and Elizabeth shrieked and giggled, almost as if she couldn’t help herself. Like it was a fun game she was playing with him. However, the off-putting brightness in the little girl stopped abruptly when Michael actually did firmly plant her beside Clara and quickly start to walk out again.

“No!” Elizabeth cried out, instantly getting up to chase him. Michael was faster, and though he felt guilty about it, he shut the master bedroom door and held it in place before she could reach him.

His sister gasped, her eyes flying wide. “No! NO! MICHAEL! I WANT TO GO WITH YOU!”

Though separated by the door, Clara and Michael both froze, stunned by the wild outburst. Elizabeth was never so intense, so openly. Michael knew she was probably holding a lot in, just as they all did, but the sheer desperation and nearly violent notes of despair and need in her voice genuinely scared him.

Worse yet, he didn’t feel like he could just say it was because of the stress of William being taken by the police without warning barely an hour ago.

“Elizabeth!” Clara said, stunned yet firm, shooting up off the bed to go to her. “What are you doing? Stop screaming.”

“No!” Elizabeth yelled, her expression frantic and watery, her words a jumbled rapid-fire, “I want to go with Michael! He’s so perfect and nice, Mommy! But he doesn’t want me! He doesn’t want me to be with him! He’s supposed to pick me up like always! He’s trying to leave me! Like Daddy!”

Michael paled, his hand slipping off the doorknob like dead weight. Never in his young life did he ever think he would be accused of distancing himself from his family in the same vein as William. It was the wound that hurt him most from his father, and here he was now, being blamed for being the same when all he wanted was a few minutes alone outside. Worse than an insult, it was a deep cut in an already deep ache.

Clara gaped at her, shocked. Elizabeth felt the resistance of Michael holding the door shut give way, and she grinned with manic, watery eyes, throwing it open.

She threw herself against Michael, who was still reeling too hard to react in time to stop her. Elizabeth laughed breathlessly, squeezing his waist tight before alarmingly starting to hastily, clumsily work her small hands at the bow knot of his lounge pants’ drawstrings right at her face level.

“I love you!” she shrieked, “I can make you feel better, Michael! Then you’ll let me stay with you!”

Michael almost choked on the sharp breath he sucked in, a near scream tearing from him as he realized what she was trying to do as his hands snapped down to stop her.

Clara watched in utter bewilderment, moving quickly to grab Elizabeth around her arms and torso, her natural strength and years of work child rearing making her swiftly rip her away.

“Elizabeth!” Clara yelled, disbelief mixed with anger and parental command, “That’s enough! Don’t you dare treat Michael that way again, do you hear me?!”

Her words didn’t help, only making Elizabeth fight more desperately, her thin legs kicking backwards into Clara’s thighs, trying to knock her pinned elbows into her mother’s ribs.

“No! I need to make him happy! Then he’ll let me stay with him!” Elizabeth screeched. “He won’t leave if I make him happier!”

The eldest boy felt like he was breaking. It was like seeing everyone’s feelings about–and caused by–William, all manifesting through Elizabeth. Clara had believed once, that if she just devoted herself enough, William would return to being the present man he once appeared to be. Michael himself had thought painfully similar things to what Elizabeth had just said.

Maybe, he hadn’t made his father happy enough for the man to want to stay close to them. To him. Maybe, if he was good enough, William would have stayed close to him the last ten years.

But then, why did William treat him so lovingly right before he left the house for the cops?

He couldn’t take it anymore. Backing away more like the wounded, overwhelmed child he was, rather than the weary, self-restrained teenager he had been for years, Michael stumbled away to escape to the front porch.

“NO! Michael! MICHAEL!” Elizabeth screamed wildly. Clara felt a flush of rage return to her as she kept the small girl pinned to her front, hissing with pain as thin heels kept pounding back into her thighs, later to bruise.

“ENOUGH!” Clara exploded, “Be quiet, or I’ll drop you off at the station so your father can deal with you!”

Elizabeth wailed, shaking her head desperately, still full of fight as if she was possessed while screaming for Michael. Furious at the way things were becoming because of her husband’s choices, Clara gave her daughter a rough shake, her strong hands close to bruising on her thin frame.

“Do you see what you’re doing to us, William?!” Clara yelled into the air furiously, struggling to keep Elizabeth locked down despite how the size, age and strength difference should've made it easy, “Look at what you’re doing to me and your kids! You’re driving us all fucking crazy!”

The fact that her words had the same effect as if William was there–no effect at all–merely twisted the knife of frustrated indignation in her core. Her husband was apparently at risk for being charged with a crime, and her daughter was having some sort of breakdown over her son, who was too worn down to help like he usually did. And Evan couldn’t help, either. 

Michael finally got outside, shutting the front door behind him and sliding down against it, his knees drawn up and his head down in them, hands covering his ears. Their house was in a mostly isolated clearing surrounded by forest. No one lived close enough to hear anyone screaming from inside it. But being so close there himself, with the deafening silence of nature, Michael could hear every yell loud and clear still. Every grunt of pain from Clara as she got fed up with Elizabeth’s kicking and shrieking, each step as she screamed at the little girl to be quiet and stay put as Elizabeth was shoved down audibly on the bed. She was not calming down, and no one knew how long her sudden outburst would last.

He had thought other times in his life were worse. This summer was making all the prior years of quiet loneliness seem like happier times. Times before the tea kettle of his family’s stress began to steam and whistle too loudly, threatening to boil over entirely.

Unable to block out the screams, Michael buried his face in his hands, fingers curling tightly into his messy brown hair. He tried, as he did many times growing up, to hate his father for everything that had happened and was currently happening. Not that it would fix anything; perhaps it would only give Michael somewhere else to put all of his resentment and pain, instead of swallowing it down as a poison to suffer alone. To hate and blame himself whether it was fair or not.

But he knew himself too well. He would rather hate himself than his father, even now.

Try as he might to blame and despise him, he couldn’t. Michael just sat there curled up, back against his broken home, eyes wet as he held himself and rocked faintly from side to side. Imagining his father was there, holding him tight again like earlier. Like he used to when he was little. Making Michael feel safe, happy, like nothing could hurt him.

That man was the missing piece, in Michael’s mind. The one who could fix everything just as easily as he left them to break and crumble, as long as he just decided to. And maybe he would never decide to fix what was wrong. But at least if he could just be there in person again, unconstrained by the police, his faint presence could bring things back from hell to their usual tense but comparatively placid state at home. It almost made Michael appreciate the way things had been the last ten years in hindsight, before this summer. Lonely, but not a warzone of emotional grenades firing off all at once.

The screaming and thrashing continued upstairs inside the house. Michael raised his head, his sight blurring as he stared at the long stretch of the path the officers had driven William away on before him. Like Elizabeth’s frightening meltdown, William’s distance was another thing that had no clear end in sight. A reality that tortured him worse than ever before.

“Please, come back…” Michael pleaded, his soft voice quiet and cracking as his tightly shut eyes streamed hot tears, “Please come back, Father…”

Chapter Text

The amount of time that passed until the screaming finally stopped was a blur.

Sitting still as a stone on the porch, back sweaty in his T-shirt and aching from how long it had stayed pressed against the front door in the summer heat, Michael stared ahead, unmoving at the path before him. Eyes now dry as the sunbaked dirt reflected in them. He could feel the slightly unpleasant way his lashes were stuck together, the sandy texture of dried tears right under his eyes forming faint lines down his cheeks. Close to parallel.

Would he always be that way, too? Parallel to his father?

The thumping of heavy footsteps came behind him, and Clara opened the door. She looked more worn out than usual, her hair a mess, arms reddened with scratches and her thighs sore with the beginnings of multiple bruises spattering them, all left by Elizabeth’s wild fighting.

Glancing wearily over the front lawn, only a faint hint of surprise flitted in her eyes to see that her eldest son was right there, not having gone as far as to run off the property.

The boy stayed still, not moving an inch as the door moved off his back.

“Michael," Clara began, her voice a hoarse, tired rasp, “Come inside."

I don't want to would have been the first thing Michael said, if he could bring himself to speak. If he felt like his mother would even accept it.

Clara sighed harshly, shutting her eyes, the bulk of her patience already extinguished.

“Don't make me repeat myself," Clara said, tired with a hint of leftover anger over what she had to deal with without her husband to help, simmering like water left in a pot, "Get up.”

That tone was familiar. Submission had always been the easiest way to avoid confirming whether Clara would ever hurt him, if he didn't listen.

When Clara would occasionally get upset years ago, Michael was a child quick to do anything he thought would make her calm again. Learning, watching closely, anxiously, trying to anticipate the thoughts of his mother and those around him before they had to bother spelling them out.

When Clara had days where the boy feared she would throw in the towel, and she didn't get out of bed, Michael would do whatever he could. It didn't matter if he was too little to tire himself out trying to de-dust the whole house himself, or if he had to keep wiping his tears every few seconds to finish cleaning the dishes on a stepping stool. If it was a sunny day perfect to play outside, and he spent it doing his mother’s and siblings laundry between homework and trying to learn how to keep himself fed. How to feed his little sister, make formula for his baby brother while Clara ranted or rested. Taking turns of the workload with her little boy, in the deliberate absence of her husband.

Yet, just as Clara had come to believe that William never cared about what she had given when it came down to it…she had also long given the same impression to Michael.

All those years spent in service, so easily forgotten in the face of another's anger and self-centeredness.

This time, Michael didn't get up. Not just because he didn't feel it in him to move, but to see, numbly, what Clara would do with him.

He could almost hear her grit her teeth as the outcome Michael always expected happened. Her strong hand snapped down, grabbing Michael’s lean bicep and roughly pulling him up to stand. The boy flinched a tad, swaying a bit on his legs, but his face remained blank and downcast.

“Is this how you’re going to be now? Do you think I need you to act like a rag doll who doesn’t talk? With all the shit we have going on today?” Clara asked, low and intense.

Michael faintly shook his head, moving and forming words just to make her stop a little. “No.”

He lifted his eyes to hers, a distant, bleary blue ocean meeting the harsh, beaten grasslands of her gaze.

She was interrogating him, inspecting him with her hard stare. Deciphering how much of a burden Michael would or wouldn’t put on her with his current state of mechanical emptiness.

After a short silence, Clara spoke up, dead serious. “What happened?”

“...With what?” Michael asked, his tone monotonous, devoid of intonation. Like he wasn’t really asking, just laying out the words.

“‘With what’?” Clara asked incredulously, her brows pinching, “With your sister, that’s what. Why did she start acting like she lost her damn mind?”

The trace of accusation made Michael’s core spark hot with a flash of indignant anger amidst his listlessness. Technically, he could sit down and write a whole essay about why Elizabeth might have flown off the handle the way she just had. But his mother disliked reading.

“I don’t know,” he said instead, his quiet voice slowly growing tense. Did his thoughts even matter? Had they ever mattered, ever changed anything when he shared them?

“You have to know something,” Clara pressed, brows narrowing, “That outburst didn’t come out of nowhere, Michael. Why was she saying those things?”

He cringed internally, the dread, confusion and revulsion of how Elizabeth had spoken and acted so… obsessively towards him too fresh in his mind.

“I don’t know,” Michael said again, the flat tension of his voice shifting to a weary unease. Uncertain, desperate. Was his father being interrogated right now too, already? What was Michael’s crime?

“Why was she trying to take off your fucking pants, Michael?” Clara seethed, her voice growing louder as the fire in her green eyes rose back up, like a gas stove dial being turned to high slowly. “What the hell did she mean, you  won’t leave her if she makes you ‘happy’?”

Michael’s chest rose and fell with increasing labor, his wide eyes strained and glued to hers.

All he thought he had ever done was be a minimally decent big brother. The fact that his mother, who he spent practically all his time around when not in school, was questioning him like he was some kind of child grooming, incestuous rapist made it feel like there was a knife lodged in his throat. He felt used. Betrayed.

“Are you serious?” Michael finally forced out between his clenched teeth, “Do you even know me, Mom? Have you been seeing anything about me and how I am, how I do things, for the last ten years?”

A flicker of a tiny falter made its long overdue flash over Clara’s face, but it hardened again. “Don’t speak to me that way. I asked you a question.”

“No, you asked me two questions,” Michael spat back, the heat of anger and indignation crawling back over his skin the way it had more often, recently. It almost felt good, in a sick way, to raise his voice back a bit and argue rather than take everything laying down. “But fine. I know what you’re really asking. You’re asking me if I’ve been doing what, touching my own little sister? You think I ruined her because I’m some kind of disgusting rapist? Is that what you think of me?!”

Michael was hardly ever so cutting…openly.

Clara, despite being a brash person oftentimes, always lacked William’s skill in verbal precision. She could be blunt, but she always spoke around things, never cutting straight to the core and saying things in a way that was so…clear. Like the words were chosen to be as awful yet on the pulse as possible.

In their youth and as they grew into adults together, Clara was awed by William’s wit, his sharp tongue. He could be so accurate, stringing his choice of words into a scalpel to do something as helpful as make things easy to understand in a few words, or humiliate someone who deserved it. Strip them naked and drive a blade into their hearts without lifting a finger.

Seeing that her husband’s mercilessly sharp tongue was yet another thing Michael inherited from William felt like a physical blow. Her face drained of color, watching in a frozen silence as Michael suddenly looked too much like the seventeen year old William she met as a girl.

But instead of a calm, cold smile being on the boy’s face like William had when he gutted someone verbally, while Clara watched from behind…it was a hurt, burning glare from her son, and the one being gutted was her.

“I…Michael, that’s not…” Clara began, realizing the depth of how callous it had been for her to just automatically insinuate that her eldest, the little boy who had always been good to her even when he could have been bad, was a sick abuser. She paused, as if stuck processing the fact that she had really just gone that far, without thinking it through first. “It’s not…I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did!” Michael snapped, his eyes hot and misty, “You said it without saying it! You think I didn’t see it in your eyes? Hear it in your tone? You didn’t even think twice before you blamed me first!”

Clara’s jaw clicked shut, a pained grimace coming over her features as she tried to find the right words. “Michael, stop it. I only said it because it’s the most…the most–”

“The most obvious answer, right?” Michael cut in heatedly, “Elizabeth puts her hands on me, and you just know everything in a second, don’t you? That’s the easiest way for you.”

The venom in Michael’s voice was too new to swallow down easily. Other parents had years of time to get used to slowly increasing acts of children growing into teens with biting words. But Michael had held his tongue from her his whole life, and Clara was unprepared for how sharp the barbs coming out of his soft spoken mouth were. It was more than just the irritating, base whining of a teenager.

His words felt like…punishment. Ripping the wool off of just one aspect of Clara’s own shortcomings, her obliviousness to herself and the reality of her children.

She parted her lips to speak, but nothing came, and Michael filled in the space.

“You always complain about how Dad is never here for us, like he’s a stranger,” Michael yelled, his voice cracking, angry with desperation trickling in, “But you’re the one who’s been with us kids all this time. What have you learned about us, Mom? Have you been seeing us, or just watching us from a distance?”

Dad.

A term Michael mostly only used in his head, closer to the wounded boy within him than his usual use of a loosely formal Father unveiled. She had only ever heard Michael address William as Daddy while the man was close, and a bit after his distancing. Father became the new norm Michael chose as his younger self, without explaining. Only now, for some reason Clara either couldn’t or wouldn’t fathom, did the word Dad escape his thoughts and hit Clara in the chest for the first time.

Clara’s throat began to tighten. She was not one to reflect, and the sudden onslaught of unfamiliar self-doubt was terrifying. “I–I do see you,” she stammered, her voice taking on that weak, childlike quality that always made Michael’s innards twist, “I do! I’m the one who practically raised you on my own…!”

A flicker of hurt cut through Michael’s furiousness, and it slipped away, replaced by the greater desperation and genuine asking. Pleading, like he only hoped Clara was about to prove him wrong about her.

“Do you see Elizabeth?” he asked, intensely close to begging, “Have you noticed anything that might have made her act this way? Because it’s not just Dad not being here that made her act like that.”

Now, the subtle accusation was leveled back at Clara.

Her mind raced as she tried to stomach it, trying to muster any deeper observations about her suffering daughter made over time. “I…what are you trying to say?” Clara said weakly, hoarse. “I know Elizabeth is sad. We all are.”

“Oh, my God,” Michael said, genuinely taken aback and mortified, as if he could see through her to realize that Clara had nothing deeper to offer, consciously or not, whether she really was that oblivious or if fear kept her in denial. “You don’t have anything. Nothing more than what’s on the surface.”

A horrible sense of inadequacy and humiliation washed over Clara’s paled complexion with molten heat. She fidgeted and fretted in place, and Michael felt a mixture of guilt, unease, and pity for the young girl inside Clara that had once again anxiously been thrust out for all the world to mock.

He could see so easily at these moments how vulnerable she must have been when she laid eyes on a younger William, a handsome British teenager older, smarter and more charming than her, and felt a single minded desperation to marry him. What had William looked like to her, back then? A savior? Hope for a better future? A guide, an escape?

Michael felt a deep pit fall in his stomach, grasping just how little his mother saw or let herself see all these years. Maybe it hurt her too much to really look and grasp that her kids weren’t just ‘sad’. And that they weren’t just ‘sad’ because of William.

In Michael’s uneasy, limited understanding from his own observations and uncomfortable experiences recently, Elizabeth just seemed…confused. In great need of something that she didn’t know how to deal with on her own, and was never supposed to. She needed the love and attention that both her parents were supposed to provide. And failing that, it almost felt…obvious, that she would become fixated on the only person she got any sort of consistent, real comfort from.

But now, Michael felt his worn down, usual self reluctantly returning after hours of chaos, anguish, and the guilty relief of getting something off his chest. He looked his mother over with weary anxiousness, afraid that he had been too cruel, gone too far.

Clara stood in place, trembling and panting as tears welled up in her eyes. She was scratched up on the arms, red lines that likely burned on her skin. Her legs were spattered with aches and bruises from Elizabeth’s frantic kicking. The woman looked like a mess, a fragile girl wracked with uncharacteristic fear and self-consciousness.

She looked so unbearably alone. As if she blinked as a child and woke up to a nightmare, in a grown woman’s body.

How much of the way things turned out was really even her fault?

Michael had thought of the question before. Based on what he’d heard from her over years of being her sounding board, her only confidant, Michael would have initially blamed her parents. They apparently hadn’t done enough for her, either. A cycle that echoed in the lives of her own children.

But then, who did her parents have to blame for not making Clara feel happy and loved and cared for enough to not desperately marry William when she was just thirteen?

History would just repeat. Michael could look back and back and back in time through generations if he could, in aims of finding the one thing that led to this life for his family. He knew it would change nothing to keep searching for that pinpoint, even if he found it.

All they had now was the present. Eachother.

Michael swallowed hard, his shoulders drooping as he let out a deep sigh.

His father was at the police station for questioning. His sister was hopefully sleeping off her state of wild desperation and fixation. Evan, with any mercy, was asleep as well in his room. His mother was right in front of him, on the verge of breaking.

And Michael was there, slowly trying to piece himself back together.

“...Mom,” he said, quiet and weary, guilty anxiety whispering on the backburner, “...You should…go rest.”

Clara breathed shakily, her fists clenched tight at her sides. “...You think I can get any rest like this, Michael?” she asked, her voice like glass being driven over by a bulldozer. Shattered and all over the place.

“...No,” Michael answered quietly, drained. He tentatively stepped closer, carefully wrapping his arms around her and cradling her gently to his aching chest. The embrace, in Michael’s intention, was to be that of a child comforting their parent in a moment of high stress and vulnerability. Because Clara really was the only adult there to care for the family. More so than usual; William’s return was uncertain.

To Clara, however, the way her son held her so softly and carefully like her parents hardly accomplished, like William had done yet now felt like imitation…it made her feel like a child. An exposed, helpless girl in the arms of someone stronger than her.

“I do see you…” Clara whispered brokenly, insistent to the world, “...I do…”

Michael couldn’t cry again. He was exhausted.

“...Come on,” he said, soft, tired, falling back into old roles just to try to get himself and his family by, “...Let’s go inside.”

He felt heavy as he gingerly guided Clara back indoors, walking as carefully as he could muster as he kept his arms around her trembling figure, like he was physically holding her together. Slowly heading up the stairs together, Michael watched her steps as if she was kid that might stumble despite his own fatigue.

His heart wrenched when the open door to the master bedroom–looking like a hurricane tore through it–finally was in his line of sight, revealing a limp Elizabeth lying on her side like a crumpled paper doll. Her usually neat strawberry blonde hair was strewn over her face and the sheets like tangled threads, her floral nightgown torn at the shoulder seams and around the collar. Michael noticed the red of Clara’s blood and scratched skin under Elizabeth’s small nails. A wave of pain bore down over him like heavy, wet cement. It hurt sorely to imagine what it must have been like in the room earlier, when Clara was trying to restrain her.

“Mom,” he said quietly, “...You can lie down in my room.”

Clara wearily nodded, her face streaked with tears and some clear liquid from her nose, too beaten down by the day to wipe it up. She sniffled faintly as Michael guided her in, gently letting her sit down on his plaid bed covers. The way she moved now, like a wounded animal seeking shelter instead of the outwardly ‘strong’ and often pushy person she was, never ceased to be hard to stomach for him.

He helped her lie down with more assistance than should’ve been needed, fearing she would shatter if he didn’t lightly guide her back down and her legs to swing slowly over the bed. It was hard to look at her in such a state.

Michael stepped back as softly as he could to prevent any noise, and seeing that his mother tensely shut her wet eyes, he quietly left the room.

The exhaustion, fear and anxiety over all that had happened that day never loosened the knots in his guts, but he had to keep going. There was no better alternative.

Old routines and muscle memory kicked in, not so much to solve the citation or any of the problems it produced, but just to keep things relatively stable.

He idly flexed his fingers, face fixed to a blank stare with bloodshot eyes as he glanced over the kitchen. A sense of deep aloneness screamed silently in the house around Michael, but he mechanically went about whatever physical task he could think of. They still needed to eat. Clara wasn’t in a state to cook. Neither was he. He would do it anyway.

A simple dinner was thrown together to be eaten later. Roughly one hour down. The day had started too early, and now it was just about afternoon.

Wordlessly, Michael left the kitchen and returned to the master bedroom Elizabeth slept in. He looked over the mess there expressionlessly, retrieving a broom and dustpan to sweep up shards of broken glass from the vase and lamp Clara had thrown to the floor earlier in her helpless anger at William. He put whatever else had been knocked to the floor back in its place to the best of his memory, then silently stopped to look down at Elizabeth.

Michael didn’t want her to wake up in her torn nightgown, but she was neither a baby nor a toddler anymore. And he refused to lay a hand on her right then, especially after her obsessive outburst, even if it was intended to help her. Not while she was sleeping, not to change her clothes.

The big brother part of him wanted to brush her hair out of her little face, carry her to her room and tuck her in. But if she woke and realized he had done those things for her, it risked only making her feelings for him worsen in intensity.

A faint pang of pain swirled in him, but he left the room. Another thirty minutes down.

He walked to Evan’s room next, quietly padding in after opening the door. A distant sense of relief and heartache ghosted over him upon seeing Evan there, curled up small with his Fredbear on his bed, under the covers like he had fallen asleep hiding from a monster.

Another deep sigh left him. Michael walked back down the hall, passing his mother in his room as silently as possible to avoid possibly being called in. She remained still in his peripherals, eyes closed and expression tense. Likely still awake.

He went downstairs again, putting some still-warm food on a plate and sitting blankly on the couch. Stomach empty, groaning yet lacking appetite. But he couldn’t help anyone or himself if he didn’t eat.

So Michael ate quietly, flicking on the television and avoiding the news channel in favor of something boring. Simple. A documentary about something he wasn’t interested in appeared, and he gazed at the screen almost unblinkingly, eating in a repetitive rhythm until the plate was empty.

It hadn’t taken long enough. There was too much time left in the day. Anxiety over what was going on with his father right then began to creep up like a cold shadow, sending his thoughts into a spiral.

Were they supposed to get a call from the police station? An officer? Detective? Did his father actually do something wrong? Did he mean to? Where was Henry? Was he at the station too, screaming for answers, blaming his father? His dad? Was he going to come by their house livid? Was Charlotte really dead? Who killed her? Why? Did his dad know something about it? Was his dad safe? Was he going to come back home?

When was he coming back? Was he at all?

When? When? When?

Michael set his plate and fork down, leaning over with his elbows to his knees, his head hanging low in his hands as his heart raced.

He wondered, with increasingly less control, if he would have to quit school to get a job to help keep himself and his family off the streets because his dad and Henry probably weren’t going to be running the pizzeria anymore so it would close, and if his dad went to jail he might not ever be let back out, or if he did it would be in decades, and Michael would have to live without him forever, forever, because the world decided that he stopped deserving his dad there by his side when he turned six, and he would just have to grow up and take care of his family and ache for the rest of his life, because that’s what happened to bad kids. He was a bad kid. He was a bad kid. That’s why his dad pulled back ten years ago, because he was a bad kid and he was only saying he loved him earlier because he just felt sorry for him, being such an emotional and useless son–

Michael panted shakily, his earlier merciful numbness slipping through his fingers again. He couldn’t stand just sitting there. He had to do something, but what? What?

He wanted to run to the police station and see his dad. But that might ruin things. Showing up might ruin something for his dad, because his dad had everything under control as long as his family wasn’t nearby to annoy him. Maybe Michael annoyed him, after all. Maybe his dad would’ve never been questioned by the police if he never got married, never had kids. Never had Michael. His dad probably thought the same thing, because he was the smartest man Michael knew, and he was always amazing at finding ways to do things. He probably knew that being rid of his entire family would be the easiest and best thing that could happen to him, and if it did, he could just work on his business like he wanted all along–

Michael was drowning.

No one seemed to stir and come downstairs even as the sunlight and shadows slowly shifted over the floor. Jittery and anxious, Michael forced himself up off the couch, pacing brisk between the kitchen and living room to keep himself busy, feeling like an animal in a cage.

Maybe this was it. Maybe his dad was never coming back home.

He worked up a sweat, but his panting and quick pulse weren’t from rushing back and forth for time he lost track of. Michael couldn’t keep going like this. It was torture.

Desperately, he rummaged through the kitchen cupboards for a bottle of melatonin pills. Michael had always been averse to taking such things due to fearing the potential side effects, and they were just there from some time ago he couldn’t remember. Whichever of his parents bought it, it was gathering dust and practically full.

The deep violet hue of the bottle and its night themed, starry label looked so much like the purple starry curtains at the pizzeria. It hurt, it gave a shot of desperation for childhood, simpler times. He used to hide in those curtains and his dad would always find him, laughing in his deep, velvety voice and hoisting him up in his arms.

God, that was eleven years ago.

Michael only skimmed the label, vaguely registering it and recalling some old memory of hearing his mother say just one of those kinds of pills should be enough, and not to use them unless you really had to sleep. He really had to sleep.

His hands shakily twisted the childproof lid open, and Michael would have been lying if he said he didn’t feel the urge to shovel them down his throat like candy. He wasn’t going to, but what was he staying awake for? What kind of future was he living for, anyway? He was like a zombie, aimlessly wandering on a path with no clear destination. Maybe he had only been living because he hoped William would return to him with all the love he took with him one day, and just gave him beautiful, agonizing crumbs of it recently because he felt like it. But maybe his dad didn’t need him, or anyone, to live. He didn’t need Michael in order to go on living. Not like Michael knew and feared he needed him.

And if his dad was really going to get charged with something, whether he had something to do with Charlotte’s apparent murder or not, if he was going away for five or ten or a hundred or a thousand years, why did Michael need to stay awake?

His hand dove into the bottle, grasping a handful of melatonin pills. Just to feel them. To feel like there was some sort of escape, comfort, within reach. If he decided he ever really, really needed it. The bottle said they tasted like cherries. They looked dark red, like solid droplets of blood. Small, elegant. Beautiful.

Maybe not to others, but Michael liked to draw, and he had spent much time growing up with his imagination to fill in the gaps in reality, picture things in a way to make himself smile a bit. Not so much recently. He could start again. Keep his body busy helping his mother and siblings while he daydreamed, like he did as a kid. Now he could daydream about new things, too. Deep nights, the feel of cold earth. Like when he used to watch the stars with William in the backyard. It might ease the pressure in his body, Michael thought, if he was in a dark space with a lot of cold earth against his skin.

A faint huff left his nose, soft and a little wry as he eyed the capsules and thought about his thoughts. It was okay. He could be honest and strange when he was alone. He could fantasize and pretend to reach for the dark, as long as he kept it a secret and didn’t go too far.

It wasn’t the first time he had done so. Truthfully, he doubted it would be the last.

Carefully, Michael’s hand came back up with enough pills to nearly spill out of his palm, and he raised it to his lips…holding it there. Snow White about to bite the poison apple. Just to feel like he was close to the soft brush of what seemed like the most tempting relief he could think of whenever things got too overwhelming for him growing up. Rather, the second most tempting relief behind the one thing he could never seem to grasp as easily as the melatonin pills, the first being William.

In second place came death.

But he wasn’t going to kill himself. Not yet, at least. Maybe there was a tiny chance that things still hadn’t gotten so irreversibly fucked yet.

Gradually, as if he had already ingested one earlier, Michael felt his eyes droop and his pulse start to slow a bit. He stared down at the deep ruby pills, a choice in his palm. A choice he could make any time, hopefully, if he ever felt he needed to.

If his dad went to prison, and for too long…if things kept getting worse, maybe Michael could hold on just long enough to wait until Evan and Elizabeth grew up and went to college. To make sure his mother had enough money to not have to worry about working again by then, make sure they could survive. He could move out, live alone somewhere. Get them started on forgetting him. And maybe then, if he was still miserable, he would repeat this very moment but go all the way.

Michael leaned into his hand, his lips catching on a single ruby capsule. And he pulled it into his mouth with his tongue, eyes closed like he was receiving communion. The artificial cherry flavor brushed his palate for a few seconds, and he swallowed it quietly. It tasted like cough syrup. Weird candy from Halloweens passed. Nostalgia for days long gone.

He stood there a bit, his mind having fallen into a more comfortable, bittersweet silence. His palm tipped carefully to let the handful of pills leftover fall back into the bottle with soft clicks against each other, a reluctant yet strangely fond look in his soft blue eyes.

The sense of how alone he was there in the kitchen remained, but softened somehow. As if he was quietly sitting with the idea of accepting fate. He wasn’t happy. However, maybe that just was how it was meant to be for him.

Inhaling a breath and releasing it gently, Michael put the bottle back in the cupboard. He turned to eye the otherwise empty first floor of his father’s house, a sort of faint, bittersweet smile gracing his lips as he recounted better times there. Playing hide and seek with him, eating dinner together every night, watching movies on the very same couch. Falling asleep and getting carried up to bed in William’s arms. Michael felt like he was grieving with a little smile, remembering a film that would never play again.

His hand dragged behind him as he slowly walked out of the kitchen, dragging listlessly over the counter with his skin friction on the granite making a dull sound, like a body dragged over a glass floor. His eyes still half lidded and his smile fading to a blank line, he felt the melatonin starting to kick in, and he curled up on the couch like he used to.

Michael had taken a safe dose of one pill. He would probably wake up fine. Whether things would get better or worse by then remained to be seen.

As his lashes fluttered shut and the dark realm of dreamlessness washed over him, Michael felt he might not mind too much if he didn’t wake up again.

Chapter Text

Hours passed.

If a phone rang for a call from the police station, Michael didn't hear it. If anyone in his family had woken, done anything, or even screamed in the house, he didn't know it.

The house was at its most peaceful with everyone in it asleep. Afternoon stretched to dusk, night followed. It felt like nothing, and that nothing felt good to Michael, subconsciously. He didn't have to be awake to experience anything that happened or didn't happen in between. No one had stirred from the beds they laid on, anyway.

Eventually, Michael’s eyes tiredly drifted open, hazily looking at the coffee table. He had fallen asleep curled up on his side and had stayed that way for hours. Though his side ached, what bothered him more was that he seemed to be waking up to the same situation.

Unless his father had already come back home and retreated to the office or garage alone, it was too quiet for him to be there yet.

Michael blinked slowly, his eyes half closed as he exhaled a soft breath. Part of him wished to lay there forever, or at least until tomorrow. But his stomach groaned in protest, and he had to use the bathroom. Base needs that gave him just enough discomfort to rouse him upright despite feeling like stone.

It had to be around 5am, judging by the light hue of summer sun glowing through the windows. Michael rubbed his face, unsure if he was more let down by the fact that his father was still probably at the police station, or the fact that he himself had woken back up at all.

His limbs felt heavy, but he pushed himself to stand upright. Looking around, things felt somewhat…better, when everyone else was silent and asleep. He wasn't excited about facing anyone in his family once they woke up, considering what had happened yesterday.

However, Michael felt more clearheaded, relatively speaking. Rather than wait and let anxiety throw him into a spiral again, he decided to just…try. For now.

The heaping handful of melatonin still remained tucked away in its bottle in the cupboard. It felt reassuring, in a morbid way. Like a backup plan in case everything went further into hell.

With that dark comfort in mind, Michael quietly walked to the kitchen first to eat whatever convenient thing there was. The easiest was a box of cookies. Sleepily chewing on one, he leaned back against the counter, considering his options.

He figured he should try to get a job. Regardless of whether his father returned, maybe it would just help him anyways. He was sixteen. Most other kids started working a bit before that, and at this rate, Michael decided he should stop holding his breath to have his father magically offer him a job at the pizzeria so they could work together. The chances of that seemed slimmer than ever.

After using the bathroom, Michael sighed, wearily walking to the front door. He knew a big piece of him hoped to see William right there when he opened the door.

Tensely, he unlocked and twisted the handle. Peeking outside, Michael saw…no one.

His heart sank, though it didn't have much farther to drop now. The mailbox was just a few feet away, and he wondered apprehensively if he should just call the police station for an update as he retrieved the latest newspapers and stack of letters from the box.

Bringing them back inside, Michael shut the door behind him with a faint click, then tiredly spread the items out on the kitchen table. Bills, local ad flyers, a newspaper. All things William usually picked up to go through.

A bittersweet, wistful feeling tugged at his chest. If the man truly was going away for years, it would likely fall to Michael to make sure the bills got paid. Clara would help, but he didn't expect her to step in with greater initiative. He could already hear her response; you're old enough, I still take care of you and your siblings, I was working and paying bills since I was younger than you…

He sat down tentatively, not in his usual seat, but in William’s at the head of the table. The cushion felt so much less worn out than his own typical seat, his father’s having barely been used over ten years.

Michael inhaled deeply, sighing as he leaned gingerly against the backrest, pretending that William was there, chest to his back and smiling as he looked over his shoulder. The boy had always gotten the impression that William wouldn't be pleased, exactly, to see him get a job elsewhere outside of his own establishment. Or maybe get a job at all.

Although, in the current situation, it didn't matter anymore. Michael had to become more independent sooner or later, even if the urge to go fish the melatonin bottle out of the cupboard and just swallow a handful now was scratching at him.

Reluctantly, he spread out the newspaper, brows pinched as he searched for the job listing column for anything entry-level. Michael could be a cashier, or some kind of assistant, apprentice…if any business in town took him in. He hoped his relation to William wouldn't keep all the doors shut.

The process felt sad, a bit embarrassing considering he was the son of a wealthy man, but Michael pushed those feelings aside the best he could. It didn't matter how he felt, he just had to do what needed to be done, make himself useful even when he wanted to give up. That was far from new.

After reading for a while, occasionally stopping to yawn or idly skim some other part of the paper, Michael settled on the most feasible offer. The town’s general store was looking for new part-timers, particularly people who were open to working a till and stocking items. Pay was typical, nothing to write home about, but Michael felt he’d need every dollar he could get.

Regardless of whether he went through with going slowly into that dark night one day in the future, Michael had to at least hope he wouldn't turn out like his mother. Older and still heavily dependent on someone else to get by. Then again, how grown would he ever really become…?

After rereading the offer a few times, torn between hesitance and resignation, Michael sighed and pulled himself out of his father's chair. He wearily padded over to the phone on the wall, newspaper in his other hand, hoping the store was open at the current time to take his call. It was a bit past 6am now.

Michael lifted his hand, fingers hovering over the number keys. He briefly shut his eyes, then began to punch the phone number in slowly.

Just as his hand stilled, waiting–for what?--to dial in the last key, there was a distant siren chirp in the distance outside the house.

He jumped, heart freezing in his chest.

Would the police come down the path to inform him and his family that William was in fact charged with something? Give them a court date? Michael had no idea, and he feared finding out. He couldn't take getting any more crushed. Neither could the rest of his family seem to take much more, either.

The far flickering of blue and red lights filled the front interior of the house through the windows. A door audibly opened and closed. Measured footsteps crunched softly against the baked dirt path, approaching.

This was it. Michael couldn't bring himself to glance out the window, a stiff sense of dread and anxiety welling up in his chest. He wanted to disappear, but he had nowhere else to go.

Step by step, the footsteps drew nearer. Michael stared at the door, his heart pounding painfully. A million images flashed through his mind at what the next minute would look like. He didn't have it in him to break down again. Yesterday was already too much, compounded on all that had happened lately.

There was a knock. Not a hard one, like the police made yesterday.

Michael flinched, his breaths coming in shakily, glued to the spot.

After a few moments, a low sigh, and a ring of the doorbell followed.

His hands growing cold and sweaty, Michael braced himself, anxiously hanging up the phone and putting the newspaper down. He had to open the door even if he was terrified.

Nearly holding his breath, he stiffly walked over to the front door, trying to placate himself with thoughts of how easy it would be to end his life. If the next few minutes destroyed him, Michael felt that maybe, he wouldn't be able to wait until his siblings grew up and were set on stable paths.

He knew he should check the eyehole, glance out the window, but he couldn't. Michael couldn't break yet at the sight of whoever was outside. If he broke before he turned the handle, he might never open it.

His hand slid around the knob, holding onto every second as he pictured the news. Michael pictured a hard-faced officer, about to bluntly inform him that his father was charged with enough crimes to keep him locked up forever. Or worse, maybe they had come to tell him that William had been killed while in holding. A lot of people were jealous of him. Competitors, regular townspeople. Maybe the police were in on it and set him up.

As each thought became worse, more paranoid and painful than the last, Michael slowly, slowly creaked the door open. Not all the way. Just enough to anxiously peek through while the rest of him stayed behind it, like a child pretending the door was a shield.

Michael’s eyes started low, nervously shifting over the house’s wooden floor to the divide of the front door frame, to the porch rug…to a pair of polished, black dress shoes.

The hue of the slacks above them was a familiar deep violet.

His eyes widening in shock, Michael’s gaze snapped up so fast it nearly hurt his neck.

William was there, smiling at him with a subtle sort of fondness, a slight tilt of his head. Like he was just coming home from work, and was pleased, maybe, that Michael was already up so early, opening the door for him. The man looked completely okay. Almost too okay. And it was confusing to Michael, but not as much as it was so relieving and amazing and--

“You're up early, love," William said, the smooth, deep lilt of his voice hitting Michael like a punch to the gut. His expression shifted a bit, a faint furrow in his brow as he took in his son’s exhausted face, the way Michael looked like he was seeing something impossible. He expected Michael would take the police situation hard, but the boy looked a little too shaken up. “...You’re in a bit of a state, aren't you?"

Michael sucked in a sharp breath, moving without thinking as he threw the door all the way open and threw himself against William so hard that the man felt a gasp punch out of him from the force, staggering back a few steps.

Michael squeezed him so tight he felt his own arms would snap.

William stood there, his heart set to burst. He wasn't sure how much more he could take of having Michael this way, and not going all the way like he madly needed to.

The boy would sob, but his tears were already spent from yesterday. Instead, he trembled almost violently, his chest expanding and contracting against his father’s torso with uneven breaths. They sounded like ragged sighs of relief, like Michael had been on fire and his father had just extinguished him.

Or, more preferably to William’s crooked sensibilities, like desperate sighs to recover from being…overstimulated. He clenched his jaw. Michael was giving him far too much material to savor and play with in his mind, and the boy just had no idea.

“Michael…” William began, his voice level but a bit tight. He dared to rest his hands on the soft curves of Michael’s shoulders over his t-shirt, his blood sparking with need.

“Are you going away?" Michael asked all at once, shaky, tearful without the tears, just pure fear and vulnerable desperation.

William bit back a groan. He couldn't imagine just how much his son had been affected…not yet. He couldn't let himself get too excited in front of him, but God, Michael made it damn near impossible. He was so unbearably soft and beautiful, especially at his most desperate.

“...They had to release me after 24 hours, love," William said, low and subtly strained as he fought to keep his fingers from digging too deep into his son’s shoulders, “...They couldn't come up with a reason to hold me."

Michael paused, panting shakily, joy mixing with…confusion. He looked up slowly at his father, his brows knit and his big blue eyes fixed on his father’s steel ones, trying to grasp the situation.

“...What?” Michael asked, his voice cracking, "So, you…you're not…going to prison?"

Oh, my Lord, William hissed internally, feeling blissfully tortured, This boy...my son is so unbearably innocent and sweet…

Michael sounded like he was five again.

William, testing his control, looked down with a hint of a lopsided grin threatening to crack over his lips, tugging at the corner of them. He raised one hand, his thumb brushing back and forth over Michael’s warm, soft cheek, velvet under his touch. He ached to kiss that supple flesh, sink his teeth into it.

“Oh, you precious little thing,” William said, fondness bordering a bit too close to excitement; he had to hope Michael was too rattled to notice as he kept his voice light, "I’m not going anywhere.”

The anxiety crumbled in Michael, falling away visibly in his entire being. He was stunned for a moment, then shut his eyes, his shaky breaths hitching softly like the strain was leaving through his lungs. William watched with rapt attention, his eyes unblinking and lips parted, awed as watching living art.

Michael’s eyes opened after a long moment. The boy glanced back at the house’s open front door, then back up at his father. William saw the gears turning in his son’s mind, and never was he so hungry to know what he was thinking.

Part of him entertained the unlikely idea that Michael wanted to be alone with him somewhere, to have some real quality time and reconnect, in all the ways William craved.

“What is it, love?" William said, soft, a hint close to husky.

Michael stared up at him. Deliberating. Deciding something behind those blue gems.

The man almost cracked, gazing into them too long in the silence. The early morning air tasted sweet. He wanted so badly to inhale the air from Michael’s lungs, breathe it through him.

“...Can we hang out?" Michael finally asked. The words tumbling out were tentative, yet quietly intense with desperation. A request he sorely needed fulfilled.

William inhaled a deep, soft breath, stunned. Maybe he wasn't just being wishful, thinking Michael wanted to be alone with him to spend time together. Not for sex, of course. But being near him at all was already overwhelmingly pleasurable.

And the wording, the straightforward and vulnerable way Michael asked was so…young. Guileless, pure. He hadn’t asked anything of William’s time or effort all these years. It felt incredible, being faced with the euphoric yet risky chance to really be with Michael for longer than a few minutes. The boy was offering himself to a hunger he didn't see.

“...Hang out, son?" William asked, amused, a bit breathless, his thumb slowly resuming its caressing on the boy’s cheek. The words felt so juvenile, yet it only added to how raw and thrilling it felt.

“...Yeah. Yes. I just…” Michael began, glancing around nervously, like he was afraid his father would say no, but the underlying intensity in Michael’s desperate, tired eyes really wanted him to say yes, "I…don't want to…let more time pass. I was so…scared, that I wouldn't see you again, and I just…”

Michael swallowed, his throat tightening a bit as he slowly patched his words together. It was scary, being so honest, but the fear he had felt when he thought William was going to permanently be severed from him pushed him to finally express himself. Regardless of how it would be received, he simply had to get it out there.

“I want you know how much I…really want us to spend…time together, again. I've always…wanted that. I don't want to wait and act like I can…keep taking the distance.”

William was on the utter edge of his seat, feeling like he was receiving a confession from an estranged lover who didn't want to be estranged anymore. He could hardly speak, too deeply enamoured.

Michael’s eyes watered a tad as he continued, his soft voice taking on a delicate fragility, so close to breaking, so full of longing and aching love. “I don't know if you…even want to spend with me, but I just…I have to tell you, Father. I have to let you know, because…I know how much more I'll regret it, if I don't say anything. I want to spend time together again. Please. Before it's…too late.”

William was floored.

He expected tears when he returned. Longing looks from a distance, hints of separation anxiety. Michael wanting to get close, but holding himself back again. William would have enjoyed that. This was so much better.

He couldn't remember the last time he even heard Michael talk at length. Express himself, let anyone hear him say what he needed, put his heart on his sleeve because he felt like there was a chance it would be seen.

And it was all for William.

The universe was so generous with him that he couldn't believe his own luck, at times.

The only way he could be any luckier was if he kissed Michael, crushed him to his chest, forced his adoration into his being with everything he had, and the boy didn't pull away from any of it.

William paused for a long beat, outwardly quiet, stunned. Internally, his mind nearly blank. He could hoist Michael into his arms like a new bride, grab his car keys and drive anywhere. Do anything with him. Never return to the constraints of living in his own house with their other family members. What need was there for excess family when he had his whole world, his boy, his love right there?

Gears turned, whirring softly, clicking into place with something less hasty. Less likely to shatter Michael’s love for him with rash, brutally honest actions.

“...It’s your birthday tomorrow, isn't it?" William said, light and almost floaty, like he was in a dream. His face was close to calm, measured, but there was a subtle quality in his eyes and voice that felt untethered to earth. Less of a question, more of a glowing realization. June 21st had come so fast this year. “You'll be seventeen, Michael."

Michael paused, his lips parting in surprise. In all the recent turmoil, particularly yesterday, it was like everyone forgot his birthday. Even himself.

But William remembered.

"...Oh,” Michael said softly, nodding slowly, "...Yeah.”

There was a long moment of charged quiet.

"...There's this, um…place," Michael said, tense, uncertain, daring to hope as he let his arms loosen a bit around his father’s waist, “I’ve kind of been wanting to…go there, for a while.”

"What place?” William asked, almost sharply. Hyperfocused on every word, every micro movement of his son.

Michael swallowed audibly, suddenly self-conscious. He let go of William, though when the man didn't release him in turn, he shyly fidgeted in place and looked down, unsure what to do with his hands.

“It's the, uh…” Michael said, his voice shrinking. William’s pupils dilated, engrossed in his shyness, the way heat crawled up in a blooming flush over Michael’s neck, face and ears, “The…amusement park…?”

William could just explode. It was too much, too unfairly adorable. His teenage son, on the cusp of seventeen, just wanted to go to the amusement park with his father. As if no time had passed, and he was still a little boy. No, it was the opposite; it was precisely because so much time had passed without such things, that Michael craved to go back in time.

It was like the boy was suspended in limbo, stuck between where William left him when he turned six, and where he was supposed to be now as a teenager. Unfulfilled, waiting for old, enduring wounds and needs to be nurtured.

His little boy was still waiting for him. William knew that, he had always known, just now with renewed certainty. Sheer ecstasy.

“Just us two?" William asked, his chest constricted with dynamite sticks, Michael’s soft flame unknowingly teasing each wick, pushing the man too close to the edge of explosion.

Michael thought for a second, growing smaller, meeker. He felt guilty, anxious over how it would affect his mother and siblings once they realized he wanted to spend his whole birthday with William instead of them. The man who they couldn't get a genuine minute of interest out of, suddenly reserving so much time for Michael.

But he had spent the last ten years with them. He couldn't let this birthday pass the same way. His father was here, not in prison, not at the pizzeria, or in his office or the garage. He was looking right at Michael, and he hadn't let go of him, or laughed.

So, Michael, with his flushed face down and eyes looking up from beneath his lashes, met William’s eyes and nodded a little. Small, sincere. Wanting.

It took everything William had and did not have to not break out in insanely delighted laughter, unhinged with obsessive joy.

“Yes," William breathed, hands faintly trembling as he forced himself to slowly, slowly, cradle Michael’s head into his chest. Because he adored him with every excruciating, sparking nerve in his body, and he couldn't let him see the way his face twisted into a huge, manic grin. “Yes, Michael. Tomorrow will be your day. Our day.”

Michael inhaled a soft breath, shut his eyes, sinking into his father’s chest like a lax doll, its taut strings allowed to loosen.

He was happy he only took one pill yesterday, after all.

Chapter Text

And so, the two began to walk back inside the house. William took measured strides a bit ahead of his son to resist the urge to snatch him up in his arms like a bride. 

Michael, meanwhile, walked behind his father and tried to burn the sight and feeling of seeing William come home after everything into his mind.

William was almost too thrilled to notice the signs of disarray in the house. When Clara came downstairs and faced her husband with wide, bloodshot eyes, the man nearly didn't see her. Nor the litter of scratches and bruises on her arms and thighs.

“William?" Clara said, shocked, like he was more of a phenomenon than a man coming home after getting hauled away. Relief laid somewhere deep in her, though she wasn't exactly happy.

Michael stilled behind William, shrinking a bit as he did when he was nervous as a child.

Her voice, raspy and harsh, grated on the sweet aftertaste Michael’s softer tones had left in William’s head. The man paused and looked at her more like a stranger had called out to him. Someone he knew as a teenager and had long forgotten about.

William arched a dark brow, curious but unconcerned at her drained, post-cat fight reminiscent appearance. “Michael, is there a stray animal in our house?” he asked back, eyeing Clara with subtle amusement tickling in his chest.

Michael’s mouth opened and closed, his shoulders tensing. He understood that his father probably said that because it indeed looked like Clara had gotten into a scuffle with a forest critter. But the way William said it…Michael wasn't sure if he was poking fun at Clara. Calling her the stray.

So he kept his mouth shut, letting his parents ‘talk’ the way they always did, rather than try to answer and inflame Clara himself by mistake.

Her eyes bore into William, her usual passive aggressive, sarcastic exasperation and jaded weariness replaced by a mirthless gaze.

“...This is all still funny to you, isn't it?" Clara said, her voice thin and brittle like glass shards, “Elizabeth did this."

Ah. So it really had been a little stray animal. Something that William wanted exterminated.

He frowned, though in earnest, he wanted to smile wide. "Elizabeth? And why would she do such a thing to you, dear?”

Michael cringed a bit internally. As hugely relieved as he was that his father had somehow come back after twenty four hours of holding leading to…nothing, which felt too simple and too good to be true…he still wished William would be as suddenly loving to Clara as he was to him, too. It could fix so much.

Clara felt like a ticking bomb. Inching closer to another explosion, yet uncharacteristically rigid. Like all the heat was tightly packed inside her and festering, instead of coming out quickly as her usual barbs and temper.

“...Go upstairs and ask your daughter,” she spat coldly.

Michael winced at the ice in her tone. William’s amusement faded into something flat. Close to bored, with a sharp edge.

He wanted to kindly remind his wife that she had wanted Elizabeth. She had been the one desperate for more children other than their perfect firstborn. For all he cared, Elizabeth was Clara’s daughter, not his.

But he didn't want to ruin the soft feelings Michael had just experienced outside for him by being so brutally honest in front of him towards Clara.

“I’ll see to it,” William said, low and level. 

He couldn't truly give two fucks about wasting his time figuring out what happened through Elizabeth, why she had turned her mother into a scratch post after he was just gone for a day.

William stared at her, as if waiting for her to step aside and be done.

Clara blinked. Quietly seething. Unsatisfied.

“That's it?" Clara said incredulously, her voice raising again despite its wear, “You'll ‘see to it’? Do you expect me to just nod and step back into line, like some kind of servant?”

Yes, actually, William thought, internally sighing. Clara just never made things simple enough. She was too dense for him…too delusional, clinging to the belief that she had any real say in his house.

He stood there, his head just barely tilting to the side as he eyed his wife. She was a strong woman–mostly physically–by nature of just taking after her father more, and by her outwardly tough exterior. Her father had, ironically, also been a man who used to build things.  Simple things, though. All wood and hammers to accommodate old world needs, a man married to work and a small, pretty, thin wife. Clara inherited her mother’s coppery hair, green eyes and freckles and shapely figure, her father’s handsome beauty and strength.

She could have been something, on her own. But she had placed all her bets, her future and chances for happiness, in William’s hands long ago.

Behind him, Michael tensed, anxiously looking at his father to at least try to do the right thing.

It was adorable that he still had yet to understand what kind of man his father truly was…yet. Perhaps that day would come sooner than he thought.

“No, dear," William said, sounding appropriately weary by channeling his genuine tiredness of having to pretend to care, even a little. “I expect you to rest. I'll take it from here.”

Clara’s mouth opened to throw another dagger, but her teeth almost audibly clicked shut up on processing his words. They weren't eagerly said, obviously. They were, however, the closest to sounding like the actual man of the house than she had heard from him in years.

Michael felt surprised, too. His posture eased a bit. As if hearing it, seeing how easily William could divert more conflict just by being a little accommodating, let Michael feel less like he had to shoulder the brunt of the issue. Less like he had to brace himself to jump in and try to placate his mother.

However, Clara herself was torn between two reactions. Being relieved that her husband even came back home in his situation, and that he was actually, just slightly, acting tolerable for once. Or, being pissed at the fact that it apparently took William the threat of prison and a possible breakdown from Elizabeth to finally say something decent.

She exhaled an exasperated breath, still walking the tightrope as she continued. “What happened with the police? Are you in trouble or what, William?” she asked, fingers rubbing above her brows to ease her headache.

Michael glanced nervously at William from behind. Grateful as he was, something just seemed too…easy, about his father’s return. Too vague, too quick, considering that he was supposedly considered a suspect in a child’s death at his own business just yesterday.

William’s expression remained even, firm. Presenting weariness, but not for the right reasons others would assume. “You’ve had enough to worry about here, haven’t you, Clara? I’ll tell you once you’ve had more time to…recover.”

Michael slightly knit his brows, eyeing his father. He doesn’t want to tell us…?

It didn’t surprise him, per se. Being vague and mysterious about most things he did and handled was typical for William. But it was the way that William was trying to redirect Clara’s focus, especially in what seemed like such a dire situation, with an air of…consideration, that felt off. His father was often quick to play with Clara the few times they did interact anymore, getting under her skin with a charming smile. He hardly ever tried to get her to back off with words that at least sounded considerate, on paper.

“Oh, now you want to act like you care about that,” Clara said bitterly, “Just admit you don’t want to tell me about whatever the hell this situation you have going on is, either.”

William couldn’t help but smile at her. To an outsider, it might have looked apologetic. In truth, it was simply his sense of being entertained returning. He certainly would have loved to tell her point blank that yes, he really did not want to tell her.

Michael saw the slight rise of his father’s cheek from where he stood a few steps behind him, and while part of him felt a guilty tickle of humor in his chest…the boy couldn’t help but wonder what William was hiding. How he had come back home ‘unscathed’. Why his father was so…unaffected by things that terrified most people. As well as why he hardly took his own wife seriously anymore.

What had Clara ever even done to deserve such treatment from him? Why did William start to show signs of investment in him again recently, and yet have nothing close to it to give Clara or his siblings?

Clara stared at her husband’s wordless smile, a flame of anger licking up her core, but she was too exhausted to fully immerse herself in its heat again so soon.

“I heard talking outside while I was waking up upstairs,” Clara said, worn and tense, “That was you two, wasn’t it?”

William’s smile remained steady. His eyes grew a degree sharper.

He fully expected that Clara would be less than thrilled to hear that he, for the first time in ten years, was going to spend tomorrow celebrating Michael’s birthday with him…mostly alone together. Ideally, the entire day. William knew she’d be livid–when wasn’t she?--about getting left at home after the whole police and Elizabeth ordeal. As well as the fact that Michael even entertained the idea of up and running off with his long-distant father. However, the opportunity was too sweet for William to pass up again. This year was shaping up to be special. One unlike the rest.

William almost chuckled fondly as he felt Michael tense behind him, palpable to him as physical touch. The poor boy was still afraid, to some extent, of upsetting his mother too much with his own innocent wishes.

“Yes, dear. It was us,” William said lightly, fighting back a nasty grin, “It was about tomorrow.”

Clara scrunched her brows, weary and irritated. “What’s tomorrow?”

A lot had happened. Clara was tired. Michael knew it, understood it. But it still hurt like a blow, his heart sinking a bit, to hear that his mother hadn’t seemingly realized it was his seventeenth birthday tomorrow. No one had talked about it all month. Then again, Michael blamed himself too. He stopped wanting and asking for the day to be celebrated years ago, and it slipped by more silently each time.

Meanwhile, William felt like he had just scored another win against Clara. He had purposefully been vague about tomorrow, because he just knew it’d fly over her head with all her stress and anger in the way.

“It’s Michael’s birthday, Clara,” William said, sounding outwardly a bit stunned. Feigning a sliver of hurt that his wife didn’t instantly recall the occasion.

It made Michael feel even worse, too, which wasn’t William’s intention for once. The boy shrank a bit more, habitual self-forgetting beginning to stir and tempt him into reluctantly taking back his whole birthday request just to keep Clara from exploding again. One day at the amusement park, with his father. He still wanted it so badly.

Eyes widening, Clara looked at Michael, who quickly flicked his gaze down. The whites of her sclera remained bloodshot despite having slept for hours since yesterday. As harsh and demanding and obliviously self-centered as she could be, Michael couldn’t ignore the feeling he grew up with. The one that always told him she didn’t deserve to be in her perpetual struggle, either.

She stared at Michael, then back to William. “...You just got arrested for being, what, a suspect in the murder of Henry’s child? At your own damn store? And now you think it’s a good time to focus on Michael’s birthday?”

Another blow to Michael’s chest. He tried to reason with it to soften the impact.

“Pardon?” William said, his smile dropping like lead. His eyes fractionally darkened.

“...Um…Father, I…” Michael began from behind him, small, tentative and trying to hide his sad strain with a soft tone, “She…she’s right. We can go somewhere…next time.”

Michael’s heart screamed otherwise. The whole request was practically fueled by the thought that he never knew if ‘ next time’ would come. But the guilt and sense of selfishness were scraping at his insides like it often did when he tried to want something for himself, verbalize it. Feelings that Clara’s green-eyed venom made fester.

William’s eyes flashed, his nerves tensing as if zapped, his head snapping back to look at his son. “No, Michael,” William said, startling the boy a bit with how intense he sounded, the whiplash in William too sudden for him to cover up his demandingness completely, “Don’t change your mind because of your mother. We’re going tomorrow.”

Clara furrowed her brows, glancing between them as she realized she had been left out of something between them. Just as she was years ago.

“Going where tomorrow?” Clara said, sharp and louder than before, irises burning with accusation at both father and son.

Michael felt choked, unable to meet either of their gazes. His simple wish to just go have fun at the amusement park with his father felt increasingly…stupid. Selfish, not worth the trouble of mentioning again.

“...It…it’s nothing, it was just…” he said quietly, embarrassment and shame crawling over his skin with red heat.

Precious as it was, William would not let his wife, of all people, ruin tomorrow for him. A chance to be with his shy, sensitive, vulnerable and beautiful son, Michael, for hours upon hours. He would kill again if he had to, just to ensure that time was protected.

And honestly? It angered William that Michael, with all his aching love and years of longing, was so quick to reach for sacrificing his wish just to please Clara . It was a futile task. Just as wasteful as trying to put a smile on the face of a customer’s ungrateful child at the pizzeria, if not a hundred times worse.

“Clara,” William began, low and simmering, “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right, I really don’t,” she spat back spitefully, “I don’t understand why you don’t see the bigger problems here in our lives. And I certainly don’t get why you’re suddenly acting like you need to be with Michael again.”

Michael flinched as if he’d been slapped. He knew she wasn’t exactly wrong, yet the pain stung anyway.

William’s eyes flared, a seldom shown, hot rage swelling in them. His hands curled into fists at his sides, tight enough that his knuckles cracked. Clara didn’t bat an eye, too engrossed in her own bitter anger and insult, but Michael’s gaze snapped to his father’s fists with surprise. A hint of fear.

Clara just didn’t know.

She didn’t know how utterly wrong she was. William had never gone a day not needing Michael, since the boy was a soft, little thing placed in his arms.

He could break her all over. Strangle her right there on the hardwood floors, in front of his son, and it would almost be worth the trauma it’d cause Michael. Just to soothe his own deep sense of insult and disgust at her oblivious comment.

Almost. But not quite.

“You’re still so bitter, aren’t you?” William began, the blaze in his blood contrasting with the cold ice of his words, “You ruined Michael’s sixth birthday, and it would make you happy to ruin this one for him too, wouldn’t it now? How jealous can a mother get of her own child?”

Clara reeled inside herself, eyes flying wide open as the old memories came back, a knife in her chest with his delivery. Michael’s lips parted in confusion and shock. He could vaguely remember that day years ago. The day he was excited to celebrate once William came home to them, only for Clara to say she and Daddy had to talk about something. That day was the end of paradise, the start of innocent guilt and distance he had yet to understand.

But Michael never seriously thought his mother would have some hidden, deeper, bitter reason beneath her imploring to focus on the practical, more severe situation with the police, to fume at the idea of Michael spending his upcoming birthday with William.

Yes, it was obvious she’d be upset. William’s attention on Michael recently had looked random, sudden, unexplained. Of course it’d inflame her to see her neglectful husband pipe up with the desire to dote on their eldest son. Of course, it’d hurt and grate on her to see Michael still want to run off to enjoy his father’s company, despite knowing what he’d put them through for years.

But…his mother being… jealous?

Struggling for words, Clara gaped at William for a long moment, working her jaw. That hint of something small and girlish slipped back into her rough voice.

“...You’re a bastard,” Clara said tightly, with a touch of weakness, hot betrayal in her eyes as she looked accusingly at Michael, then back to her husband, “Spend time with our son if you want. Spend the whole day out having fun with him. Talk to him, take him wherever you want. Give him all your damn attention, like you used to. But don’t forget, William. I’m your wife. Not Michael.”

A painful knot grew in Michael’s throat, accompanied by a cocktail of shame, guilt and embarrassment making him flush dark. Regret threatened to make him try to speak and take back his wishes, but he held back, knowing he’d only feel more humiliated if he tried to backpedal and please his mother.

William narrowly tamed the urge to grab Clara and slam her down through the glass coffee table just feet away from them. He had to remain silent and still for a long, long pause, just to keep himself from spoiling everything with instinctual violence.

He wasn’t surprised that Clara had been so predictably against his plans to take Michael out for a special day…nor was he surprised she made the boy feel bad about it. She was jealous, needy, spiteful. Michael was soft, too used to preferring the pain of not voicing his desires and giving others what they needed compared to having his wishes exposed and spat on.

But it was the extent of her audacity that had William seething where he stood. That his wife had been left unchecked for so long as to devolve into a brash creature, so capable of carelessly making Michael want to miss out on a day with his own longed-for father, just to barely placate her.

She had too much gall. Too much sway. Those would have to be torn out of and away from her somehow.

William slowly turned back to face Michael, once he was sure he could control his own expression. Hide the murderous black shadow in his grey irises.

His son was still there, of course. Face downcast, flushed with a mix of conflicting emotions. So…unbearably soft. Pretty.

Michael had looked hurt when Clara gave her last remark before walking off to sulk upstairs. But William had caught an eyeful of the way he turned so red, hearing her last words.

I’m your wife. Not Michael.

It was irresistible.

William could hardly stay angry, then. A hint of a deeply pleased smile curled at the edges of his lips. One Michael didn’t see with his gaze glued to the floor.

If only Clara knew how William would love nothing more than to have Michael be the one who got dressed in pure white and walked down the aisle to exchange vows with him, instead. To be the one William lifted the veil off of before planting a long kiss on his soft, pouty lips. To be the one he swept up into his arms, made love to in the limousine on the way to the wedding party hall. Not her.

Before he got too lost and darkly excited by his own fantasies, William took a long look at Michael, steadying himself to behave best as he could. More or less.

Then, he spoke softly. “Michael.”

The boy swallowed hard, still struggling with his own deep well of troubled emotions. He gave a weak nod. Something between ashamed and shy.

William knew Michael wasn’t feeling shy in the exact way he liked to imagine he was. Right then, he had the shyness of a young teen feeling unsure of themselves and guilty, a bit humiliated. Vulnerable. Embarrassed that he was put so obviously on a pedestal that his own mother felt like she was getting less attention than he was.

It was delightful nonetheless. William simply would have been even more thrilled if it was the shyness of a meek young lover. A boy exposed for loving his father a bit too far beyond the socially acceptable range, back.

Insult and rage melting away to make room for a thin balance of self-control and adoration, William continued gently. “Michael…whether your mother is happy about it or not, you shouldn’t let her decide whether you spend tomorrow doing what you want.”

Michael took a breath, slowly inhaled and quickly released. His chest and shoulders rose and slumped with it. “...I…I know, I just…” he began, quiet and meek, “I feel so…bad.”

Oh, god, William thought, biting his lip as his eyes hungrily bore down at him. You sweet, helpless little thing.

It was as if, despite their almost entirely shared looks, Michael possessed all the guilt, shame, sense of obligation and self-sacrifice William never had in him. The softer half of him, manifested as a gentle teenage son for him to marvel at.

William couldn’t resist. His hand slipped under Michael’s chin, tilting it upwards to gorge himself on the sight of that warmly glowing, anxious, lovely mirror of his own features. He had learned some valuable things about Michael the past month. One of the most alluring being how soft words and touches could have a strong sway on the boy, if done just right by his father.

Michael nervously flicked his big blue eyes up at the man, his brows knit and face still rosy with unpleasant feelings.

“Don’t be, love,” William coaxed softly, fighting to keep his eyes from wandering to those lips, teasing him unwittingly, “You’ve been through an ordeal. You don’t owe anyone an apology for wanting to spend your birthday with your father.”

Heart pinching in his chest, Michael briefly looked down, to the side, then back up at William. His expression and posture was still strained, but a softness was creeping in through the guilt, something innocent and slightly relieved.

He had been a smooth talker his entire life, but William felt he was outdoing himself with how he, of all people, was giving Michael the most spoken comfort and assurance than anyone else ever had. Insidious and subtly manipulative as it was. Though, was all human communication not aimed at convincing the other party in some way, in the end?

Michael closed his eyes a moment, another deep, but steadier sigh leaving him. William drank in the sight of how long his son’s lashes were, they fanned gently over his cheeks. The sigh wafted over his face faintly, since he held Michael’s chin upwards, and the feel of that sweet breath nearly made William crack. He could smell the chocolate chip cookies Michael must have eaten for breakfast earlier that morning.

“...So, we’re…still going?” Michael asked, quiet and small. Guilt and hope in one soft package.

“...Of course,” William answered after a distracted pause, his mind catching up after momentarily getting absorbed in the thought of tasting the sweetness in Michael’s mouth with his own tongue. “Of course we are, love.”

Michael nodded a bit. They gazed at each other long enough that the boy began to fidget, looking away, shy and anxious. Happy as he was to have William be so present to him again, it was still a little…strange. Clara wasn’t wrong when she said that his re-focusing on Michael was sudden, if nothing else.

He almost opened his mouth to ask why he was suddenly getting the amount of attention he was getting…but he feared doing so would spoil it. People weren’t supposed to openly question gifts they received. Then again, another voice told Michael that he shouldn’t have to be afraid of his father retracting his love again, just because he asked a valid question.

Yet…the question didn’t come.

Maybe, if tomorrow went well and it felt right, Michael would feel more confident to pop the question. For now, he would just hold off.

When William still didn’t speak, pull back his hand from his son’s chin, or stop…staring, Michael swallowed and lightly cleared his throat. He tried to reason to himself that perhaps his father just wanted to get a good look at him again, after only getting this close again a few times and not for very long recently. William was just his father. A hard to figure out man, but his father all the same.

Thinking for a moment, Michael remembered that William said he would go upstairs and ask Elizabeth what had happened with her to mark up her mother yesterday, while he was in custody.

“Um…Elizabeth is probably still asleep upstairs,” Michael started, quiet and trying to keep his shyness and nerves from stretching his lips into an unintentional, sheepish grin, “She’ll be awake soon…I think.”

William hummed. His gaze remained on Michael’s face, his thumb just lightly brushing once over his chin in his hold.

Michael felt another wave of shy heat wash over him, and something weird writhed in his stomach, but he was just…his father was just looking at him. Maybe he was taking in how alike Michael had grown to appear to his own visage, after all the years spent just seeing him from a distance.

Gingerly, Michael reached up, his gentle hand resting over his father’s sleeved forearm and putting the barest pressure down. “Father,” he spoke up again, a little firmer but no less tentative, “You’re…going to talk to her? Right?”

Another feigned–or rather, distracted–hum left William. He was engrossed in eyeing Michael like the finest art he had ever created, internally, though his expression was unreadable.

William hadn’t specifically told Clara he would speak to Elizabeth directly. When he said he would ‘see to it’, he had his own intended way of doing so.

“What happened here while I was gone, Michael?” William asked, soft and light.

The boy blinked, surprised. Confusion took its place seconds later. “You’re…I thought you said you were going to talk to Elizabeth about it?”

“I said I would see to it, love,” William said gently, “I will figure out what happened, and speak to her. But I want to ask you, first.”

Michael’s stomach dropped. And it was strange, because he felt his father’s soft inquiry unsettle him a bit more than it should have.

“Uh…” Michael began, tension reawakening in him as he recounted the…disturbing behavior his little sister had expressed yesterday. But he still loved her. He knew that she just had to be…struggling with everything, in her own young way, even if it terrified him. He couldn’t just throw her under the bus.

William waited, watching him closely, cool grey boring into soft blue.

“She just…she freaked out after you were taken away,” Michael said uneasily, not quite a lie, but not the full truth either, “She panicked, Father…Elizabeth loves you, too. She’s young, and…it must have just scared her to see her father getting taken away. She couldn't handle it.”

She’s barely gotten to spend any time with you, Michael almost added in. But he knew William knew that.

What he didn’t know was how deeply William did not care.

“Hmm,” William hummed, remained oddly level, “And you believe that’s why she may have hurt your mother? Elizabeth simply...had a nervous breakdown, of sorts?”

Michael hesitated. “I…I don’t know. Maybe.”

He couldn’t tell him everything. That Elizabeth had only really snapped when Michael wanted some time alone, instead of staying to comfort her as he usually would. That she had frantically tried to pull at the drawstrings and waistband of his lounge pants, desperate to make her big brother ‘happy’ so he wouldn’t ‘leave’ her. And when Clara had grabbed her to stop her, Elizabeth had begun to fight, scream and claw like a wild animal for Michael.

The boy tried to keep his gaze as steady yet earnest looking as he could.

For better or worse, while William was sharp and skeptical, he did not seriously believe Michael capable of lying to his face, point blank. It went against his entire perception of Michael, of the way their relationship worked, of William’s depth of actual control over his son and his family’s behavior.

Alas…the hidden cameras in the house surely recorded the whole previous day, continuing nonstop to now. William could get an objective view of what happened.

However, he would do so after Michael’s birthday. Doubts and subtly eerie, inspective gaze aside, William was still riding on a high over what was to come, and how close he was right then to Michael again. The last few times he had gotten to be that close recently, Michael was either in tears or angry. Both exquisite, though it was immensely pleasurable to get away with ‘just looking at him’ the way he was the last few minutes, while Michael was quieter and steadier. Obviously anxious and flushed, but calm enough to really get an eyeful of.

William almost felt he had to thank Clara a bit. Her years of unintentional, covert incest had made Michael rationalize William’s own staring and borderline intimate holding and touching to the point where he was simply confused and shyly anxious. Yet still willing and able to stand in place and take it, as long as William didn’t go too far.

…What were Michael’s limits, in regards to how much closeness he could handle from his father without fear taking over?

William could hardly wait to find out tomorrow, and the days to follow.

“...Michael,” William said calmly, still holding the boy’s chin tilted up, “Is that all?”

There was a small twitch in Michael’s pinched brows. He had taken a handful of melatonin capsules in his hand before William was released back home. The bottle that no one ever really touched, and practically forgot about. Everyone but himself.

He had been inches away, morbid thoughts away, from consuming that entire, dark red handful of cherry rivulets and overdosing while no one was awake or around to stop him. Just to escape his own drowning in panic over the thought of his father never returning home as a free man again.

But he had only taken one capsule. He had fallen asleep, woken up later, with no one the wiser. He hadn’t tried to kill himself, not really. Besides...who would ever know?

“...That’s all, Father,” Michael said, quiet and tense, his eyes anxious but bravely holding his father’s piercing gaze.

William waited a long moment, then finally let go of Michael’s chin. Michael’s hand slid off his father’s forearm with it. His face slowly began to resume a less flustered hue, though his expression remained a mix of nervous and steady.

“...Very well,” William said, measured and smooth, looking down at his son with no clear indication of his thoughts.

Michael knew, at the very least, that his father wasn’t stupid. He was sure the man had reservations about believing him, and Michael himself didn’t blame him for it. He would be suspicious too, in his position. However, Michael only really felt able to cover up anything, because he didn’t know that William in fact did have a way of finding out exactly what really happened yesterday.

Nor did Michael know that the other thing he had done that morning, harmless and even responsible in his opinion, would enrage his father. Namely, his time spent looking through the newspaper in the job offer column, and how close he got to making a call for a humble position as either a cashier or item stocker Hurricane’s main general store. A step towards independence, becoming even more relied on by his mother and siblings, devoting himself to a business his father did not create.

A step half taken, without permission.

William eyed Michael, then gently ran his slender, strong hand through the boy’s chocolate locks. Michael softened a bit, his touch starved senses feeling a warm shiver over his skin. Everything aside, there was still nothing like feeling his father’s touch again. It almost soothed the ache he was so used to carrying, like magic.

Meanwhile, William mentally noted that Michael was slowly getting used to feeling his father’s hands on him again. He was used to borderline intimate, though unintentionally so, touches from Clara. With William being the parent Michael loved more desperately, he was already rather…primed to receive.

“I’m going to the pizzeria to make sure the police have finished up with anything they need,” William crooned softly, his thumb subtly caressing the arch of smooth skin behind Michael’s ear, “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Wash up and get a proper meal in you, love. Understand?”

Michael gazed up, quiet before he nodded slightly. He didn’t feel completely at ease, but that had to suffice for now. He didn’t have to face more questioning from William right then, and he really could use a shower and food. Now that things had seemingly stabilized a bit, Michael felt he could take it upon himself to handle things at home again until William returned later.

A faint, pleased tug pulled at the corner of William’s mouth. He indulged himself in pressing a kiss to the crown of Michael’s hair, silently inhaling the sweet birch scent laced into it before giving his shoulder a squeeze as he walked past him to the front door. William had his doubts and would surely look into things privately, but for now? He felt like a million bucks.

“Good boy,” he lilted, his grin unseen as he could just feel Michael’s stomach flutter with a faint feeling he didn’t quite grasp or understand, hearing the old praise he heard as a child again, “Call me if you need anything.”

And with that, he shut the door behind him, taking long strides to his sleek, deep violet car. William felt a sensation of pure satisfaction as he left, imagining how Michael would look sitting in the passenger’s seat beside him tomorrow on the way to the amusement park together.

Chapter Text

Predictably, Clara didn’t come back downstairs after William left. Not to talk to Michael, nor to eat despite having slept since yesterday around noon.

Michael stayed in place, listening from where he stood between the front door and living room as William’s car engine hummed back to life. He drove away smoothly for the pizzeria, and Michael felt…strange. He was happy on one hand, for sure. Relieved that his father had come back and was apparently set to keep ‘handling’ things in his own way, as usual. Life hadn’t completely come apart the way he felt it would yesterday during his intense bout of anxiety.

However…that didn’t exactly mean everything was alright. Elizabeth was still a mess, exhausted as she slept off her own frightening outburst on her parent’s bed. Clara was obviously seething, though now it was worse, because she didn’t just seem openly angry at William anymore. Whether the underlying anger was always there towards Michael and was only now being expressed, due to her perception of the boy ‘siding’ with his father (or her husband once again choosing their son over her), Michael wasn’t sure. He just wearily knew that it would take at least a few days and more quiet reserve on his part until his mother hopefully calmed again.

And Evan…God, he was still just holed up in his room, wasn’t he? Asleep or awake, Michael didn’t know. He grimly hoped for the former option, just so Evan would have been spared from consciously listening to all the screaming and madness from earlier.

The thought of his little brother, a tiny little thing helpless to do more than simply curl up under the covers, undoubtedly clutching his little Fredbear–it snapped Michael out of the odd feelings tickling in his guts over how he had just interacted with his father the last thirty-ish minutes. Something about the way William had drawled out a velvet laced good boy right before leaving just felt…how could he even describe it? Michael didn’t know where to begin.

He shook his head, sighing and rubbing his hand over his warm face, shifting his focus to finally check on Evan again. It wasn’t fair to the littlest member of their family to have been left alone the longest throughout the entire situation, with William’s quick release from arrest and Elizabeth’s breakdown.

As Michael walked upstairs tiredly, trying to keep his steps light so as not to alert or further irritate Clara wherever she was up there, he briefly wondered if what Elizabeth had experienced was best described as a breakdown. He hoped it truly was nothing more, nothing worse, but he couldn’t ignore the uneasy tug in his stomach that discouraged optimism.

Carefully, Michael walked down the upstairs hall. He glanced into his parents' open room without stopping. In it, Elizabeth still lay asleep on the large, mussed bed, just as small and crumpled looking as when he saw her last. Clara had gone back into that room, putting her scratched up hands on her hips and gazing down at her daughter with a worn out frown.

His mother’s eyes flicked up to him, something sharp and bitter in their green hue. Silently demanding ‘what now?’ and ‘you’re really going to go party with your father tomorrow, and leave this to me?’ .

Michael knew it wasn’t fair to her. But what did his mother ever want to deal with? Life hadn’t been all smiles and big family vacations for any of them the last ten years. And it wasn’t fair for Michael to keep giving in and taking on more of his mother’s responsibilities as an adult onto himself, either.

He looked straight again as he walked past wordlessly, swallowing the familiar caress of guilt in his throat. He had to check on Evan. Michael knew what it was like to be a little kid, feeling alone and afraid of what was happening outside his room. He couldn’t let his brother suffer through that himself, like he did. Like he still often was.

Quiet and tense, Michael slowly pushed the door open, chest tight at the sight of his tiny kid brother’s form. Just a little bump under the covers before the world.

The teen slowly stepped forward, padding across the navy blue checkered carpet to the eight year old’s bedside. So much in Evan’s room was blue. As if it unintentionally matched the tearful mood Evan could so easily slip into…a feeling Michael resonated with, even if he was a bit older and better at shoving down for a while.

“Evan?” Michael began softly, “Are you awake?”

The little bump of Evan’s body under the covers hesitated, then moved a little. Michael’s heart clenched. He hoped dearly that the face he was about to see wasn’t still glistening with tears. But even if it was, Michael had it in him to soothe them away again if he had to.

A few moments later, Evan turned his head of messy brown hair, big green eyes meekly peeking out from under the sheets as if he was still afraid he might see something scary. Michael clenched his jaw slightly, his brows knit in guilt and care. A trace of affection sighed up his tense body, making his shoulders relax and his weary expression soften further as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“...Mikey?” Evan asked, his voice barely audible, painfully small.

Michael loved his whole family. Even with all the strange and frustrating, borderline frightening things that happened in it, and to him. He never often sat down to think about who he loved most and…not most. But he was self-aware enough to feel guilty, yet aware of, the possible answer.

Unfair as it probably was to himself and the rest of them, Michael loved his father sorely. Like a gaping wound in his chest that wouldn’t close back up until he had back what he lost from childhood, in its innocent entirety. As for who Michael loved most after him…he just felt it had to be Evan. Sweet, gentle, undemanding, pure. The only Afton who had never given Michael anything to be angry about, anything to feel used over. Evan reminded Michael of himself. What he still felt he truly was on the inside; a small, sensitive, helpless little boy.

Michael let out a breath through his nose, relieved to see that Evan didn’t look like he was crying. He seemed more like he had woken up around an hour ago, more or less, and had just stayed hidden under the sheets.

His hand came up, gently carding through Evan’s hair. A weary, fond smile finally made its way back over Michael’s lips.

“There you are,” he said gently, “I’m sorry you had to hear and see all those scary things earlier, Evan. You didn’t deserve that.”

The little boy sadly looked away, then back up at his big brother, his hands pulling the covers a bit further down to show the lower half of his nervous face. “...It’s okay,” Evan said meekly, trying to be brave like he often saw Michael being, though his eyes grew a hint glassy, “You…you don’t deserve to be scared, too.”

A sharp pang cut through Michael. Soft, painful. When hadn’t he felt scared, since William pulled away years ago?

The teen swallowed quietly, trying to keep his throat from locking up. Evan didn’t talk much compared to the rest of the family, even most kids his age, but he had a way of just…knowing. Seeing Michael, and the fact that he did have feelings and got scared like a kid too, in ways that others didn’t. Others especially being those who were supposedly old enough to be more perceptive and comforting.

Michael tilted his head, trying to put together his next words as he lightly caressed Evan’s hair. He wondered if this was the sort of view William used to have of him, when he was still little and an only child. A fragile, young boy with big eyes, just looking up at the one older male than him for love and comfort. Michael had been Evan, and now, he was stuck trying to be their own father too.

He knew, bittersweetly, he really should have been able to hate William more for that.

“...Thanks, Evan,” Michael said quietly after pulling in a breath, putting on a weak but warm smile, “Is your friend with you in there?”

Evan blinked, shy and hesitant, before he fished up his plushie. The top hat and head of his trusty Fredbear emerged from under the hem of the covers, making Michael huff lightly in fond affection.

“Hello, Freddy,” Michael said, soft and playful in a way that only really came out in the safe, innocent company of Evan, “Thank you for always staying with my little brother. He loves you.”

Evan eased a bit, his eyes glancing down to the toy before coming back up to Michael’s. “...We love you too, Mikey. A lot.”

It hurt, in a heart wrenching, beautiful way. Michael had tired of crying so much lately, in such close spans of time no less, but he couldn’t help how his sight blurred and his heart squeezed.

Why couldn’t his whole family be so pure and uncomplicated?

A shaky, breathy chuckle forced out of Michael, who smiled and wiped his eyes, trying to stay strong. “Lucky me.”

He saw the glistening in Evan’s eyes start to return, but Michael couldn’t bear to let those tears fall right then. He grinned through his own heartache, leaning down to press a kiss to Evan’s hair. As he did so, he took the moment to quickly wipe his eyes again while Evan couldn’t see them.

“Okay,” Michael sighed, putting on a smile again and hoping his eyes didn’t already look red, “You must be hungry. I made dinner yesterday, while everyone was…asleep. Want to come eat with me?”

Evan furrowed his little brows, glancing at the window. The curtains were drawn, but he could see that it was clearly still on the early side of the day. “...Dinner for breakfast?” he asked, meek and innocently confused.

Michael chuckled softly, the gentle pain in his chest twisting. “Maybe,” he said lightly, a lopsided smile on his lips, “Or maybe we could, you know. Just have cereal first.”

A tiny sound close to a giggle left Evan. It shouldn’t have felt so rare to hear. He nodded a tad, eyes shiny and a bit less scared of what was outside his room.

“Great,” Michael soothed warmly, opening his arms, “Want to go up with Freddy?”

The little boy tentatively looked at his bedroom door, left slightly ajar by Michael’s entry. He didn’t want to leave, but…he would, because Michael made it feel okay.

Thus, Evan gave another soft nod, shifting his young self to sit up and push the covers off. Michael felt a punch of love and guilt, seeing his tiny brother just there in his striped pjs. Their parents were always too wrapped up in their own…things, to fully and properly care for the third life they had created. Or any of the three they created, frankly.

Michael often wondered, painfully, why they even bothered in the first place. Having him, or Elizabeth, or Evan at all. If they had been ‘happy’ enough together before having children, then were children the reason their relationship soured?

Taking another breath, Michael gently gathered Evan into his arm, hugging the little one against his chest and sighing. There was some measure of relief in the embrace, on both sides.

The teen lingered that way for a long moment, then made himself smile down at his cozy passengers. “All onboard?” he asked playfully, grinning softly and ignoring the strain in his heart.

William used to be that way with him, too. Grinning like a man who won the world when he’d pick up a little Michael and his toys. Making affectionate, playful comments and having fun with him. It hurt more each day, giving the love his father had left in him to others, as if he was ever ready for it.

Evan smiled back, shy and meek, giving his Fredbear a gentle squeeze.

And so, Michael began to leave the bedroom with them in his arms, not looking into his parents’ bedroom to see if Clara would still be standing there, staring at him with expectation and disapproval. Disappointment. Anger…betrayal.

He brought Evan down, setting him on the couch and turning on the tv to put on some cartoons. “Wait here, okay? I’ll get us some cereal.”

Evan nodded lightly, hugging his companion, his legs hanging off the edge of the couch. It was the same couch they had for years. The same couch William had nearly suffocated Michael to death on, in the throes of his obsession and their mutual adoration when the latter was six. Just two years younger than Evan himself.

But Michael didn’t remember that part of his sixth birthday consciously. And William, at the present, was even less aware of how Michael had taken one sleeping pill to rest on that same couch. One, when he could’ve easily had ten or twenty without anyone there to see or stop him. Michael could have died on that couch just yesterday, finishing what William almost uncontrollably started ages ago not with suffocation, but with an overdose.

Michael felt a mix of guilt and embarrassment slithering in his insides as he got out the bowls and spoons, pouring the cereal and milk. At the moment he held that handful of melatonin–no, the moment he felt compelled to even think of it as relief and escape–he wasn’t that emotionally burdened by thoughts of what it would do to others, for once, if he was no longer there. Michael had felt…morbidly light. Now, however, with his panic and desperation having subsided and William having returned uncharged, Michael felt horrible.

He didn’t want to imagine what it would have been like for his family, if his mother and siblings woke up and came downstairs to see him curled up on the couch, seemingly asleep. A little too still. Clara would probably have been the first to realize Michael wasn’t breathing, in the case where overdosing on sleeping pills didn’t force his body to vomit and leave a mess behind. Clara would scream, his siblings would cry and panic and sob.

And William, unbeknownst to a hypothetically dead Michael, would have come home in that same, usual chipper mood. Clara probably would throw the door open in a tearful rage, more broken than ever. And maybe William might smirk and huff a little amused sound. Or maybe, he would just instinctively know that this time, Clara wasn't crying about anything he'd laugh over.

But how would he react, really, to seeing Michael gone?

On the same cushions he nearly, unintentionally almost killed him on so many years ago, no less?

Michael finished the cereal bowl prepping, resting his weight on his hands over the cool counter and shutting his eyes. He lowered his head.

God…I’m sorry, he thought. Unsure if he was directing his apology to any possible God his loosely Catholic family supposedly believed in, or if he was sorry to his family. Maybe to the version of them that had just lost him. I’m so sorry.

“Mikey?” Evan piped up quietly, his big eyes gazing over at Michael to nervously see if he was okay. The older boy couldn’t meet that gaze. The innocence in it was too much. It felt undeserved.

“Coming,” Michael said, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes as he willed himself to bring the cereal over. Thinking of how William had said he’d return home in an hour as  time ticked past slowly. The teen took a seat next to his baby brother as cartoons a little too childish for Michael played, making sure Evan didn’t try to eat cereal while holding his Fredbear at the same time again. The last few occasions he had, he had spilled the milk.

Chapter Text

Almost on the dot, William rang the doorbell to his front door. Not so much because he needed someone to open for him, but because he hoped Michael would be the one to open it for him again. Like it was a roulette, and Michael was the winning prize, the one family member on the wheel he wanted to be revealed from behind door number one.

Of course, as he also figured that Clara was still likely in no mood to come down and let him in, and that his youngest two weren’t about to do it either, Michael was really the most likely choice.

He tried not to smile too wide as Michael indeed pulled the door open for him, but it was hard to hold back entirely. His eldest son was just too precious, standing there with his slightly weary yet sheepish smile. Looking like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be too happy yet. In his soft, loose white t-shirt and those airy little shorts…

“Hi, Father,” Michael said, a hint of anxiety and endearing awkwardness in his demeanor. He felt like his father was just amused that he was still in his sleepwear, by the way the man smiled while eyeing him. “You, ah…came back in an hour, mostly. Like you said.”

William fought down a grin. Michael was trying to be more calm, more put together after being so deliciously emotional and vulnerable lately. His attempt at returning to a proper sort of formality tinged with boyish shyness was delightful.

“I did, didn’t I,” William mused lightly, “You look a bit better now, love. Everything alright in there?” he asked playfully, leaning close to Michael under the guise of pretending to peek past him into the house. Unperturbed as a man seeing a place to play, making light of a dormant minefield he sowed.

Michael tensed his shoulders, his eyes widening a moment as his almost-too-tall father loomed over him. The boy himself wasn’t exactly short–he was roughly 5’8” like Clara and still growing at 16, but for a second, he almost felt like he was eclipsed by a wave.

“Uh,” Michael began, a bit stiffly, “...Yeah. I mean…’alright’ might be a little strong of a word, but…”

A breathy chuckle left William. He felt he was getting closer to seeing what Michael was really like after the last ten years of distance. He wasn’t only an enduring, often reserved and mature boy outwardly. He was…still so cute. Funny, without meaning to be. William was well versed in social dynamics enough to understand that he should have been taking Michael more seriously when the boy said things weren’t really alright. He knew they weren’t. That much was obvious.

But the way Michael mumbled and shyly glanced around, William was too charmed by his perception of his son to not feel like simply kissing and biting his cheeks until they turned raw.

The man hummed, smiling a bit too widely as he laid his hands on Michael’s shoulders, soaking in the warmth seeping into his palms from over the boy’s shirt. He smoothly turned Michael around, internally eating up the surprise and nervous flush that so easily overtook his son’s pretty face as he gently, firmly ushered him into the house. Michael sucked in a breath, his lanky legs trying to keep up with the sudden turn and push to walk.

Maybe he was being a bit too forward with the physicality, but it had been so long. It felt too good, grasping Michael and moving him around in new ways. William hadn’t let himself direct Michael’s body with more force since he was a little thing, getting swept up and bounced and played with by Daddy.

William looked down, biting his lip upon witnessing the anxious heat blossoming over the back of Michael’s neck and ears. He considered himself a man of refinement, even alongside his murderous and violently lustful nature, but hell if Michael didn’t make him want to lean down to bite, to lick and taste like a lion savoring a gazelle–

“Daddy?” a tiny voice said, awed.

William’s heart almost leapt for a moment, as if he would snap back out of his thoughts and see a five year old Michael in his arms again, calling him Daddy so sweetly like he used to.

Instead, he realized that the voice was Evan’s. His euphoria deflated accordingly, his bright, hungry grin behind Michael falling flat.

William paused without warning, and Michael’s walking stuttered with a faint gasp, not having expected William to stop him in place so suddenly. Where had he even been steering him?

There was a painfully long pause. Michael filled in the gap, feeling embarrassed in place of his father, unsure why the man didn’t respond to Evan. Evan’s voice was quiet, but the house was quieter than usual with Clara and Elizabeth upstairs in near silence.

“Uh…yeah, Evan,” Michael said, smiling awkwardly, trying too fast to be casual and reassuring, “Daddy's home.”

He immediately wanted to punch himself in the face. Daddy.

Michael couldn’t believe he was still so off-kilter from everything that he just used that title again, though he tried to believe he only used the word to match Evan’s childlike manner of speaking. Michael hadn’t said it in so long…and his father was nowhere near far enough to have not heard it.

Meanwhile, William nearly choked on his own breath.

He was, for probably the first time in his life, incredibly glad Evan was right there and had spoken up for Michael to make that little slip of the tongue.

William felt a hot rush of blood surge to his hands, tightening fractionally on Michael’s flushed shoulders. Not nearly as tight as his slacks were quickly growing, however. He hadn’t heard Michael say that one perfect word in his soft, perfect voice since he was a little thing, barely as tall as William’s knee.

Evan watched them, happy but oblivious and innocently confused. “Daddy…but…the police…?”

William let out a breathless laugh, making himself ‘playfully’ turn to face Evan from across the room and moving Michael in front of him like a dance partner, or a life sized mannequin. Mostly just to hide his erection behind him, which did not help with how close he was to the one person he wanted to bury himself inside of.

“Ah, yes. The police,” William began, his tone light and jokingly chiding. He leaned down, pushing his own restraint, his breath just on the edge of too close to Michael’s ear as he kept his steel eyes on Evan. “Did your big brother not tell you the wonderful news yet? Daddy isn’t in big trouble.”

William was right. Michael hadn’t even realized how something so big had slipped his mind, how he had been too busy trying to get past Clara’s glare to comfort Evan to tell him that their father had even come home okay.

But the teen didn’t have enough time or space to think about it.

Michael’s shoulders flinched at William’s nearness and voice, his body sensitive and unused to having someone speak so closely to his ear, feeling so much heat from another body inches from his back. Maybe this was just how William really was, or wanted to be, when he was more…casual? Perhaps everything that had transpired broke the ice between them again, and William was just eager to be close to Michael again, now that the boy had practically confessed to wanting that like back then.

But the sharp spike of sheepish tension almost hurt as it shot up Michael’s body. His father’s smooth voice was too clear, too close, and hearing William croon those words out made something twist and flutter weirdly in his guts. Being called ‘big brother’ felt like William just shone a huge spotlight on him in front of an audience, like he was teasingly, playfully showing off something he thought was adorable. And the way it sounded to hear the deep, soft gravel in his voice when he called himself Daddy…

Evan’s eyes widened in amazement, growing wet with tears that were happy, for once. He anxiously shifted on the couch, wanting to run over and hug William’s leg like any child would. But he held back, fretting. Unsure.

Michael felt slightly dizzy, all the blood surely having taken new residence in his face. A stiff, painful grin was stretched over his lips, more like a reaction to intense embarrassment than a happy smile.

“You can come over,” Michael said, his soft voice strained. Really, he hoped Evan’s proximity would shift the attention off of him between the two.

William could read the intention clear as day. He craved so badly to overdo it. To literally sweep Michael off his feet and squeeze him tight like a child having found its favorite, perfect, worn out little doll again. His son was the only thing that could ever make him feel like that.

Instead, he just held onto Michael’s shoulders still from behind, his smile fixed in place as Evan anxiously padded over. A smidge too wide on his profile.

Rather than bravely hug William’s leg, Evan shyly looked up, still clutching his Fredbear. His young face was obviously wondering, even in the midst of his relief over William not being jailed, why his big brother looked so red.

Michael himself didn’t know quite why, either.

The littlest boy hesitated, slightly off-put by the intensity of William’s piercing eyes and smile. He wasn’t looking at Evan. He was burning a loving hole down into the crown of Michael’s hair.

Nervously, Evan clung to Michael’s leg instead, one small hand only coming out to simply grasp William’s pant leg.

Michael almost softened and relaxed a bit, but William wouldn’t have it. He needed a little more. Another shot of heroin in his veins before he let Michael go.

“Isn’t that just precious,” William murmured, soft and deep, still just hairs away from being too close and warranting an anxious jolt from Michael, “My boy, being the one everyone loves to run to. You would be the perfect father, Michael. With little ones calling you Daddy.”

Michael inhaled hard, a flustered wheeze tearing from his as he laughed a little too loud, having to pull away from them both to walk off his overwhelmed reaction. He walked briskly to the bathroom across the hall, closing the door with confused, hot faced chuckles. The sink was audibly switched on, rushing fast. William grinned widely, his eyes burning with aggressive pleasure and thrill.

The poor boy was so goddamned fun to tease and play with. He had most certainly gone to splash cold water on his face. Repeatedly.

Michael had no idea how adored he was. How William was really imagining the supposedly impossible when he said those things just then. The man would kill, ruin the world, give almost anything, if he could just make Michael physically able to bear his children without any limiting complications. He could scream, simply picturing Michael holding the baby William put inside of him after nine beautiful months of carrying it, holding the product of William’s obsessive love for Michael in his arms the way the boy held his siblings.

Soft and loving in a way that made William’s black heart swell with feelings only Michael could give him. Along the same vein as that innate reaction to his son’s gentleness and beauty, Michael’s entire existence made William’s cock swell with heat and blood without fail. For all William knew, Michael practically gave his father two strong beating hearts to make him feel alive; one in his chest, the other in his pants.

And honestly? Maybe William could at least tolerate Evan, after all. He was like a little tool he could use to fluster Michael, and not pay much attention to beyond that purpose. Evan was the least obtrusive and irritating compared to Clara and Elizabeth. William gazed down at the little boy caught between teary eyed relief, innocent confusion over the whole ordeal–the police visit, William’s quick return, Michael’s embarrassment–and simple shyness. Easy to handle.

Nothing was genuinely stopping him from living out that bizarre fantasy in secret. William would shamelessly stoop as low as to pretend, in his mind, that Michael was really his wife and that Evan was the similarly shy, sensitive child they conceived. Though he still knew it wasn’t true, and thus, wouldn’t start ever truly caring for Evan. Not the way he would for any child he would have hypothetically given life to with Michael.

William gave a wry half smile, and Evan promptly let go of his father’s slacks, his small hands returning to clasp his Fredbear. William’s erection had only slightly died down with Michael’s hasty departure, but he was all too content to just stand there with his hands in his pockets now that it was just Evan there. The boy was too young to grasp what the tent in his father’s pants meant, anyway. Not that Evan was courageous enough to stay looking up at anything after Michael stumbled away to recover his nerves.

Not feeling the need to say much else until his eldest came back out–however long that might take–William turned and strolled into the kitchen. He hummed a light tune, retrieving a box from the cupboard. In it, the cookies he smelled on Michael’s breath, the boy’s makeshift breakfast from much earlier in the morning.

Evan had long retreated to the couch again, anxiously watching cartoons alone, antsy for Michael to come back out. Aware of his father, but too afraid to look at him directly with no one else there. Like a child afraid of glancing into a deep, dark closet, in fear of seeing a monster pop out from something that seemed like it should’ve been safe.

He turned again, leaning back against the counter, one long leg crossed over at the calf as he took a bite. William exhaled softly through his nose, his eyes growing half lidded as he ate. Tasting. Imagining. Entertaining a low level thrum of arousal in his loins.

“Mmh,” he sighed privately to himself, his tongue flicking out to lick the crumbs and chocolate chip smear from his thumb, “So this is what your mouth tasted like earlier, love.”

Around ten or so minutes later, Michael finally came out of the bathroom, feeling a little strange and jittery. Most of the heat left his complexion, though he had gone a bit quieter than usual.

The sight of his father casually standing in the kitchen with his arms crossed loosely and that amused smile was both nostalgic and comforting, yet so…surreal. He slowed to a stop as he left the bathroom, only catching himself staring when his father actually addressed him.

“Everything alright, Michael?” William inquired, seemingly gentle, though there was a teasing edge.

The fresh memory of what sent Michael rushing for cold water in the bathroom spiked back up, but the boy just coughed a little and rubbed the back of his hair sheepishly.

“Yeah,” he answered lightly, “I’m…okay. I guess.”

He waited for a reply. William was the sort of man who could carry any conversation, making them a smooth experience even with the most nervous new employees or bullheaded investors. However, he was just as capable of making someone squirm if he desired.

His silence and comfortable posture as he smiled at Michael was accomplishing just that. Not in a mean spirited way. He just seemed to be enjoying himself, like he knew something entertaining that Michael didn’t.

“So, did you…eat, anything?” Michael asked, tensely shy, unsure how to talk to his father in a casual way besides just going for the basics, “At the, ah…station, yesterday?”

My little caretaker, William sighed internally, between darkly affectionate and displeased. His lack of involvement over time had either instilled or nurtured a sort of servile nature in Michael. He wasn’t entirely sure if he liked it, because it implied that Michael had gotten used to catering to his family that way. William preferred that that inclination simply be focused on him, if anything. It would annoy him less if he knew he didn’t have to share Michael’s accommodating instincts with anyone else.

“Just what you would expect,” William said breezily, playfully feigning distaste, “Coffee, donuts, vending machine snacks. Nothing fancy. Yourself, love?”

“Oh, well…not much,” Michael replied, rubbing his arm, a habit of his that sometimes manifested in moments of thoughtfulness and slight nerves, “I made dinner yesterday…had a plate to myself. I had some cookies this morning, and…”

Michael noticed that the amused smile remained in place on William’s face, but the look in his father’s eyes intensified subtly. He felt like, while the man was clearly present to the conversation, he was watching Michael like he was something adorable to watch talk and move.

“Uh…” Michael continued, feeling sheepish heat trickling back over his skin as his voice shrank, “And…cereal.”

William couldn’t get enough. Michael was like a shrinking violet. A flower, closing it’s soft petals into itself when it got too much attention. He sincerely hoped no one else’s attention could do that to his son so easily.

“You made dinner?” William asked, raising a playful brow, as if he hadn’t known Michael could cook from watching him on the cameras prior, “Mind if your old man has a taste?”

Michael scrunched his nose and brows slightly. He never liked that term, old man. It especially didn’t suit how he viewed his father. William maintained his looks well through a combination of effort and good genes, appearing just as fresh and prime as he must have when he was in his twenties, Michael felt. He barely even seemed to have one grey hair in his neatly combed, dark hair. Clara looked youthful as well despite her years of stress, but even she looked more worn out and tired than William, a few silver strands in her coppery locks though she was younger than her husband.

“Well…yeah, of course,” Michael said, still a little tense but soft as he motioned towards the fridge with a subtle grace in the way he moved his arm and hand. A grace he was oblivious to. “The food is for everyone.”

William furrowed his brows a bit, his smile flickering as he bit his cheek. It was almost strange how no one else had swept Michael up for themselves yet. Not that he’d ever allow it. But William knew, disdainfully, that he couldn’t be the only one who saw how sweet and attractive Michael was. The other teenagers at his highschool must have said or done something to indicate that to Michael by now.

Yet, there Michael was. Still pure and single, untouched as far as William could sense through his behavior. Good.

William held down the possessive displeasure simmering in his core over the fact that once this summer ended, Michael would go back to school again. He would have to spend hours, days, months around a multitude of Hurricane’s fellow teenage girls and boys. None of them worthy enough for him, William decided, and even if there were, the man just would never allow his son to be taken away. Not by friends, not by anyone with romantic interests.

He went to grab a plate himself, but Michael instinctively stepped in, his habits kicking in enough to briefly overpower his shy tension. Or perhaps, he felt that he should serve his father before he possibly grew bitter about Michael doing so for the rest of the family and not him.

“No, Father,” Michael insisted, gentle but quick, stepping close and reaching out to stop him from getting his hand into the cabinet, “I can do it. You can just sit.”

William paused, looking down from over his arm at Michael’s soft yet somewhat urgent face. He had his own urge to pin Michael’s chest down to the counter and fuck him from behind like he would to a wife trying to do the dishes over the sink. Something he never felt compelled to do to his actual wife, attractive as she was.

“You’re sure?” William said, his gaze a bit too long. Close to unblinking.

Michael nodded, weary but imploring. “Please. Let me.”

Staring a few seconds longer, William acquiesced and sat down. He couldn’t say no to the chance to be served his son’s cooking by the boy himself. That, and taking a swift seat at the table was best to conceal his returning arousal.

He tried not to stare too obviously as Michael worked, moving about in his loose t-shirt and shorts, but it was impossible not to. He just appeared so…soft and casual. His long, lean, pretty legs took naturally long strides, just like William’s did. His pretty, boyish hands carefully pulled a larger plate out of the cabinet, then silverware, and just when William felt incredibly satisfied by the thought of watching Michael forever in domestic bliss…

“Uh…” Michael hummed lightly, focused as he glanced around the counter and stove, eyes landing on the fridge as he muttered softly to himself, “Oh yeah. Duh.”

William opened his mouth to ask in bemusement what Michael had apparently missed–he had to assume that the boy had been caught up enough in his mind that he forgot that he had stored the dinner pot in the fridge.

But as Michael opened the door and bent over to pull one large pot out first, William’s mouth and throat suddenly went dry.

In his casual movement, Michael dipped his upper body low as he peered into the fridge, his back in a soft curve. His airy shorts briefly rode up his smooth thighs, hugging his ass. A breath-snatching peek of the curve where the back of his thighs lead to the curve of his rear just below the hem of his shorts appeared and disappeared as Michael straightened with a sigh.

He walked past his father to set the pot on the stove, turning the dial up to low heat with a flick of the gas fire coming alight. Not having noticed how Willaim looked like he had just been hit in the guts with a sledgehammer of restrained, lusting hunger.

The image was seared into his mind now. Hardly immodest, objectively speaking, yet more tantalizing than his own frequent imaginings of Michael’s figure under his clothes. William was understanding all over again why he hardly spent any time at home around his eldest son over the last ten years. If he had been seeing such sights daily, he would not have been able to hold out as long as he had.

And fuck, that sweet ass was just barely a couple feet away. He could easily reach over and just grab a supple handful–

“Actually…” Michael piped up, first to himself, before looking back at his father, “Father, you do want the food warm, right? Are you okay with waiting a bit longer to eat?”

No, William groaned internally, though he was thinking of his other hunger instead, No, I can’t. Bloody hell. You have no idea what you’re doing to your father, baby.

“Yes,” William said, level with the slightest trace of strain, “I can wait, Michael.”

Michael nodded, then turned back to the stove. His own nerves seemingly calmed by focusing on a task he was familiar with, although he still felt a tad more focused and serious than he usually needed to be.

William’s fingers flexed and lightly tapped on the table, fighting the urge to act honestly. To attend to his throbbing erection pushing against his zipper. The neglect was bordering closer to pain, but the pain was a pleasure of its own. The old Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice he had studied back in England as a teenager himself circled into his mind; Orpheus, a man gifted in playing the lyre, who had lost his wife to a snake’s bite.

The gods of the underworld were moved by his music, and offered to let his wife Eurydice return to the living, as long as he walked out of the underworld without looking back. But tragically, the man’s own anxiety and doubt overpowered his nerves, and upon looking back, his wife trailing behind him vanished before his eyes.

But, William knew this was not the underworld or a Greek myth.

Michael was alive, tangible, and he wouldn’t disappear like a ghost if William turned around to see and touch him.

What he would lose, however, would be his self-control. He would lose Michael in other ways if he acted too rashly. He had known that for years.

And so, just as Orpheus was described to, WIlliam strained to keep his head straight and his body from twisting around to seize his son, innocently warming up a meal for him. Perhaps, William was also to Michael what the myth’s snake was to Eurydice. A poisonous creature that knew it wanted to sink its fangs into the soft flesh it saw.

Eventually, Michael tentatively set a warm plate of modest yet aromatic food down in front of his father. William stared at the soft blue veins in the inner curve of Michael’s arm as it reached around to settle the dish. Heat licked up William’s side where Michael was briefly close to him.

Michael stepped back, brows pulled together and head tilted as he tried to think of what else he could give. His father had just come back from being arrested and held in a cell for a day, after all. Even if he seemed oddly unbothered and chipper.

William almost tensed, thinking that Michael might have noticed something particularly off. Part of him hoped Michael hadn’t caught a glimpse of the bulge in his slacks under the table. The other part of him sorely wanted him to see it.

“Yes, love?” William asked evenly.

“...Do you want anything to drink?” Michael asked back.

Christ, William hissed mentally, half aroused, half irritated with his actual wife, Clara, you’ve made a servant of my boy.

It suddenly occurred to William that Michael would make an excellent addition to the pizzeria as a waiter. He’d certainly earn generous tips. The question was whether to let Michael earn money, and whether to expose him to undeserving eyes and patrons.

Watching as Michael waited intently, with that adorably, slightly too serious expression, William easily leaned towards ‘no’ as his answer.

But he liked to live on the edge. He had just gotten away with killing Charlotte, relatively speaking. No one in his house really had to know how he pulled that off at the station. And ogling his son’s body was taking its toll. He needed something to take the edge off, even if it presented a tiny added risk.

“Thank you, Michael,” William said, his smile a tad forced, “I’ll have a spot of wine.”

Michael kind of expected it, but he slightly arched his brow. It was still rather early in the day. Then again, his father always seemed to know what he was doing, so he simply fetched a glass for him and wiped some dust off the first open wine bottle he saw.

“Tell me how much,” Michael said, coming back to his father’s side to pour gently.

William could have snapped the elegant glass in his hand with the pressure he felt inside. Instead, he forced himself to behave and tilted it towards the bottle opening. It almost felt unfair how the world let him indulge such pleasures to the point were it felt like torture, having what he wanted so near yet not able to get away with fully having it.

His steel eyes watched his glass fill with deep ruby liquid, and he clenched his jaw quietly, a muscle ticking in it. William was sorely hard under the table, his other hand furthest from Michael silently gripping his pants bulge. Whether it was to help restrain himself or to add to his pleasure, William himself wasn’t clearly thinking about it.

“That’s good, love,” William said, outwardly calm.

Michael sighed, satisfied that he hadn’t royally screwed up serving his father a meal and drink. It was a first, and whether the man deserved it or not, Michael knew he could at least live life knowing he had done one nice, peacefully familial thing for the man he still loved deeply.

He had so many questions, of course. Questions about…everything.

Why his father had really pulled away for so long. Why he was sort of making a shocking comeback into Michael’s proximity. What the deal was with Charlotte apparently being murdered outside the pizzeria, why the police thought William had something to do with it. How they somehow didn’t come up with anything solid to charge him with after twenty four hours. Why he still seemed so… okay, even though most other men would’ve been afraid. Or at least, more worried and torn up about the young child of their close friend and business partner getting killed.

But maybe William was just…dealing with it in his own way. Regardless, it hardly felt like a good time to talk about it. Would Michael even get any real answers out of him?

After thinking for a moment, Michael gave a slight nod, his slight, anxious smile returning now that his task was done. “Well…enjoy, Father. I'll just go sit by Evan for a while.”

The look in Michael's eyes was a gentle plead, saying please, go see Elizabeth when you're done here.

He turned before he risked seeing any annoyance of his father's face, walking off a bit stiffly to sit with Evan on the couch and resume watch cartoons. The teen considered letting himself sit with William, but it felt too soon. Michael felt the urge to just stay by William as if spending more time in silence beside him would slowly patch up his heart, but after crying to his father, hugging him, making his birthday wish known and even serving the man dinner...he didn't want to look so desperate as to irritate William.

That, and Michael was still contending with reluctant second thoughts about whether he really would leave a chunk of his family behind to go to the amusement park tomorrow with his father. It was what he wanted, yes, but actually going through with it felt like a whole other river to cross now that it was actually possible. Plus, Michael still hadn't quite gotten over how sharp and strange it felt hearing William's supposedly playful comment about how he would make the perfect father. The way William's voice lilted as he briefly painted the picture of Michael as a daddy, with his own little ones around him...something about it made his guts feel weird and, embarrassing and confusing as it was, fluttery.

First, his mother said he would make a great husband, now this? From his own father, as well? Maybe, Michael thought reluctantly with a weary flush stirring over him again in front of the tv, he really was just destined to be some kind of housebound husband. Or...something like that. At least, hopefully after he actually got to live life a bit.

William nearly grabbed Michael with a long arm around his thin waist to wrench him back to his side, tug the boy over to sit him on his thigh–but he let him go. Any more, and William wasn’t sure he would be able to keep up his already tested act.

First, he would eat. Then, maybe after ten minutes alone in the bathroom alone, William would finally go ‘check’ on Elizabeth and decide what to do with her. Non-lethally...for now.

Chapter Text

After getting an eyeful of Michael, eating his simple yet lovely cooking with half a glass of red wine, and relieving his arousal in the bathroom, William finally felt he had enough pleasure to carry him through the next thing he had to do. Namely, perform the irritating task of ‘checking’ on Elizabeth. As if he wanted to help her and not hurt her.

William sighed as he left the bathroom, taking one more glance of Michael resting on the couch with him in his mind as he walked upstairs. A frown tugged at his lips. He knew it was a tad too wishful to hope that Clara and Michael had forgotten that he said he’d see to having a talk with Elizabeth. A man could have hoped.

He went upstairs, already feeling boredom and annoyance grating on the pleasant sensations he’d just spent the last hour feeling. More so upon seeing Clara standing in their master bedroom, still disheveled and worn out in her disdain. William almost dryly asked how long she had been standing there as Elizabeth slept, a little mess herself, both just waiting for some unfortunate soul to wander in and get involved.

William’s expression went stoic. There was a touch of aloof detachment in the half mast of his eyes, the slight raise of his brows. Like he had just been roused from a good dream to come deal with a situation he didn't care about.

“Well?" Clara said, a hard look in her eyes as a harsh smile came over her face, “Are you done having your fill downstairs?"

She was being sarcastic again, unsurprisingly. He was fully aware Clara had likely caught the scent of warmed up food and the clinking of dinnerware, even from a floor away.

William tilted his head, a lazy, faint smile spreading over his mouth. “Yes, dear. I believe I have."

He hadn't really had his fill downstairs. Not when he had to spend the last ten minutes biting his lip to stay quiet as he stroked his throbbing erection in the bathroom to the image of Michael bending over in front of the fridge , like William himself was just a goddamned teenager himself again. Horny and desperate to fuck the prettiest boy on earth, yet frustratingly having to get off alone with his own hand.

And like a cruel teenager, William would have loved to terrify Clara. Tell her that, no, he hadn't gotten his fill, because he had to blow his load into a fucking tissue and not Michael’s soft, hot insides.

But alas. The wine was having its little effect. Teasing to lower the inhibitions of a man who hardly had any to begin with.

Clara scoffed. “Great. Now, spare some of your brilliance on fixing whatever the hell is wrong with our daughter."

A deep sigh almost left William. The easiest thing to do to begin to understand what was ‘wrong’ was to just excuse himself to his office downstairs and watch the security recording from yesterday. But he really didn't feel in the mood to potentially sour his entire day yet. He’d wait until after Michael’s birthday trip tomorrow to find out what happened clearly.

“Some details would help,” William said flatly, "Michael tells me she had a breakdown of sorts.”

Clara opened her mouth to yell out that Elizabeth had screamed for her brother like a mad child, and desperately tried to yank down his waistband to make him ‘happy’ enough not to leave her.

However, she grimaced, holding that part in. It would have been different if Michael had told William about it first. The fact that he hadn’t made Clara less inclined to mention something so bizarre, much less fully accept it herself.

“...She did," Clara said tightly, “She just lost it after you left."

William noticed that she seemed to be holding something back, and he narrowed his eyes slightly. First, Michael insisted that that was all that happened. Now, Clara. But the strain in her face only furthered his existing skepticism.

“Right," William said, disbelieving, “And she hadn't woken up since then?"

“No. She must have tired herself out from acting crazy and doing this," Clara said dryly, holding out her scratched up arms.

William, of course, couldn't care less. To him, Clara deserved worse.

“Possibly, yes,” William mused, as if he was just talking about the results of some scientific process and not his own daughter's wellbeing, "Let's try to wake her now, shall we?”

Clara tensed, her brows furrowing. She had the strange urge to prevent Elizabeth from being too…candid. Whether it was for the sake of shielding her from the consequences or Clara trying to keep a sense of control and denial over how bad her child’s mental state truly was, the woman didn't let herself think about it.

William inhaled and exhaled a sigh through his nose, reaching down and lightly shaking Elizabeth’s thin shoulder. She looked like a doll that had been tossed around, her hair a stringy mess over her face and her nightgown torn in various spots. He held back a satisfied smile, pleased at the thought of Clara using her strength for a pleasing purpose; manhandling his little problem princess.

“Darling, wake up," William said, falsely gentle, “Your father is back.”

Elizabeth didn't stir, at first. Clara uneasily looked at William, who narrowly avoided rolling his eyes.

"Elizabeth,” he said, increasingly firmer in tone and his shaking of her, "Come now. Enough dozing.”

Gradually, the young girl woke. Bleary green eyes, just like her mother's, opening under strands of uncharacteristically unruly strawberry blonde hair.

William didn't smile, but neither did Clara. She was tense, he was simply watching.

“...Michael?" Elizabeth began, her voice small and raspy from screaming profusely.

Clara flinched. William knit his brows. Almost flattered, if not for his growing suspicion.

“No," he replied, level, his eyes scrutinizing her, “It's your father."

Elizabeth blinked, something unsettling beginning to tremble in her eyes again. “Did he leave?” she asked, pushing herself up on her thin arms, looking around.

For someone that Michael and Clara both claimed was probably shaken so deeply by William’s sudden departure with the police, he couldn't help but notice that Elizabeth had a glazed look in her eyes. As if she was looking past her father. Searching for her big brother instead.

William frowned, a dark sensation slithering around his insides. He wrapped his hand around her small jaw, firmly turning her face towards him.

"What does that mean, girl?” William said, his voice dropping a shade.

"William,” Clara spoke up, warning. Uneasy.

"Hush, woman," William said icily, turning his narrowed gaze back to Elizabeth, “What are you on about?"

A quivering, shaky sort of state reawakened in the little girl. A wide eyed, manic thing buzzing in her skull.

“He's supposed to love me," Elizabeth said brokenly. Looking at William, but not seeing him. Or perhaps, seeing a fractured image of her father and brother at the same time. "You… you're supposed to love me…!"

Clara grimaced, coming closer and giving her daughter's shoulder a firm shake. “Elizabeth, stop it," she insisted, straining, “I told you, you can't act like this."

William’s steel eyes darkened. He slowly leaned forward, his hand like iron around her jaw. Clara either couldn't or wouldn't see it, but William allowed himself no illusions. Not when he was seeing something in Elizabeth that he recognized in himself. Something that should have only been reserved for himself.

It was more like a weak, blind, newborn pup. Desperate and shivering, utterly lost and unsightly. Not refined like William’s. Not a thing like his long-standing, nurtured and cultivated obsession. Strong, single minded, violently devoted.

But it was an obsession, all the same.

Obsession for the same soft, blue eyed boy William spent 16 years being enamored with, first.

A cold settled in him. An ice block, sinking to arctic, black depths. Not because William felt disturbed. But because he felt hatred.

He knew then that Elizabeth’s brief and recorded touching of Michael wasn't simply that of a young girl, excited by having a pretty teenage boy as a brother and confused by her own feelings. That was all a precursor to whatever she had inside her festering until it grew into something she didn't have the knowledge, experience or nature to control yet.

Though even if she did, William was not one to allow competition to survive. Especially in subjects he held the most passion for.

And now his mind was turning its gears. Calculating. Deciding.

Elizabeth whimpered, her warped perception seeing her father’s handsome glare as a glare from Michael. An older version of Michael that loathed her and abandoned her years ago.

“No," Elizabeth quivered, her eyes widening and unseeing of reality, “No, no no no no…Michael… Michael!”

William didn't waste a moment, unmoved by her state or scream as he clamped his hand over her mouth instantly. Elizabeth muffled a screech behind it, her fingernails–caked with her mother's blood–starting to desperately dig into William’s hand.

Clara’s breath hitched, but she was quick to jump in with her own natural physicality.

She, however, didn't try to stop William.

Her strong hands instead took hold of Elizabeth's thin wrists, wrenching them behind the back of the violently squirming ten year old girl.

Michael, having heard his little sisters’ haunting wail and subsequent thrashing again, tensed before telling Evan to stay on the couch. The teen rushed upstairs, his eyes mortified by what he was seeing.

Their father’s back was to him as he kept a firm hand locked over his little sisters’ mouth, her face small enough that his palm covered her nose too. Elizabeth with that terrifyingly wild, glazed look in her eyes as she tried to scream and fight. And their mother was behind her on the bed, panting and trying to keep Elizabeth’s frail wrists pinned behind her.

It was a sight that would burn into Michael’s memory forever.

“What are you– stop!” Michael shouted, rushing in after his initial shock wore off, “You’re hurting her!”

William was almost too deep in his own deathly thoughts to hear Michael. His hand squeezed tighter around Elizabeth’s mouth and jaw like a vice, and Michael couldn't stand how sick he felt, hearing her frantic screams start to sound tortured, mixed with physical pain.

The fact that even Clara was too wrapped up in trying to restrain his little sister and somehow not yelling at William for once made it so much worse. Clara could complain up and down about William being an absent bastard, a bad husband, but holding her down and stifling her was okay? Shutting up Elizabeth like she was a victim about to be kidnapped or worse, was okay?

But then it hit Michael. Of course that was okay with her. Because William was just being proactive for once in Clara’s eyes, wasn't he?

He was just taking the initiative to handle things, like Clara always wanted. Lowering the volume of her problems for her. ‘Dealing’ with their daughter.

Would they do the same to him, if he had a breakdown? To Evan?

Appalled with disgust and anger, heat burned over Michael’s skin. Yes, one could argue his parents were just trying to restrain Elizabeth. However, Michael knew there was a better way. William was stronger than all of them. He could have easily just wrapped his arms around Elizabeth and held her back to his chest. He could have used his almost perpetually unflappable demeanor to tell Clara to phone for an ambulance. Because clearly, the situation was past the point of what his parents could properly handle. Any rational adult could see that.

But they didn't look like they were even considering calling for real assistance.

“I said stop!” Michael yelled as his words went ignored, his pulse pounding with sick anger and desperation, "She needs help! You're hurting her!”

William, neck deep in his own possessive rage at the existence of Elizabeth’s similar, infuriating obsession with his eldest son, snapped in his nearly black eyed gaze to Michael.

The boy inhaled sharply, stunned at how… abyssal his father looked. He reeled back a few steps as if his father had just ignited with hellfire, shocked as he hardly recognized the man.

The shock and fear etched into Michael’s face almost spurred William on deeper into his violent nature. He wanted to squeeze Elizabeth’s jaw until it snapped his hand. Pop her back baby teeth loose in his unforgiving grip. Make her choke on her own blood and bits of enamel as he kept her mouth and nose sealed shut. Suffocate her until her incessant, loathsome screaming and thrashing stilled into calm silence.

But…part of William realized that the softness and longing love was draining out of Michael with every second he witnessed it all continue. Suddenly, he remembered himself. What he actually valued in his house.

William wrenched his hand off of Elizabeth’s aching, reddened jaw and cheeks, which were sure to bruise later. He locked his arms around Elizabeth securely, her front pressed to his chest as he pulled her off the bed, thin arms pinned to her sides. The girl gasped and panted for breath, but her screeching for Michael and her fighting didn't stop. In a strange way, William felt like he was holding a manifestation of the basest form of his obsession for Michael. A desperate, screaming, hungry void at its core.

“Clara," William breathed, as if he had just come up for air after getting too deep in his own dark instincts, “Call 911. Now."

"No, William!” Clara said quickly, "She doesn't need a hospital! She just needs to snap out of it!”

"Snap out if it?!” Michael said incredulously, "Mom, are you serious?! She's not okay! She won't just sleep it off!”

“They're going to give her drugs, Michael!" Clara snapped, angry yet rattled, "Do you see where that'll go?! She needs to wake up, not take pills!”

Michael faltered, grimacing. Her words stung secretly, because he himself had turned to a pill bottle for relief. And while he saw Clara's point, in a way, the situation was still just too extreme to safely keep Elizabeth at home. For her own sake, or anyone else's. Michael didn't want to think about what would happen if Evan was put in harms’ way by his sister's uncontrolled behavior, nor about what else his parents might do to Elizabeth to ‘fix’ her. She wasn’t any safer being manhandled by Clara or William.

Maybe it was just Clara’s old world thinking. The majority of parents in her youth had likely just tried to beat the ‘craziness’ out of their children when what they truly needed was real care. William had at least decided to call 911, but there was something darker than old world thinking in his eyes when Michael had faced them.

Regardless, right then, Michael had enough.

He stormed over to the phone on the wall of his parents bedroom himself, his anger and sincere wish to get real outside help involved pushing past all fear.

He grabbed the phone, trembling with fire and frustration as he started to punch in the three digit number.

Clara’s eyes flared, and she quickly began to storm over to grab Michael. To stop him with just as much thoughtless force as she had for her daughter.

William, seeing her intentions instantly, felt an ugly molten heat blend his innards into lava.

“Clara!" William barked out. His voice, so rarely ever heard that loud and genuinely furious, froze Michael and Clara in place. Elizabeth shrieked, still kicking and crying out in her unstable state.

“You lay a hand on my son, and you're going straight to the bloody ambulance with her!” William screamed, veins popping from his neck. He panted hard, feeling close to losing his own grip like Elizabeth had, leaping into a murderous rage.

Clara and Michael were still as stones. As if one micro movement would shatter William’s last thread of usually endless composure.

They stared at him, like they waited for permission to breathe.

William drew in deep breaths, swallowing hard and sighing raggedly, a low growl thrumming in the air he exhaled. He shut his eyes. Searching for control again.

“...Michael," William said after a long pause, uncharacteristically mirthless, “Make the call if you can, son."

The boy’s shoulders slumped quietly, the tension in his face fading as he looked, really looked, at his father. Trying to understand the unfamiliar but perhaps, not quite new sides of the man he was seeing that day.

Michael called 911, his voice hoarse and quiet, a slight tremble in his body. He thought of the sleeping pills in the cabinet again to anchor himself.

Elizabeth began to tire, running on fumes as she dazedly looked around the room and twitched, mumbling incoherently.

The ambulance came somewhere between ten or twenty minutes later.

William stoically carried Elizabeth outside, explaining what he knew of the situation and handing her over to the emergency workers. Clara watched from the porch, a crying Evan clutching her dress with one small hand behind her as blue and red light danced before everyone.

Michael quietly walked near Elizabeth, feeling empty and heavy at once while he watched his ten year old sister get strapped down to a gurney, her big green eyes twitchy and roaming around as she muttered to herself. Their father stood closer to her, not because he wanted to be close to her, but to subtly shield Michael from his little sister.

“Where am I going?" Elizabeth asked, shifting between confused and giggling, borderline dreamy in the eeriest way. The smile on her bruising little face, the heartbreaking sound of her raspy voice asking that innocent question…her mind being too frazzled to really properly perceive any answers. It would haunt Michael forever.

“...You're not well," Michael said quietly, forcing himself to look at her even though it was killing him, “...You just need to get some help for a while, okay?"

Elizabeth’s stare settled on him, wide eyed in an unsettling version of something close to childlike wonder. "I'm okay, though,” she said pointedly, green boring into blue as she leaned over to him slowly as much as the straps would let her, "Are you okay?”

Michael tensed, a pang of confusion, sadness and unease twisting in his chest. William frowned.

"I…no, but–" Michael began weakly.

“Don't, Michael," William said in a low voice, holding his hand up to quiet his son, “She's confused. Anything you say to her in this state is lost on her."

Elizabeth’s eyes wandered up to William, and her agape mouth turned into a shaky, meek giggle as she writhed faintly under the gurney’s straps. Seeing her father as her beloved brother, again.

“You grew up, Mikey!" Elizabeth chirped, halfway between laughing and growing despair, her young face shifting like sand from a happy expression to a horrified one, "You grew up without me!”

Michael covered his mouth, his eyes squeezing shut as his heart tore further into shreds with a muffled sob. His face crumpled, tears eager to keep escaping down his cheeks like cruel caresses as the workers finally hauled her away. Yesterday, William had been taken away. Now, Elizabeth.

William’s expression grew unreadable. Thoughtful, almost. Perhaps Elizabeth had become inflicted with a seer’s insanity.

In her madness, she almost seemed to be seeing part of the future William had decided on.

Chapter Text

As the ambulance drove off, Michael spent a minute or two choking back tears, his face hot behind his hand.

His father was right there. William waited, expecting to be looked up at with that beautiful, flushed face and leaned into for comfort. It certainly would soothe his own exasperation with how the day had soured.

He waited. Waited.

But Michael didn’t turn to him. Didn’t look at him for anything. As if the boy was reverting back, dealing with his own pain the way he had gotten used to for the last ten years–alone.

William’s stare bored into him, his fingers twitching with the itch to do something. Anything to feel like Michael wasn’t slipping back into himself. Back into the withdrawn, walled off boy he had been up to the start of that June.

Even then, however, Michael had always loved him. Needed his father. Elizabeth being taken away would hurt Michael, but it wouldn’t change that need.

The man pulled in a breath, sighing. He raised his hand to clasp Michael’s shoulder. To indulge himself a bit after all the inconvenient headaches.

“Love, you don’t have to–”

Michael turned away before William could finish or touch him, wiping his downcast face off as he walked back towards the house. Clara was there on the porch, wearily watching with Evan hiding his weepy little face in her dress.

William paused, hand hanging in midair, staring at the space where Michael was supposed to turn to meet his eyes.

He wouldn’t care if it were anyone else. Clara, his other kids, Henry. The whole fucking world could turn from William and he would carry on as he always did.

But nothing William actually wanted was ever supposed to be able to walk away from him.

He watched silently as his eldest son trudged across the dirt path. Fortunately for Clara and Evan with William there, Michael didn’t stop to comfort or seek comfort in them, either. He walked straight into the house and shut the door behind him.

Despite his outwardly stunned silence, William’s mind was racing. Racing. Trying to retrace his steps, understand what happened for himself not to get what he was sure he would get just then.

Had Michael not been happy that his father came back home just a few hours earlier? Was that not enough for him?

They were getting somewhere. William was getting closer. And now, where had all that progress gone? Michael suddenly didn’t need to cry into his father, because…what? He was too broken up by seeing his sister lose her sense?

If he was that broken, it should have only more reason for Michael to run towards William.

William took a long, long moment to hold off on moving until he was sure he wouldn’t do anything incriminating to Clara or Evan–at the present, just two fleshy creatures on his porch, to his eyes–before he started on down the path to follow Michael.

The sunbaked dirt crackled under William’s earth dusted dress shoes, their polish black shine diminished. As he walked past, he heard Clara speak.

“William…” she began tiredly as he approached.

The woman was always worn out. Always ready to complain. She was most tolerable as a hardworking child before she became a leechlike adult. William had no desire to hear her voice. Perceive his name from her lips.

She saw no response from William. Not a single glance in her direction.

“William,” Clara pressed, brows pulling together. Desperate.

The man walked past with tunnel vision, swinging the door open and narrowly hitting his wife and eight year old son with it, had Clara not gasped and moved them both out of the way a second before the knob collided with the outer wall.

William stopped in the middle of the first floor, between the kitchen and living room, facing the stairs. He only had one thing he wanted to see. He was breathing heavily, his hands tight fists and his steel eyes flickering around the house like search lights.

History was just repeating itself. Clara had ruined Michael’s sixth birthday, and the boy went crying to his room. Almost eleven years later now, the day before Michael’s seventeenth birthday, Clara’s little wretch of a child Elizabeth had continued her mother’s work. 

But Michael said he had wanted to spend tomorrow with his father. He had to. William needed him to, now.

Heavy steps tracking dirt up the stairs, William went to Michael’s bedroom door. Closed. He lightly turned the knob to test it. Locked.

A deep, shaky sigh left William from the furnace in his chest. He closed his eyes, hands and forehead pressed against the door like he could find paradise, if he could just get past it.

“Michael,” William began, quietly, as if to try and hide the traces of desperation and obsessiveness in his voice that would show if he were any louder.

Nothing came in response. Not a shift of the bedsheets or chair. Not any breathing. Michael was always such a quiet boy. He could draw air in and out of his lungs so quietly, one would think he wasn’t breathing at all.

Michael’s gravestone drawing, the taunting thing tucked under his desk mat, flashed through William’s mind.

His son wouldn't kill himself over what happened, would he? He wasn't already dying or dead in his room. He couldn't be. Wasn't allowed to be.

“Michael Afton," William gritted out, trembling with barely restrained urges to tear down the barrier, “If you don't open this door right now…”

The inclusion of his surname came as if to remind the boy–the world –of the father he belonged to.

Finally, there was a reluctant creak of the bed frame. Soft, slow footsteps. The rage rapidly drained from William, leaving behind euphoria, relief and adoration in its wake. Those little sounds were never as perfect as they were at that moment.

Gradually, with audible hesitation, Michael clicked the door open and pulled it back. Revealing himself. Small and sad, tired and vulnerable as the little angel he was back then. History repeating with slight tweaks. The same hurting boy, opening his bedroom door to reveal himself to his father.

He was still there. Listening. Responsive. Alive. That was all William needed to work with.

“...I’m sorry,” Michael said, a soft rasp, “...I just…I really just want to be…alone, right now.”

Michael was sorry.

The buildup of pressure within William, like steam with nowhere to go, instantly deflated and lost its edge. But he needed more than that. The man’s nerves still sparked with a greedy, obsessive urge to know things were still as he wanted them.

“I understand,” William lied, the evenness of his tone belied by audible strain, “I just need to know you’re alright.”

Of course, he knew Michael wasn’t. Even if Elizabeth scared him or made his stomach turn or violated his boundaries in some way again, he still cared about her. Loved her. Besides the way it made William want to crush Elizabeth into dust, knowing Michael could continue to love a family member who had done such things to him gave him some satisfaction. Perhaps Michael could keep helplessly loving him, if or when William ever crossed those lines himself.

For now, though, the focus was narrowed down to two things.

One, William had to ensure that Michael was still open and receptive to him, wanting comfort from his father and that he wasn’t shutting himself away.

Two, William had to know. He had to know that Michael wasn’t taking back his birthday wish. That he still wanted to willingly go spend time with him, just him, tomorrow.

Michael sighed deeply, drained and rubbed his face with a sluggish hand. “...I mean…no. Not really.”

There was a hint of something guilty and apologetic in his answer. Like he was sorry to admit that he wasn’t okay. It was so like him…William’s pounding heart felt a flutter breeze through it.

“You’re worried about your little sister,” William said, trying his hardest not to sound like he was forcing himself to read off a script he wanted to tear to shreds, his gaze intense and nearly unblinking on Michael, “That’s natural, son. But you won’t get anything out of being miserable. It’ll help neither her nor you.”

Michael stared, then slightly narrowed his brows. He looked exhausted, yet there was a spark of that unfamiliar anger starting to bubble up again in his gentle face. Almost the same sort WIlliam had seen in him when he made Elizabeth cry before, once she returned home with her mother and siblings from the ‘trip’ William pushed them into.

In those better circumstances, William had been both irritated and aroused to see that heat in his sweet sons’ eyes. However, the situation now had become dire to the man, regardless of whether he admitted it fully to himself.

“...Am I not allowed to be upset? Ever?” Michael asked, his soft voice low and a hint sharp. It nearly took William’s breath away to see and hear his boy be so much like him, without even meaning to be. But he was too desperate to keep things on track and in control to get carried away by it.

Usually, William would respond twice as sharply, as he had before when having his first little argument with Michael. Not that he considered it an argument–that would have implied a struggle. William hadn’t argued back then, truly. He had simply reaffirmed his authority. This situation, though, required a delicate touch. One William was fighting to follow through on without snapping.

“...Of course you are, love,” William said, even but a tad strained, “I’m not telling you to ignore your feelings. I’m only…trying to comfort you, the best way I know how.”

William didn’t know where he was pulling the bullshit from, but his desperation and recently improved understanding of Michael were helping him rapidly spin threads. Michael was a sensitive boy, and as self-sacrificial as he could be, he didn’t react well to certain things. One of them being told how to feel or not feel, apparently. As if his inner thoughts and emotions were some of the few things he wanted to keep undisturbed by others’ pushing.

It was frustrating. Stubborn. Attractive. Knowing Michael indeed had an edge, a point where he stopped being sad and compliant in order to stand his ground, for his own sake.

Although, with William’s specific wording–making it sound like he was just a father trying to ease his son’s burdens, and sounding uncharacteristically close to admitting inadequacy–Michael’s hard gaze began to soften again. Just enough to make William have to hold back a thrilled grin. He was getting his foot in the door once more.

Michael sighed deeply, briefly shutting his eyes and rubbing his temple. “...It’s okay. I’m sorry, Father, I just…I’m so tired. I don’t want to do anything right now.”

“What about tomorrow?” William asked, so softly it made Michael’s eyes open in surprise.

It was a tone he couldn’t remember ever hearing from the man. Something close to…needful. Imploring, but in a way that reminded Michael far too much of himself in the early years of William’s sudden distancing.

Will Daddy play with me tomorrow? What about after that? When will he come home early again…?

William could see the pang of pain and crumbling inside Michael clear as day. The boy had tensed as if he was hit, or as if he had accidentally hit his father in anger and deeply regretted it. However, Michael was still trying to hold onto his internal opposition. The honest feelings of weariness, unspoken blame on his father for all that had happened so far, his reluctance to follow through on his own birthday wish now.

“...Tomorrow…” Michael sighed sharply, like it had become more of a burden than a thing he had been looking forward to just earlier, “...I don’t…know.”

William was silent. His eyes fractionally flared. Something violent coiled in his chest, like the rage in reaction to a slap, a cutting insult.

“I don’t know if I should–” Michael began, almost rushing his words. Trying to renounce his wishes again. As if doing so would sever him from the torment of having wanted to spend time with his father at the amusement park at all.

“Michael,” William cut in, low and soft, his gaze steady, unblinking, “I can’t stand how much I’ve let myself miss out on you.”

Michael’s eyes widened. His lips remained parted, frozen mid-speech.

That was his boy. He spoke the language of authentic feelings, despite how much he buried his own. Michael was best moved by what was genuine. By what ached, both in himself and others. If William just continued to show a rare glimpse of honesty and longing, as safely worded as possible…

The man paused, reaching out to gently cup Michael’s cheek, his thumb caressing that velvet cheekbone with a reverence Michael felt inexplicably stunned by.

“...I’ve been distant, and I know it’s made things so…complicated,” William said, soft and nearly wistful, steps away from dreamy, “...It’s not lost on me, how selfish it is to ask this of you now. But…”

William took a breath and sighed, licking his lips, preparing to let a foreign word out. Just for Michael. Only because of him. Like always.

“...Please,” William finally said. A sigh, a breeze wafting gently through leaves. “Don’t change your mind, Michael. I need to spend tomorrow with you. I would be the luckiest man alive.”

Michael stared, floored. It was as if he wasn’t being spoken to by the man he perceived his father to be all these years. Or, rather, he was being shown more and more of the recent, bewilderingly soulful side and could barely begin to process it. For so long, Michael believed he was the only one between the two that had any genuine longing left between them. Seeing his father be that way was as stunning and revitalizing as it was…somewhat terrifying.

Regardless, William could feel Michael’s resistance chipping away.

The boy wanted to ask where this was all coming from again, after so long. But he couldn’t bring himself to voice the question lest he risk shattering the connection.

Don’t question gifts. Don’t refuse gifts from your parents.

Michael knew it wasn’t fair. He had every right to slam the door in his father’s face, unleash years of agony on him, scream that he didn’t deserve to get what he wanted. Even if Michael wanted to spend his seventeenth birthday with him anyway.

And god, he still did.

So badly, it made him start to wonder why he loved William so much that he could stay feeling as desperate and happy as he did to get to spend time with the man. One on one, having fun together, just like old times. It felt warm and guilty and sweet and pathetic to have the chance right in front of him. To resume reaching for it, after everything.

“...Fine,” Michael said, tense and quiet. Defeated. Just shy of a weary, weak smile. “...Okay. We can still…hang out tomorrow, Father. If that’s what you…really want.”

Did Michael still want his own wish? Was he getting what he wanted, or just giving in to make someone he loved happy, because their happiness was a more familiar reward than his own satisfaction? The line blurred more each day despite how Michael tried to keep track of it.

Meanwhile, William could have burst from how intensely sheer bliss swelled in his blood. He wanted to crush Michael into his chest. The feeling was nearly unbearable as the act of holding back. He still had control. Still had the ability to make his son come back to him, want him, even if it was conflicting with the boy’s own feelings and better judgement.

“I’ll take care of everything, love,” William crooned, fighting to keep from grinning like a madman as he brushed his fingers through the side of Michael’s hair, “I’ll make sure Elizabeth is taken care of. You won’t have to worry about your mother and brother while they stay here tomorrow, either. You just rest and get ready for our trip.”

Michael inhaled a deep breath through his nose, releasing it and just closing his eyes. He was getting what he asked for, and yet…he felt like he had no real control over how his wish was being fulfilled. Uncertainty trickled at the edges of his mind, but he tried to let it go for once, to simply focus on what good he could. He was tired of being sick and tired. Maybe it didn't have to be such a crime in his head to let himself enjoy something without questioning or thinking, whether it was wise or not. Maybe it was okay to just be the teenager he was supposed to be for a day.

William could hardly wait. The man had maneuvered his way to another personal victory. Tomorrow, he would taste the fruit of his labor. Taking a larger bite than he had in years.