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DISCLAIMER: This author's views do not represent those of their employer. This author does not condone any violence, SA or harm that is depicted within their works. Please read with caution and be mindful of your mental state. Please stop reading if you feel you are becoming distressed.
Index:
WIP [ ⚠️ ]
Completed [ ✅ ]
WORKS [ SERIES ]:
⚠️ Subject Zero [ VALORANT: cypher x reader ]
✅ (Not) Happy Family [ FNAF: william x reader ]
⚠️ Secrets Unfolded [ VALORANT: cypher x reader ]
⚠️ You're annoying [ JJK: gojo x reader ]
✅ I think I'm not qualified for this job [ FNAF: william x reader ]
The chatter of those around you makes you want to rip your ears out. Each sound that rattles your eardrums causes a piercing headache to split through your brain that dulls for just a second, before it flares as another person accidentally drops a stack of papers. At least that’s what it sounds like for you. It could really be anything in this delusional state that you’re in.
“I think she’s awake. Take her away for questioning.”
“But she just woke up from a coma!” A female voice states. What? How long have you been out for?
“Lauren, I’m the boss here. She needs to be taken in for questioning.” A man’s voice says. His accent isn’t native to this place, almost sounds like William’s, but the man is too young to be William and William should be…
You sit up immediately, ignoring the panging pain in your head and the way that your eyes take in too much light at once.
“Where is he?” You question the woman who looks like she would be Lauren. She’s clothed in a police uniform and the bustling of officers outside the door of your room makes you aware that you’re in a police station.
“Who?” She tilts your head at you before she registers your awake form fully. “Ah, you’re awake. How are you feeling?” You ignore her question entirely.
“The man, the one in the yellow bunny suit in the building. Is he dead?”
“What building? I wasn’t there when this case happened.” You blink at her for a quick second, shocked.
“What the hell?” You mutter under your breath, alarm bells ringing in your head from her words. Lauren lifts you up from the bed that you’re laying on and takes you into another room. It’s much colder and smells strangely of antiseptic, maybe they sanitise all their prisoners before they question them. The thought puts a strange smile on your face, and you’re forced to suppress it when the other police officer in the room looks at you funny.
“Hello, Ms…” He thumbs through a few pages of a file before he finds your name.
“Yeah, that’s me. Hi.” You respond, taking a seat when Lauren pulls out the chair for you. You’re in handcuffs so you can’t really do much, and the cool metal is making your wrists itch a bit.
“Hi. I’m officer Michael.” You properly look at the man when he speaks this time as he lowers the file from his face to stare at you. You’re taken aback by what you see. He looks exactly like William, just 20 years younger.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” You question, leaning forward slightly to get a better look at him. He sighs, sitting down in front of you.
“You knew me years ago. More specifically, you knew my father.” Your eyes widen, a gasp leaving your mouth as your mind tries to process what he’s insinuating.
“Are you saying that I’ve been in a coma for YEARS?” Michael stays silent for a moment before he nods his head.
“You probably don’t remember much, but there was a fire at Freddy’s. Another police team found you lying outside in the grass as the whole building burned down. No remnants of that place survived.” You stare at your hands in their cuffs, placed neatly on the table in front of you.
“Are you saying…” You start quietly before raising your voice. “Are you saying that he’s really gone?” Michael’s silence doesn’t do much for you.
“Michael. Please. Answer me.”
“He’s… not anywhere to be found.” You slump down into your chair, feeling rockets of pain shoot through your limbs from the action.
“He could be anywhere. He could still be here, hurting other people. Has this town gotten any more murder cases since the incident?” Michael shakes his head, and you feel a sense of relief shoot through you.
“But the medical staff who took you in were threatened to keep you alive no matter what.” You frown, brows knotted.
“That’s strange.” Michael hums in response, reaching into your file and pulling out a stack of notes. There are so many, it looks like they were written every day since you were put into a coma. The writing on it looks like the person lost muscle memory in their hand or something, but it’s still legible. Each note contains the same message: Keep her alive, or you won’t like what happens next.
Chills run through you at the words.
“He must still be around then.” You conclude, hands tightening around the paper in your hands before you toss it back carelessly at the officer in front of you. You don’t show it on the outside but deep down, you’re scared. William has terrorised you for years, even when you were out in a coma. He could possibly terrorise you when you’re dead, even though you’re not sure how he would be able to do such a thing.
“We’ll keep someone posted around you at all times.” Michael offers, looking at Lauren who’s standing by the doorway. She just shrugs her shoulders, unsure of what to say in this situation. You raise a hand.
“No. That would just show that he’s won. I can never allow that.” You stand from your place at the table. “We are done here.” Your attempt to leave is futile, however, as you realise that you’ve still got handcuffs on you. Michael looks unamused as you try to tug yourself away from the table.
“You do know the handcuffs are tied to the table, right?”
“Yeah.” You sigh exasperatedly. “I just thought it would look cool if I just left.” You can hear Lauren snort behind you.
“Why am I in handcuffs anyways? It’s not like I committed a crime or anything.” Michael raises an eyebrow at you.
“Not like you committed a crime? You burned down a whole building!” You deadpan at his words.
“You call that a crime?”
“What do you mean you call that a crime? Burning down a building is a crime, it’s an act of arson.”
“Ahhhh.” You say in mock realisation. “I would have never known without that wonderful explanation.” You lift your hands from the table and clap softly.
“Why did you do it?” Michael’s back in interrogation mode it seems, as he picks up a pen and twirls it around in his fingers.
“To rid your father of the immortal lineage he wanted to create. It was torturing kid’s souls.” You pick at your fingernails when you answer. “By the way Henry was involved too.”
“Henry’s dead. His body was never found.” The realisation hits deep, but you swallow away the tears that threaten to build and pretend like you’re unbothered.
“He wanted to die there. For whatever reason.” You whisper.
“I think we’re done here.” Michael suddenly states and your eyes shoot up to his. He’s not looking at you, he’s gesturing at Lauren to take off your handcuffs. You’re going to be free!
“Wait Michael. What’s going on? You could’ve had a family and moved out of hurricane. You could be free from-“
“I am never free until I find that man and make him pay for everything he’s done.” He cuts you off with a sharp tone in his voice. You’re at a loss for words, so you stay silent.
“Take care, Michael.” Is all you offer before you get into the police car and Lauren drives you home.
You’re happy that it’s close to nighttime so you can go to bed early. You don’t even bother making yourself anything to eat, heading to bed seems like the best option for you right now.
You’re slipping in and out of dreams when you feel a weight press on the end of your bed. You foolishly ignore it, hoping that whoever or whatever it is would just leave you alone. You had JUST gotten out of a coma after all. When the weight remains there, you do the next best thing: tell it to leave you alone.
“Go away.” You mumble, trying to bring the bedsheets over your head and scooting closer towards the wall that your bed is pushed up against. Instead, the thing starts moving closer towards you until it peels away the blankets and settles in right next to you. What the fuck? A hand reaches up to brush away the hair from your face and you peek an eye open. The fact that the arm is covered in familiar circular markings makes your stomach drop.
“How- What?” You can’t formulate a sentence as you spin around. William’s unharmed face is right in front of you. His upper body is clad in his normal business attire, purple waistcoat and white dress shirt along with a black tie but his lower torso is trapped in the bunny suit.
“I thought-“
“You thought wrong, darling.” His voice makes its way back into your ears. You haven’t heard that voice in so long. Goosebumps run up your arms and a chill settles into your spine when he hugs you close to his chest and presses a kiss to your cheek, entangling his mechanical legs with yours before he leans down to whisper into your ear.
Thinking of how to lead William out of his house was the part that proved the most difficult, but you and Henry managed to come up with a plan that would hopefully work. You would “accidentally” ram your car into the front of William’s car, luring William out, you would apologise for everything that had happened, come up with some stupid reason as to why he had to go back to Freddy’s and then the whole place would be lit. Henry, in the meantime, would be able to call all of the animatronics from the other location into the main one before the whole thing goes up in flames and lights up the night sky. With nothing left to say, you and Henry depart after agreeing on the plan.
The drive to William’s house is anxiety-inducing to say the least. The last thing you want right now is to confront the man that you walked out on less than 4 hours ago and you’re absolutely certain that he hates your guts so you just have to pray that this plan works or everything else fails.
“Here goes nothing.” You whisper to yourself when his classic purple car appears in your vision. You turn the car around and slightly back up, causing a bump that would signal the hazard lights to start flashing as well as the car alarm. As soon as you hear the alarm, you rush out of the car, finding that the back of your car isn’t actually that harmed but the front of William’s is slightly bashed in. Exactly 30 seconds after, the front door to his house flings open and a very angry William comes rushing out, eyes fuming with rage.
“Were you so angry at me that you had to ram my car?” He questions. You’re half-expecting him to be yelling at you so the dangerous tone his voice takes, takes you aback slightly.
“It was an accident.” You quickly say, putting on your best act as fake tears fill your eyes but you know that this has given you an immense amount of joy seeing one of William’s prized possessions broken by your hands (car).
“An accident, huh?” William crosses his arms over his chest and glares at you. “Well, you’re paying for it.” Your downcast eyes look up at him, tears starting to drip down your face and you barely miss it but you’ve been with William long enough to be able to read him. His own face softens ever so slightly before it hardens again and you know you’ve hit something, you just have to push the matter a bit further. You move closer towards William, he remains immovable, curiously watching as to what you would do next. You hear a sharp inhale of breath as you suddenly embrace him, trying to keep in the disgust that fills your body at what you’re about to do next. You tilt your head upwards, keeping yourself close to his body as you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him downwards, closing the gap between the both of your lips. You can’t deny that it feels good to truly feel him again and you feel a twinge of guilt go through you on what you’re about to do to him in the next 30 minutes.
“What was that for?” William mutters against your lips when you pull away, still staying close to each other. He’s so close to you that his dark brown hair tickles your cheek and you resist the urge to brush it away. It seems that all the anger and tension in his body from earlier has dissipated and you can’t help the smile that graces your features.
“You’re making this impossible.” You whisper, mostly to yourself because you can feel your resolve already slipping. Henry is probably already waiting for you and keeping him any longer with bloodthirsty animatronics to babysit wouldn’t help his situation.
“How?” William questions, leaning forward to try and capture your lips with his again and you let him for only a brief second before pulling away again.
“No Lagrange multiplier will ever give the optimal situation of us being together again.” There’s a smirk on William’s lips at your words.
“You did not just use the Lagrange multiplier, a number that gives you the best situation for anything, to describe our relationship.”
“I just did.” You reply, prying yourself out of his arms before getting in your car, closing the door and sticking your head out the window. “I’m going for a drive to Freddy’s. Want to come?” You say it nonchalantly, hoping that he would just say yes after everything and move on. Relief fills your body when you see him nodding and sliding into the passenger side of your car before leaving for Freddy’s, William’s broken car left forgotten in the driveway.
Only the hum of the radio playing “Even the Nights Are Better” filled the silence between the two of you.
“Even the nights are better” You softly sing, subconsciously.
“Since I found you…” You have to resist turning towards William, who you can see out of your peripheral vision. There’s a big fat smirk on his face as he can sense your surprise.
“We’re here.” You say, parking the car and turning off the engine, shutting down the music still playing.
“Why are we here?” William asks. Why he didn’t ask before bothers you since he is a smart man, much smarter than anyone thinks he would be.
“Going to get some stuff from your office, you said you hadn’t cleared it out since we left.” William scoffs, a bad thought seemingly cross his mind from your words before he nods his head. You open the door to the pizzeria for him, trailing behind him on the way to his office before you both step in and you close the door. You grab a few of the blueprints still sitting on his desk before letting your eyes rest on the cabinet you had hid in a year ago.
“Crazy how the times pass, hm?” William’s voice is right behind you as you feel his arms slide around your waist and pull you flush to his chest.
“Can’t believe this all started from a capacitor.” You whisper, twisting around in his arms to look at him.
“Well I saw potential in you the moment you hid in that stupid cabinet,” There’s amusement dripping in his words and you roll your eyes at him.
“Right, that was dumb.” You mumbled, wrenching yourself out of his grasp before you can feel yourself grow too attached anymore and ponder over his words more than you already have. “Let’s go.” Henry better have set up the animatronics…
You’re still scared nonetheless when you open the office door and you’re met with the sight you expect to see. Animatronics bumbling aimlessly around the hallways. The only sign of Henry is a security camera that swivels your way.
“Is this what you were planning?” William asks, his tone dark and his eyes even darker as he peers down the hallway and then back at you. “You should know by now that you can never outsmart me.” You scoff, rolling your eyes at his words.
“Maybe I can’t. But he can.” There’s a loud shrill sound of feedback through the speakers for a moment before it fades and you can hear Henry clear his throat.
“Testing. Testing. 1,2,3,” You look directly into the security camera and give a small smile. You’re prepared to not come out of this alive, but you would try your best. “You have all been called here. Into a labyrinth of sounds and smells, misdirection and misfortune. A labyrinth with no exit, a maze with no prize. For one of you, the darkest pit of Hell has opened to swallow you whole. So, don't keep the Devil waiting, old friend. This ends. For all of us. End communication.”
The place is heating up, you can feel it and while Henry’s words strike a chord within you, you don’t have time to dwell over it. This does end. For all of us. But the way he says it makes it seem like it truly will for everyone, you and Henry included. Was there something he had intended to say to you earlier about this whole nightmare that he never did?
“Henry!” You call out, ignoring the way that your clothes are becoming increasingly sticky to your skin due to the sweat dripping down your skin. You ignore the fact that there are probably a hundred bloodthirsty animatronics barrelling down the hallway towards your voice because you know there is a fire behind you.
“HENRY!” You yell out, more urgently, finding his office only a few feet away from William’s and twisting the door handle, shoving your whole weight onto it before banging on the door with your fist. “HENRY, OPEN UP.” His voice is so quiet over the roaring fire that you have to press your whole body against the door to hear him through the peeling wood.
“I’m staying here.” You’re at a loss for words.
“Henry, you’re going to burn alive. There’s a fucking fire raging down this hallway from where you placed the detonators. We. Need. To. Leave.” You stress out each word. “UNLOCK THE FUCKING DOOR, HENRY.” You can’t fail again. You can’t watch another person die at your hands like Elizabeth did.
“Don’t bother. I told you not to come back.” A boy’s voice sounds next to you. A boy with blonde hair along with a girl that looks just like Elizabeth. Oh, you recognise the boy. He’s the one who you met outside in the trash bins when you and William escaped through a vent when he was on a security gig here.
“Oh great. Now I’ve become so delusional because of the heat that I’m imagining dead peop-“ Elizabeth reaches out to grasp onto your hand. Her touch is like ice, a stark contrast to the heat of the fire that is starting to make your eyes water.
“We’re still here. In those.” She points towards the melting metal of some of the animatronics. Her image starts to fade, her face becoming warped as you can see Circus Baby’s legs start to melt and then collapse on the floor with no skeletal structure to support it anymore.
“Elizabeth. Please. Convince Henry to get out of here. It isn’t safe.” Elizabeth shakes her head before turning towards the boy. She looks like she wants to say something else but she’s suddenly gone.
“If he wants to stay here, he must. His soul is tied to this place, he cannot leave it. However, YOU. Must leave.” The boy looks at you one last time, mock pity filling his eyes before he leaves. You’re outraged that a small boy would offer such a lack of empathy at a time like this, but then again, he must have been murdered by the serial killer that you fucked. Great.
“Henry. Thanks for everything. But I’m leaving now.” You don’t even notice that you’re crying until a tear drops on the floor, splashing onto the chequered floor beneath your feet. You stay standing outside his office before you hear a loud scream (more like a war cry) from behind you coming out of one of the animatronics. Shit. It’s the big yellow Freddy looking creep. Maybe that’s who the boy possesses. You don’t waste a single second, bolting down the hallway once again. You turn into the parts and services room, shutting the door behind you and flicking on the light.
“We meet again,” You almost let out a scream at the sight of the 6 foot tall bunny standing in front of you.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re going to put on a bunny costume when we’re all about to burn to death? ARE YOU CRAZY?”
“I won’t die.” William’s words stop you.
“No, you will. I know.” There’s a fire in your eyes that rival the fire just outside the door.
“Keep believing that, buns. It’s not going to happen.” You ignore his words, pulling out a screwdriver from your pocket and quickly unscrewing the screws around the vent. You’re about to unscrew the last one when it’s plucked from your hands.
“You expect me to just let you go?” You answer with the simplest answer you can think of.
“Yes.” That catches William off guard. You guess that normally, someone would be on their knees begging for that person to let them go, but you don’t have that time to spare so a simple and straightforward answer like that would have to suffice. You’re scrambling to find another screwdriver in one of the bins but William knocks you onto the floor, all the oxygen stored in your lungs leaving your body. You land on your back, head hitting the floor, surely giving you a concussion as your vision moves in and out of focus before you make out his figure draped over your body. There’s definitely a cut on your head, you can tell when he removes his fingers from behind your head and there’s blood dripping from them. You force yourself to focus, eyes roaming the room around you before you notice a live wire from the fuse box. You reach next to you, grab it and plunge it straight into the metal part of his suit. You can hear William groan for a quick moment before he collapses onto his side and you throw the wire on the floor, grabbing your screwdriver from his hand and finally taking the last screw off. You throw the vent grating to the ground and start to clamber inside, the roar of the fire making you speed up your movements. You can just see the light at the end of the tunnel before your leg gets caught by a large hand. You don’t look behind you, you know what that material is on your skin.
“William. Let me go.” Your fingers find the edge of the vent and you kick as hard as you can, scraping your shins and knee, while you pull yourself forward as much as possible and fall onto the grass. You’re safe. But how safe are you really? You force yourself to scramble forwards to avoid the scraps of the burning building hitting you.
You’ve been sat at your desk for the last half an hour, replaying the scenes of what transpired multiple times. A packed bag sits next to you, inside lies a pile of carelessly organised clothes and a few of your other belongings along with a sleeping bag in case things really do get bad and you need to sleep in the open at some park. You’re not planning on staying after telling Henry your idea of fully abolishing all of the hauntings caused by Afton’s animatronics and you’re hoping that by escaping you’ll give yourself some sense of freedom after the year you’ve endured here. The remnant sitting on your desk taunts you, the liquid sloshing around ever so slightly as each car outside your window drives by and rattles the surface of your desk. You’re not even too sure that this plan will work and you’re fully committed to just doing things on your own since you are pretty sure that Henry won’t be in on this idea. After all, who would be convinced of hearing a former, lowly employee of Fazbear entertainment that almost failed in their interview accuse one’s best friend of murdering children? The thoughts leave your mind spinning and you heave a big sigh, elbows digging into the wood of your desk.
“Fucking hell.” You mutter to yourself, rubbing your face with your hands as you eye the drawings above your workspace that have all been ideas with the goal of destroying this stupid remnant. The sound of your stomach rumbling moves your attention away from trying to fry your brain any further and leads you to the kitchen where you turn on the stove and boil some water with half a mind to boil spaghetti before returning to your room and grabbing the bottle of remnant to study some more in the kitchen. You don’t quite know what staring at this bottle any more than you already have will do but it’s worth a try, you guess. You sit, staring at the pot of water and trying to distract yourself before absentmindedly unscrewing the cap on the bottle and watching as some of the liquid accidentally falls into the fire and evaporates. Your eyes widen and you carefully pour some more liquid, heart quickening as you realise that the fire is extinguishing the liquid as soon as it touches it. Holy shit, you have an actual plan now that will most definitely work. You turn off the fire, ignoring the water that’s sitting in your pot and grab a couple of matches, speedwalking over to the diner. You know that it's open because it’s almost dinner time and you’re certain that William wouldn’t want to make an appearance in that place again.
“Henry!” You call out as you burst into his office, somewhat rudely. The man jumps from his chair, looking up from the mountains of paperwork he’s working on before his eyes focus on you.
“Ah hello!” He says your name with a bit of a questioning tone in his voice before glancing at the box of matches in one hand and the bottle of remnant in the other. His eyes narrow at the bottle in slight recognition but the smile remains plastered on his face.
“Look. This might sound crazy… but you know all the murders that have been happening? Well, I know how to stop them.” Henry seems puzzled by your idea, his eyes flicking back and forth between you and the items in your hands before he motions for you to take a seat, sitting behind your desk. In your haze of excitement, you didn’t notice how tired he looks. His brown curly hair is no longer bouncy, it’s droopier and there seems to be more wrinkles on his face than when you had last seen him. The typical shine of excitement in his eyes whenever he’s entertaining the kids is also gone too. He looks like an empty shell of his former self and you feel a tinge of sadness go through you but you have a mission to accomplish and you’re not going to let a man’s appearance get in your way.
“So, what is this brilliant idea that you have?” You take in a deep breath before starting your explanation.
“Okay. This might sound absolutely crazy. But you know of the murders around here, right? Well, each of the kids who die, don’t really die. They have something called remnant in them. I know about this because William…” You pause for a second, trying to gauge Henry’s reaction. He doesn’t seem as disturbed as you thought he would’ve been which makes you guess that maybe he does know what William is doing after all. “Well, Will did a lot of work with this stuff to you know, try and get his family back as well as murder more kids to get more of this substance and… the cycle continues.” You set the bottle of remnant on the desk and to your surprise, Henry seems to be familiar with this substance.
“I’ve seen this with Will sometimes. He pretends like it’s juice or something but I’m not an idiot. I know what he’s done.” His eyes flicker to yours and you nod your head at him, not sure what to say in response to his statement after your quite brief explanation.
“Okay. Um- well good to know that you know so I don’t have to explain it in too much detail any more than I already have. But it basically grants immortality and kid’s souls who have died are now starting to live in the animatronics. I promise I’m not crazy but I’ve seen it and the only way to free them and stop this whole cycle from happening is by setting them on fire. Otherwise, the remnant is basically indestructible.” There’s a beat or two of silence as Henry processes your words, more intrigued than shocked by what he had heard.
“Okay… so you’re saying that if we set all of these animatronics on fire and also William, then we can stop all of this from happening.” You nod your head rapidly, trying to convince him that this is a good idea, but how good of an idea can it be when you’re quite literally trying to get Henry to commit arson on his supposed best friend. There’s silence as Henry tries to take in everything that you’ve said.
“Do you have any proof that you can give me that will convince me any further to go through with this plan?” He speaks in a small voice, almost as if he’s looking for excuses that would help regain his business partner’s worth. You grab a USB stick from your pocket and watch as he scrolls through tons of images and audio files that William had recorded himself. You had managed to conveniently snag it from his desk when you left and you are absolutely certain that William would not have seen that coming. He was too focused on you, and you were glad that you had found his one weakness and exploited it in the moment.
“How did you get this?” Henry asks, leaning back in his chair and putting his arms behind his head as his eyes flicker through the files on his screen before they look at you.
“William keeps these on his desk but of course, he never lets anyone touch them. I realised today that his one weakness is me. He becomes too engrossed, too infatuated with my presence if that’s what you would like to call it. And that allowed me to steal it from right under his nose.” Okay, that made you sound like you’re bragging about being possibly William’s favourite person, but then again, it’s not really supposed to be a good thing if you’re that man’s favourite person. Henry whistles lowly, closing down the files on his computer before giving the USB stick back to you. You push it back towards him.
“I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I’ve had enough with this place and I’m willing to go through with the plan whether you want to or-“ You don’t even finish your sentence before Henry cuts you off.
“I’ll go through with it.”
“Oh- oh okay then. Yeah. Sure.” You don’t really know what to say anymore, not really thinking far ahead enough about getting Henry on board with your idea and instead about to rely on your own wits and instinct to get things done.
“When do we start with this plan?” Your eyes move towards the clock above the door to his office before travelling down to his, a wide grin plastered on your face.
The warmth that surrounds your body when you wake up is completely foreign and you’re glad that the extra heat could help make up for the cold that your feet are feeling from the air conditioning. You shift around slightly and almost let out a groan from the soreness you’re feeling. The light sifting through the blinds allows you to gauge what time it is, coming to the conclusion that it’s quite late in the morning and that the both of you probably need to wake up.
“Stay still.” William mumbles, pulling you tighter towards his chest with an inhale and then relaxing with an exhale. You don’t say anything in response, only lightly wiggling in his grasp to try and get out of bed. After all, you desperately needed to pee.
“Let me go.” You whisper, poking both arms that are tightly wrapped around you. You’re about to smack the living shit out of William but end up squealing in surprise when his eyes shoot open and he holds your raised hand high, trapping you against the sheets.
“If you wanted round two, you could’ve just said so.” He smirks. You lift your other hand up, giving him the middle finger before playfully shoving him off.
“I needed to pee.” You glare at him as he props his head up onto his hand, watching you scramble to find your shorts on the floor before hobbling over to the bathroom, the best you can with all the soreness. When you open the bathroom door, William’s pulling a shirt over his head, your eyes catching the circular markings on his torso.
“What happened?” You ask. It’s a blunt question, you know, and probably not appropriate to ask but curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought it back. William’s silent for a moment, looking down at his scars like he’s thinking about the time he got them before looking at you.
“A springlock accident. They went off when I was inside the suit.”
“Ouch.” You comment, thinking about how painful that must have been. He nods his head at your comment, the both of you just staring at each other and basking in the silence that settles. The sound of the phone ringing brings you both out of your trances.
“I’ll get it.” William says, walking swiftly out of the room while you step back into the bathroom and decide to freshen yourself up. You next find William in the living room, one hand clutching the phone while the other fiddles with the cord.
“Yes. I’ll get him soon. Thank you.” He hangs up and you tilt your head at him. “Michael.” He says with a slight sigh.
“Ah right. He was sleeping over at a friends while…” You don’t want to finish the rest of the sentence, face turning slightly peachy at the images that pop up in your mind.
“While we were having fun?” William winks at you and you roll your eyes at him.
“More like YOU were having fun.” You shoot back, slightly sticking your tongue out at him like a small child would.
“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow. “Weren’t you the one saying now please just let me c-“ You stride over to him in a few steps and clamp your hand shut over his mouth.
“Don’t finish that sentence.” You mutter, the tips of your ears burning with embarrassment and your cheeks completely flushed. You let your hand drop from his mouth, still looking someplace else because you can’t bear to look at him right now or else you’ll start to feel yourself becoming embarrassed at all. But why are you feeling embarrassed? William has saved you on multiple occasions, he’s not all that bad and you have a feeling that maybe you do really love him. Wait what are you thinking? You physically shake your head, blinking rapidly to clear the thoughts that rush through your brain.
“Anything wrong, darling?” You can’t help yourself from getting affected by the use of the pet name, stuttering over your words when you answer.
“No. No, all good. Maybe we can go pick up Michael from his friend’s house?” William stares at you for a few seconds longer before nodding his head and you both head into his car.
Michael is a loud mess when you pick him up from his friend’s house.
“Can you please not let me sleep over with Jack ever again? He’s so annoying. Everyone at school hates him.” Michael complains. You turn over in the front seat to look at him.
“Michael, I’m sure he wasn’t that bad.” You had met the kid at the door to his house and deemed him a pretty alright kid. Yes, he did look very much like a nerd, but that was what was to be expected at a house that organised their fallen pinecones in terms of height on the fence of their front porch.
“Nuh uh,” Michael sticks his tongue out at you, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring out the window. “He wanted to eat brussel sprouts for dinner and read books instead of playing games even though he has the newest game console.”
“Brussel sprouts are gross.” You can’t stop yourself from picking up on that part of the boy’s speech.
“I know! They were disgusting little green things swimming around in this even more disgusting looking sauce.” You sigh, turning back around to face the road.
“Tell you what, Michael. As soon as we get back, we can cook your favourite meal and you and I can compete at your favourite game.” I can hear the surprised gasp come out of his mouth as well as William’s surprised stare, but I ignore both.
“You seriously mean that we can make pizza and play super mario bros?” You chuckle, watching the cars pass by.
“If that’s your favourite food and your favourite game, then the answer’s yes.”
“Bet.” You can hear the joy in his voice at the words and he finally goes quiet for the first time since that whole car ride.
By the time all three of you make it home, you go out of your way to avoid interacting with William. You make the dough with Michael and leave it to proof in the oven for a little bit before playing Super Mario Bros with him and absolutely crushing his ass (of course faking being bad to make him win a bit too or else he would complain too much). The timer goes off for your dough so you leave your controller on the couch, telling Michael to keep playing before taking the dough out of the oven. You flour the surface of the counter and the rolling pin before cutting the dough into three and rolling out each piece into some sort of circular shape.
“Michael. What do you want on your pizza?” The boy in question pauses the game and jumps from his position on the floor, rushing over to ogle at your handy work.
“Pepperoni and cheese.” He grabs the packet of mozzarella and pepperoni before spreading them out fairly evenly on the surface of the dough.
“What do you think your dad would like?” You ask him. He gives you a shrug in response, already going back to his game after washing his hands. You let out a sigh, knowing that you would have to talk to William over the topic of pizza toppings. You knock on the door to his office, confused when you hear small grunts and your name (?) before a throat clears and you hear a hoarse “come in”.
“Hi. WOAH-“ You stop in your tracks. William’s slumped in his chair, sweat forming on his forehead in the dim light and his chest is heaving up and down like he ran a mile. “You okay?” You pretend like you don’t know what he was doing.
“Mhm.” William responds, adjusting himself in his seat before staring at the jar of purple liquid sitting on his desk that you tried your damn hardest to forget about.
“Okay then. Uh- What do you want on your pizza? I asked Michael but he said he doesn’t know what you’d like.”
“Cheese, corn, and anchovies.” You stare at him for a solid second, thinking that he’s pulling your leg or something before you see that he’s dead serious.
“Oh… okay. I didn’t know you guys had anchovies.”
“They’re in the fridge.” He responds and you nod your head at him, already pulling the office door closed.
“I’ll let you know when lunch is ready!” You nearly shut the door completely before you hear a muffled “WAIT!” You open the door again, tilting your head.
“What?”
“Don’t leave, yet.” You quirk an eyebrow at him.
“Why? I’ve got to make lunch. You’ll have my attention for the rest of the afternoon and evening.” You assure him. William pouts ever so slightly but doesn’t say anything. You pull the door closed fully and get right to making the pizzas, feeling yourself cringe at the sight of putting anchovies on one of them, the silver of the fish contrasting harshly with the red sauce. Both of them are put into the oven and you go back to playing a few more rounds with Michael before the timer goes off once again. You place some oven mitts on your hands before taking out the pizzas and laying them flat on the kitchen counter.
“Lunch is ready!” You call to the two other inhabitants of the household. Michael immediately springs from his seat, glad to finally be getting lunch. Shortly after, William joins the both of you from his den, it’s genuinely funny how he always seems like he’s lurking in the shadows. The three of you eat your pizza in silence, finishing quickly and cleaning up the kitchen.
“Thanks for the pizza, mom!” Michael freezes at his own words at the base of the stairs and you can feel the embarrassment running through his veins. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.” You smile at him.
“I know you didn’t but I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the pizza.” Michael hides his face from you when he runs up the stairs and you sag slightly in exhaustion against the kitchen counter.
“Tired already?” William’s arms wrap around your frame and lift you before walking towards his office and sitting down in his chair with you in his lap. You lean your head back against his neck, taking in the pinewood cologne that overwhelmed you when you first met him. You can’t help but think that the scent used to be one that you hated and now brings you comfort. How the times change.
“Why do you have remnant on your desk?” You whisper to him, wanting to address the elephant in the room as fast as possible.
“I was experimenting.” You perk up from the words.
“Is that what all the groaning was about?” You hear the sharp inhale that William takes.
“Did you hear any more than that?”
“Well, I thought I heard my name.” Your hands reach upwards to play with his hair gently. “But I wasn’t too sure.” You shrug your shoulders. William guides your hands away from his hair before clasping both of them in his hands.
“I was touching myself to the thought of you.” He boldly states. You’re feeling like playing the oblivious game once again.
“No way! You only just realised that you can touch yourself? Bro, I thought you do that all the time.” You grab one of his hands in your own and then poke his cheek with his own finger. “Bam. There. You touched yourself.” William shakes his head, laughing slightly.
“Not there, you doofus. I meant here.” He gestures towards his clothed cock.
“Do you like not take a shower or something? I swear to god that people who take showers actually wash every part of their body like a normal person.” There’s a hint of a smirk on your face that you can’t hide anymore and William catches on.
“You’re impossible.”
“That isn’t my name.” William leans forward but you slide off his lap smoothly.
“If you want to be serious about this whole thing between you and me,” You pause. “You need to stop killing people.”
“And you need to stop trying to rig my animatronics.” You furrow your eyebrows at him.
“Because you were the one trying to use those to kill people?”
“It was a deal that we had.”
“Well, I’m calling the deal off in exchange for our relationship.”
“You think I would want to have a relationship with you after everything you did?” You blink at him rapidly, he had just professed that he liked you, what is going on?
“I’m sorry. What? After everything I did?”
“You’re useless, you’re a waste of space…” He keeps going on and on, obviously the anger issues are really starting to show and you’re just realising how much you’ve been played by this man’s behaviour and you’re done, for real this time. You’re going to find Henry and you’re going to set things right once and for all.
“Fine. Then I’ll just take this and be off.” You grab the remnant, slamming the door behind you and making your way to your real home for maybe the last time.
Who knew that the biology classes you took in high school were right? Your heart rate and breathing does speed up when aroused. But not the time to think about such things anymore. Not when your whole mind is wrapped around William’s little finger. His presence is captivating, the unknown emotion swimming in his eyes now becoming clear to you. He had been lusting after you for weeks, months even and you hadn’t even noticed because you were too busy thinking about other things. There’s no words that are exchanged between the both of you, all of your sass being thrown out the window along with your dignity.
“Will-“ You’re not able to finish his name before his eyes dart to your lips and covers them with his own. You’re inexperienced, having never kissed anyone in your life until this moment while William has had 3 kids and probably kissed hundreds of girls before, especially with his previous status as founder of a company and whatnot. His lips feel soft on yours and your once wide eyes flutter closed as he leans forward to deepen the kiss, hand hooking around your waist to prevent you from falling off his lap. When it becomes too much and you almost can’t breathe anymore, he moves away. Both of you pant heavily and you slump a bit in his arms, head reeling with everything that’s happened.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to do that, darling.” You feel giddy at his words, like a child on Christmas morning, letting loose a small giggle that has your face heating up and turning red. William switches off the TV before lifting you into his arms and carrying you upstairs somewhere. You only know what’s going on when he shoves his bedroom door open with his foot and sets you down on the bed, hands on his hips as he just stares at you. You shift a bit on the bed, messing up the sheets under you as you try to get away from his gaze.
“Stop.” You tell him, looking at him with shy eyes.
“Stop what, darling?” The corner of his lips turning up into a smirk as he crosses his arms over his chest and moves closer to you so his thighs touch your legs as he towers over you.
“Stop… looking.” He leans down to your level, breath brushing your left ear as he utters his next words.
“Why should I when you look absolutely gorgeous?” Your eyes widen, scrambling backwards and attempting to cover yourself up in embarrassment. William tsks, long limbs crawling on the bed towards you as he takes your hands away from yourself and holds them in your own.
“You’re supposed to be sorry, dear. You can’t hide yourself from me or else you won’t be able to truly express the sincerity of your apology.” You almost roll your eyes at his words. Of course you’re not sorry, and he knows that too. He’s just making up some sort of excuse to fuck you and you’re definitely playing right into his cards. So you let him gently pull you to the edge of the bed so you’re completely flat on your back and watch as he slowly unbuttons his dress shirt and then unbuckles his belt, sliding it off the loops on his trousers. He doesn’t undress himself anymore though which makes you slightly confused until he tugs on your legs and kneels down in front of you.
“Lift your hips for me love.” You do as he says, heat blooming through your core as he slides off your pants and glides a hand up the expanse of your inner thigh, just reaching the top of your thigh before moving back down towards your ankles. You screech when he suddenly loops his arms through both of your legs and jerks you towards his face, his breath fanning over your soaked panties. He leans forward, licking a long stripe up the middle of the fabric resulting in your legs twitching as your hands fist the bedsheets in an attempt to ground yourself. William licks his lips slightly, looking up at you from between your legs as you make eye contact with each other.
“You taste delicious, love.” He wastes no time in sliding your panties off before sticking his tongue in your entrance. You squirm under every lick that he makes, getting more intense every time he applies pressure to your clit. Your breathing becomes heavier and sweat starts to bead on your forehead.
“William. I-“ You can barely get the sentence out before you interrupt yourself with a moan as he pushes a finger inside of you. You’re unsure of what it really feels like, but it feels good to be clenching down on something that isn’t thin air. It only becomes better when he shoves another finger into you, swirling around to find the one thing he’s looking for all while his tongue and teeth tease your clit. Your moans reach a crescendo when he finds that spot inside of you and you jerk awkwardly in his grasp, leading him to put more pressure down on your legs to keep you in place.
“Gotcha, bunny.” His words tease you as he presses up against that spot again and again which has you seeing stars behind your closed eyelids. The tension builds in the pit of your stomach and blood rushes through your ears.
“William. I’m gonna-“ His movements slow down and your eyebrows furrow, looking down at him as he just smiles back up at you, innocently. You let your head fall back onto the pillows, suddenly ashamed at everything you’ve said and done up until this moment.
“Why did you stop?” You mumble, staring at the ceiling as you can feel yourself starting to come down from near the peak.
“I didn’t hear you say anything about being sorry.” Your head snaps back up to glare at him over the whole situation. His fingers are soaked in your fluids and he has the biggest grin on his wet face that makes you want to smack him but the second he thrusts his fingers in just slightly, you’re keeling over again.
“I’m sorry.” You mutter.
“I didn’t hear that sweetheart.” He pretends he’s doing something while “accidentally” hitting your g-spot causing you to let out a moan.
“For fuck’s sake. I’m sorry that I did all of that to you. Now please just let me cum.” You let out exasperated, ignoring all the embarrassment that shoots through your veins from the words that you never thought would come out of your mouth.
“As you wish, darling.” He pushes in once again, both of you letting out hisses of satisfaction. You’re seeing fireworks now, bright sparks that grow and grow before you’re tipped over the edge, muscles spasming as William keeps working you through your high. He doesn’t stop until you’re trying to push him off of you, protesting that it’s too much.
“That was the best thing I had seen all day.” He comments, lifting himself up to hover over you. His brown hair frames his face perfectly, his toned arms on either side of you as your eyes wander down to his torso and the circular marks that decorate them. Your hand reaches out to touch one, circling around the markings but quickly detracts itself as he lets out a small groan.
“Are you okay?” You don’t know when you’ve become so concerned over his own well-being, but you decide that today will be the one day that you let your guard down.
“Your hands are cold.” He complains and you snort lightly. He rolls over to your right before unzipping his pants and sliding them off completely. The bulge in his boxers is evident as he slides them off to reveal his cock. It’s quite impressive in size, more girthy than lengthy and you’re surprised by the amount of liquid that’s already dripping off of it. You’re about to start going down on it like many people told you they did when describing their sexual endeavours but William stops you.
“Not now, I need you.” He places you on top of him, your thighs straining as you hover over him. He grabs his cock to line it up with your entrance before sinking in. The stretch is a bit much for you and pangs of pain shoot through your lower body. William is surprisingly gentle as you lean into him, waiting until the pain becomes a bit more pleasurable.
“Ready, darling?” He brushes your hair out of your face as you nod at him. He moves his hips, moving his cock in and out of you at a relatively fast pace. He looks absolutely ethereal, the way that his eyebrows are slightly scrunched and his hair is matted to his forehead. You’ve never seen William look this uncomposed before and you’re living for it.
“Finishing soon, already?” You challenge him, seeing how his groans are starting to rise in volume the longer he goes on for. His eyes shoot down to yours, flashing dangerously.
“We’ll see about that.” He flips you over so you’re laying down on the bed face first. A yelp escapes you from the sudden change in position but you can feel him so much better now and soon you’re the one close to the edge. Your face is buried deep into the pillow in an attempt to muffle your moans but your pussy betrays you as it pulses around his thick length.
“Finishing soon, already?” He repeats the words you used on him and you can’t do anything but moan in response.
“Fuck. Fuck.” You let loose a repeating string of swears as he continues to ram into you like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Your walls clench around him one last time in some sort of warning before you’re tipped over the edge again.
“Ah fuck.” William says, feeling you squeezing around his cock which causes him to also be pushed over the edge shortly after. “God, you’re so fucking tight.” His hips still as you feel ropes of cum fill you up, warming your insides as you clutch the pillow around your head. William pulls out shortly after, some of the cum dripping out of you. You’re too tired to care about the whole situation, rolling over to fall asleep on the bed. William joins you, wrapping his arms around you as he kisses the crown of your head and you fall into a deep asleep.
The next few weeks have you in a knot. You spend your days with your hands working on a new project and your mind preoccupied with the events that previously occurred: the death of the man and the already healed serial killer by your side that you’re still on the edge about it. You didn’t want to remember it, but your mind wouldn’t let you forget about how you ran into William’s arms when that thug tried to murder you. For whatever reason, your boss’s presence gives you the comfort that you want and need but you have half a mind to believe that this whole thing is just fake and he’s doing it just to somehow deceive you the whole time. But if sticking with him and dealing with his complaints and picky adjustments to each and every animatronic that gets made results in the delay of a child’s death, then you’d stick with him for the rest of your life. Right now, you just need to focus on hiding everything that you’re planning for him.
“Done with that?” William asks, motioning towards the wrench in your hands. You make the last final adjustments and hand it over, not wanting to look him in the eyes for fear of reliving that night returns. William takes it, turning back around to work on his side of the project. Ever since William’s business had been taking off, you had been helping with not only making animatronics but creating your own mechanical parts to sell to other companies in exchange for money that would help fund the growth of the animatronics. As a result, William’s basement looks like something straight out of breaking bad. Your hands fiddle with the extension cable as you eye the ammeter next to you, watching the numbers move up and down as they measure the electric current in the circuit that’s attempting to melt lead. As the stove wouldn’t provide enough heat for the circuit, you had resorted to building your own contraption that would satisfy your goal. William had disapproved of the two paper clips stuck into the power outlet that were then wrapped with the metal cord of an insulated wire and connected to the inside of the pot as they were obviously a safety hazard, but you insisted that the both of you had no choice in the matter since you were going to be bankrupt if you couldn’t provide this massive order a company wanted.
“You know, I think I know why you don’t want to look at me.” William suddenly breaks the silence, making your eyes tear away from the oscillating numbers on the ammeter and immediately dart to where he’s still busy hunched over pieces of metal. You try to play it cool even though your heart is currently threatening to tip into the start of a heart attack.
“Why?” Your voice is more high-pitched than usual and you curse yourself for not responding in a more normal manner.
“You’re in denial of everything that’s happened.” You feel your hands start to grip the tablecloth that’s laid under your circuit and you have to remind yourself that if the whole thing falls, you’re both going up in flames. That thought allows you to loosen your grip ever so slightly and forces you to take deep breaths to cope with what he’s about to say next. “But I also think that you need to be more comfortable with me. You know that I’m never going to hurt you. What about we head out for a drink tonight, yeah? You and me?”
“Duh. Who else would be coming?” You can’t stop yourself from whispering to yourself.
“You never stop with the quick comebacks. That’s what I like about you, but it makes you such a brat.” You huff, trying to turn your attention back to what’s happening in front of it but you can’t help yourself from trembling ever so slightly at the thought of having drinks with your boss. You’re such a lightweight from barely touching alcohol in your life and the thought of drinking that makes you feel sick.
“I don’t drink alcohol.” You announce, wincing at how weird that must’ve sounded in the silence.
“Not a problem. We’ll do something else then.” You’re taken aback by how quickly he changed plans.
“I- uh. Like what?” You curse in a hushed whisper as you notice the ammeter has gone a bit too high and immediately disconnect all of the power cords.
“Well, Michael’s gone to his friend’s house tonight. Why don’t you stay the night? We can watch a movie or something.” You resist the urge to stop what you’re doing and stare at him, really stare at him. Who thought the workaholic would find the time to watch a movie or even enjoy spending a second away from work? You force your hands to move, slipping on gloves as you transfer some of the molten lead into another container to cool down, busy scribbling down a chemical equation and scrutinizing carefully as you spot some impurities in the molten metal. You wave it away as an environmental issue, ready to dump your next batch into the pot and wait some more for it to boil. The sound of your name jolts you out from your work.
“Yes?” You respond, not taking your eyes off of the concoction in front of you.
“Did you hear what I said?” You peel your eyes away from your work, properly looking at William for the first time in weeks. He’s looking at you as well, screwdriver in hand and safety glasses sitting on top of his head.
“Yeah. That would work.” There’s a ghost of a smile on his face as he nods his head and returns back to his work, leaving you to do the same. A few more experiments go by before you deem your first batch of molten successful of creating screws and shipping them off to companies.
“I think I’m done. This should be good to go.” You pat the box that houses the container, pushing it slightly across the table to make sure that it’s not in the way of all the other things you still need to do.
“Alright then. I think we’re done.” William says, slipping the safety goggles off and discarding them somewhere. You watch him carefully as he picks up the latest thing you worked on to do with the animatronics, close to panicking as he examines something in your work that you purposely made to disable the killing element of the animatronics. He looks at it for a quick second and hums before pocketing it and looking at you, tilting his head towards the door.
“Let’s go upstairs?” You nod your head, knowing you don’t have much of a choice. William holds open the door for you and then takes your hand gently and leads you to the couch where he sits you down and brings some snacks for the two of you, putting on some mindless movie for the two of you to watch. You start feeling quite tired rather quickly, having to force down a few yawns as your head unconsciously lolls to one side. William notices, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and pulling you closer before lying down fully so you can rest your head on his chest.
“Tired?” He questions quietly, gazing down at you. You snuggle into his chest, keeping your eyes fixed on the movie in front of the both of you before nodding your head. Your eyes start to close, the movie becoming background noise and William’s chest rising and falling from his breathing, encouraging you to slip into your dreams. You shuffle around a bit to get more comfortable before accidentally poking something in William’s pocket. You freeze and William feels you become stiff in his arms as he looks down at you before removing the thing in his pocket, the processor that you rigged. The square piece of metal seems to taunt you in the dim light of his living room, reminding you of the risky position you put yourself in trying to help others.
“I thought something was wrong with this.” William reaches out to grab the TV remote to pause the movie before sitting up fully and placing you on his lap. His arms reach out in front of you, acting like a cage around your body as his hands present the processor to you. “You’ve not been following my instructions.” You swallow down any tears that are threatening to burst, forcing yourself to focus on other things around the space that you’re in: the way that the glass coffee table reflects the light of the TV, the way that your legs are trying not to bounce around too much from anxiety, the unordered rows of books on his bookshelf.
“I- I thought there was a better way of doing what you wanted to do.” You respond in a clear voice. Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak, is something you were always told when you were younger and you want to utilise that saying right now.
“Is that so?” William’s fingers skim the processor, taking apart the exact thing needed to rig it and twisting it around his index and thumb. “What’s this for?”
“A switch,” You say. You hastily start to make up an explanation as to its function, using fancy terminology to try and throw him off but he quickly turns you around so you can face him. The darkness in his eyes catch you off guard.
“How can we build this mutual feeling of trust when all you do is lie to me? I know what you’ve been trying to do. You can’t try to bullshit your way through something like this.” He holds up the processor in front of your face and throws it across the room. You flinch slightly when it hits the marbled floor, making a small clanging sound that sounds loud on your ears. “Your fancy words can’t fool me. No matter what you do, you can never fool me.”
“I’m sorry.” You apologise, not knowing what else to do in this situation. Your hands are clenched into fists as you’re just plain frustrated with him and all of the events that have led up to now, but your wit is still as sharp as ever. “That you may not be a fool but an absolute asshole. But I can’t do anything about that now, can I?” The defiance in your own words gives you the bodily confidence that you need. William doesn’t look shocked, almost amused at your words like he knew you were going to say something back.
“Ah so you are sorry then. But I don’t believe you. Don’t worry, dear, I know exactly what you can do to show that you’re truly sorry.” His voice lowers, his hands travelling to the hem of your shirt and just skimming the bare skin of your torso. Your eyes widen as every inch of skin he touches starts to tingle with something you’ve never really felt before, you just know that you’re in trouble and he’s going to make sure that you’re aware of just how much trouble you’re in.
When you next come to, you’re no longer in William’s car, nor his house. You’re in some sort of security office. The fan makes an incessant buzzing noise that you quickly learn to tune out and the light of the cameras strain your eyes a little.
“Ah, you’re finally awake.” You hear beside you. You rub your eyes with one hand and lazily turn your head so you can see William sitting with his legs up on the desk, staring at the security cameras with some sort of controller in his hand. You’re not too sure what’s going on and why you’re here, so you take the opportunity to just ask.
“Why are we here?” William inhales deeply before letting out a heavy sigh.
“I have to monitor the animatronics on some days. Make sure that things are still running smoothly despite everything that has happened.” You find it ironic that he, out of all people, would need to do his job. Assuming that this security job is meant to keep troublemakers out of the premises, you’re pretty sure that having a troublemaker actually be in charge would result in some kind of terrible outcome.
“So, you’re protecting this place from someone like yourself?” As soon as the words leave your mouth, you cringe slightly hoping that he wouldn’t take your words in a negative way. You’re glad when he lets out a small chuckle in response, raking one hand through his hair as he leans back in his chair. The chair legs teeter on the edge and make you anxious about whether he’s going to fall on the floor or not as they have wheels on them, but it’s William you’re dealing with and he’s a master at balance.
“I guess you’re right. But there’s more at stake here.” His cryptic words leave you wondering what he could mean by that. But you’re not left wondering for long as a light swear escapes William’s lips and he slams the button closed over the left door next to him. Only a few seconds later, there’s the loud sound of feet running down the hallway and then a loud banging on the doorway.
“What’s going on?” Your voice wobbles in fear as you jump from your seat, ready to bolt out of the other door.
“Sit down. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” William drags your chair closer to him and then grabs your arm, forcing you down onto the chair. Your eyes look forward and catch onto the security camera displays in front of the both of you. The static covering the image just barely manages to convey the fact that there’s a huge blue bunny animatronic standing right in front of the door that separates the inside of the security office and the outside world.
“There’s a fucking 6 foot tall bunny. Wait…” Your eyes squint as you lean forwards to see the image better, it’s definitely Bonnie and you nearly shriek when its eyes move towards the camera like it could sense that the both of you were watching it. “Is that…”
“Bonnie?” William finishes for you. “It’s fascinating really. To think that Elizabeth would become like these children.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that the souls of the kids that you murdered are now in these suits?” William nods, eyes still focused on the cameras. Your mind is screaming at you to leave this place as fast as possible and you jump in fear when William opens the door, flickers on the lights just outside of the office and then quickly shuts the door on the right side.
“Why can’t we just keep both doors closed the whole time so we’re not in immediate danger of literally getting eaten alive by metallic beings?” William doesn’t say anything as he gestures towards a small battery icon on the top right of the security cameras. The power is draining fast, only about 5% left, and you’re not too sure how long you two will be here for.
“When can we leave?” You ask, sitting down slowly into your chair again. William checks the watch on his wrist before he turns to you.
“In 20 minutes.” You’re both going to be dead by the time this night comes to an end and by the looks of it the animatronics are becoming more violent as the minutes tick on. You both sit in silence for the next 15 minutes or so but then everything goes pitch black and some sort of tune starts playing from a music box. The glowing eyes that you saw in the hallway appear in front of the both of you and you grip onto William’s arm. He calls your name softly to grasp your attention and you look towards him with wide eyes.
“Head into the vent and just keep going straight. You’ll be led outside. I’ll be right behind you.” You nod your head in fear as you slide out of your chair and quickly unscrew the grating before sticking your upper body in in one swift go. You let out a small sigh of relief that you can get all parts of your body in as you pull yourself forward with your arms. You hear a shuffling behind you in the vent and automatically assume it’s William by the heavy breathing that you can hear.
“How much longer?” You call out into the vent, not being able to twist yourself around fully to look at the man behind you.
“Just- a bit…” His voice sounds a bit strained and you’re not one hundred percent convinced that he got out of that office uninjured. A loud noise below the both of you makes you almost screech as you jolt out of your thoughts and your arms and legs start moving with newfound fervour. You’re desperate to get out of this place alive considering how much you had already been through. Right when you’re about to give up all hope, you spot the end of the vent and can already see the streaks of sunlight from the slowly rising sun. You’re filled with ecstasy and a smile begins to form on your face from the fact that you’re almost free from this nightmare of a night. You tumble out of the vent, falling flat on the grass beneath you as you watch William struggle to climb out of the vent. You reach up, jumping slightly to pull his arms as he collapses down onto you in a heap. It’s an awkward situation with William lying on top of you but you don’t care. You’re just happy that you’re not dead.
“We made it!” You squeal, panting heavily alongside the man still on top of you. William has to take a few deep breaths before he rolls over onto the grass with a heavy groan. You stand up, dusting the dirt off of your pants before realising that there’s a huge stain of blood that’s increasing on his white dress shirt. Your eyes widen as you lift the shirt to reveal a huge gash. You ignore the other strange circular markings lying around his skin as you inspect the wound carefully and are glad to find that nothing seems to be stuck in it that’s preventing it from bleeding out any further but the situation doesn’t look good either way.
“William, you need to get to a hospital.” You state, trying to stay calm while his hand applies pressure on the sore spot on his torso.
“No… hospital.” He breathes out then a slight wince of pain as you try your best to replicate a tourniquet with what little fabric you have in your hands.
“Just keep applying pressure then. I’ll try and look for something.” You head to the back of the pizzeria, searching through the bins for something that would help the man bleeding out in the grass. You find a stick and a few pieces of clean gauze which you can use to tie slightly above the bleeding site. It’ll have to do, you think to yourself. A loud crash behind you makes you turn around and you’re spooked to find a young child standing in front of you. His trainers are soaked in what seems to be blood, which you find disturbing, and there’s something uncanny about the way he looks at you.
“May I help you?” You ask the boy.
“Why are you helping him?” The boy echoes back a question.
“I- uh. What? Who?” You reply, a confused look etched into your features as the boy’s eyes narrow at you.
“If you’re going to help him, we forbid you from coming back here.” The boy has a huge frown on his face as he speaks but then he disappears in thin air like he was some sort of apparition.
“What did I just witness?” You whisper to yourself as you head back the way you came to find William lying in the same position as you had left him in. You don’t say anything to him about the incident as you tie the gauze around his upper torso and then secure the stick through the knots. What a hell of a night…
You’re scared shitless when the lamp posts start to light up, signalling that it’s officially night time and you’re out alone in a baggy discoloured white t-shirt, ripped stained jeans and a sensor circuit carelessly stuffed in your pocket. A couple of cars pass by in 2-minute intervals while you wander around the deserted town, looking for some sort of street sign or anything that could give you a clue as to where you are. A group of 5 teenagers pass by, their chatter blessing your ears for the first time in your life, and you take it upon yourself to ask them your whereabouts.
“Excuse m-“ You barely get through two words before two of them look at you with faces riddled with disgust and confusion. The other three seem to be following the older two as they glance towards the leaders, trying to gauge what their next course of action will be.
“Don’t talk to us… creep.” The boy spits at you while the girl standing next to him rolls her eyes, the bow in her hair glittering under the lamp post. You can feel anger bubbling within you but you don’t say anything, wanting to not give them the satisfaction of seeing you upset. Instead, you turn away and continue walking down the row of suburban houses and shops that don’t light up from the inside. The houses start to fade into the distance and the street lamps seem to stop working, flickering every few seconds. It seems that you’ve made it into the rundown part of the town.
“You lost, girl?” A voice warbles from your left and you look in that direction, seeing a dark alleyway that takes time for your eyes to adjust to. As soon as they do, you see a man wearing a black leather jacket and cargo pants. He looks in desperate need of a shower and he most definitely does not seem to carry good intentions with him. He hobbles towards you while you’re left standing stock still, unsure of what to do.
“I’m… just going home.” You respond, eyes scanning the man for what he may have in his possession. You deem nothing he currently has on him as dangerous with what little moonlight that’s shining down on the both of you.
“Are you sure? I’m pretty certain you walked right past your home quite a bit ago.” He points towards the way you came. There’s a slight accent to his speech that you can’t quite place but it makes it a bit hard for you to tell what he’s saying so you take a moment to decipher his words. “There’s nothing out here for miles but me.”
“Oh. Uh. Well that’s nice.” You don’t know what to say to something like that. Wish him a nice night and walk back the way you came? That would probably be the best idea considering that he did mention that no one else was out here. You take a step backwards, keeping an eye on the man. He takes a step forward and keeps stepping forward as you take steps back. You turn and make a bolt for it but you’re quickly stopped with the man’s hand clutching onto the back of your shirt.
“I haven’t had company in ages.” His breath trails down the back of your neck and a thin sheen of sweat covers your whole body. “Don’t leave so soon.” He lets out a chuckle into the night that chills your bones. You struggle a bit in his grasp, even risking to go so far as slightly rip your shirt but as soon as the ripping sound is audible, he takes out a knife from the inside of his jacket and holds it up to your throat. How many times do you have to encounter people with knives?
“Is that meant to scare me?” Your voice remains level despite the fear wracking your body. You’re trying to take unnoticeable deep breaths that will hopefully calm down the shivers that you’re experiencing and the adrenaline coursing through your veins.
“It’s meant to hurt you.” As to accentuate his point further, he pushes the knife slightly into your throat, pressing down heavily on your larynx and leaving pressure on your trachea. You struggle to breathe, wheezes coming out in short bursts as your mind is trying not to throw itself a pity party. You’re going to die out in the middle of nowhere and no one is going to save you. Right when you think that he’s going to literally slit your throat and leave you to bleed out to death, a car light appears, barrelling at a high speed down the road adjacent to the alleyway you’re both in. You open your mouth to cry out for help but a material resemblant of a cloth is stuffed quickly into your mouth and you choke on the foul contents. It’s grimy as if it was used to mop up dirt and gravel on the road (which it probably was used for). You become more desperate as the car slows to a stop and you feel a wave of relief rush over you.
“Let the girl go.” Your eyes widen in surprise at the voice. William is here? What is he doing?
“And why should I? Her head would make a lovely trophy. She would be the first of many to come.” The man holding you hostage replies. A smirk can be heard through his voice and with newfound energy, you lift an elbow and twist your body to the side to hit him hard in the stomach. He lets out a grunt and lets you go, the action causing the knife to slice your neck slightly as he stumbles backwards, clutching his stomach. You don’t care as you run towards William’s silhouette, tears streaming from your eyes as you know that you’re safe if you can just get to him. As weird as it sounds, a serial killer can probably protect you the best from some random thug on the street.
“I’m scared.” You cry to him as he holds you gently in his arms. You’re trembling, no longer able to contain the fear that you’ve felt that evening. From almost getting murdered in the pizzeria you used to work at to getting lost in unknown parts of the town to almost getting murdered again but in some dark alleyway, you’re an absolute mess and you just want to go home.
“It’ll be dealt with soon. Just stay here, okay?” William speaks kindly to you, petting your head gently before removing your arms from his torso and taking a step forward to the man still groaning in the alleyway from your hit. You feel a tiny spark of satisfaction seeing him like this, knowing that you had put him in his place in your own special way. You don’t quite understand what William is doing so close to the man until he forcefully takes the man’s knife away and plunges it straight into his chest. Your hands immediately fly to your mouth to muffle the scream that threatens to be released from your vocal chords. What were you expecting anyways? He’s a serial killer for gods’ sake. He would want to definitely kill some individual for his own sick gain and what better person to kill than someone who wanted to harass his assistant?
“Oh my fucking god.” You can’t stop yourself from whimpering. It’s better than screaming bloody murder into the night, you think to yourself. You turn away from the scene when William keeps plunging the knife into the man’s flailing body that quickly stops thrashing about. The sounds are all kinds of disturbing and you clamp your hands over your ears to stop yourself from hearing it anymore. The man’s screams are probably louder than your own would ever be. After all, you’re not the one quite literally being stabbed. When you can’t stand it any longer, you turn around to see William wiping the knife with a cloth and tucking it into his waistcoat.
"William.” You call out to him as he disposes the body into a nearby trash bin, placing black gloves onto his hands. They snap on perfectly and all of his movements are precise, like he’s been doing this for ages (which he has).
“What is it?” He turns towards you, his fancy attire now slightly dirtied from the scene but still looking clean as ever. His stature glimmers in the moonlight and you’re amazed at how composed and slightly attractive he looks even after killing a person. You have to take a deep breath, blinking several times to clear those thoughts from your head.
“Can we go home?” Now it’s William’s turn to look a bit surprised.
“You’re insinuating it’s our home, yes?” He teases. You roll your eyes. Despite everything, he still wants to tease you over something like that. If it was a few hours ago, you would’ve been dying of embarrassment and absolutely denying everything coming out of his mouth. But he saved you from a murderer and you’re not sure how you can repay him for that. You’re so lost in your thoughts that you don’t realise he’s standing in front of you until he places a finger under your chin and lifts it up so you can face him fully. Your heart almost stops beating in your chest. He’s absolutely regal, especially with the lighting framing his features and you’re both so close to each other. You’re praying that he can’t see how your face slightly reddens in the dim lighting as he turns your face from side to side to examine any long-lasting injuries. His eyes slightly harden upon seeing the gash in your neck.
“Come on darling. We need to get that gash all patched up.” Oh my god. Call me that again. He drops your chin with a small smirk on his face, leaving you standing there like an idiot as he slides into the driver’s seat of his car. You gulp nervously, internally beating yourself up for getting so caught up into a man of his manner.
“Yeah. I’m coming.” You mutter to yourself with a frown on your face as you slide into the seat next to him. If only you knew that this was the start of William’s plan to get you fully on his side. He knows everything you’re planning and everything that you’ve done to tinker with his animatronics. No one can outsmart him, no matter how smart or bold. But he’s interested in what you’ll do next, that’s what makes him so intrigued. No one has ever challenged him as much as you have.
You feel like a prisoner in this house. William hasn’t tried anything particularly… harmful or dangerous towards any kid or adult. However, the scenes of Elizabeth’s birthday flash behind your eyes like little fireworks every time you look at him and you just wish the knowledge of what he had done would just stop haunting you.
“How much have you done?” He bothers you for the fifth time that day in the span of 10 minutes. You sigh, putting down the piece that you’re working on to face him. You ignore the sound of the loose screws inside falling even though inside you’re groaning at the thought of having to re-screw parts together again.
“Do you have any patience at all?” You glare up at him from the work bench you’re sitting on. Your hands are sore and red, your brain is fried after being forced to work to the limit to make sure that his “rough plans” end up somehow working. It’s unfortunate that he’s an engineer too or else you could easily beat him at his own game. Instead, you have to think twice as hard to make sure that whenever he kills a kid, they just appear dead instead of not actually being dead. Your mind wanders back towards the two glowing eyes you saw in the pizzeria warning you about this exact scenario and you wonder if you should go back and pay those eyes a visit. An unnoticeable shiver runs through you at the thought and you shake your head ever so slightly to get yourself out of those thoughts before returning back to your work after seeing that William had made no move to answer your question. Your hands run over the edges of the jaw that you’re working on. For whatever reason, William wants some kind of bullet to shoot through the mouth and strike the kid in the heart for an instant death. You have your own plans, however, and you’re determined to change the bullet to a tranquilizer dart so the kid would just appear dead but wouldn’t actually be. The sound of someone shuffling behind you makes you lift your head and peek out of the corner of your eye ever so slightly as you grab the parts you need to make the secret container to store the darts and the sensor that will trigger the container of bullets to switch out with the darts. William isn’t looking in your direction anymore and you make your move.
“What are you doing?” You freeze, hands hovering over the parts as you silently put them together.
“Testing the bullets out, this compartment here would store them, and this one would have an air pressurized container so it can push out the bullets much faster.” You make up on the spot. It sounds stupid and you internally cringe but William seems to beam at your idea making your tense body deflate just a little bit in relief.
“That’s brilliant! The faster the deaths, the better.” He gives you a hearty slap on the shoulder as a way of praising your hard work. The words he says don’t sound like praise or any type of comfort at all. Who says stuff like “the faster the deaths, the better?”… Only psychopaths like William probably. Your hands quicken as you want to make sure he doesn’t get too suspicious of your plans. After about 4 iterations, you’ve got a working product in your hands but you’ve just got to test the sensor on a real-life opponent and that’s when it hits you. The pizzeria animatronic that scared the living crap out of you could be your real-life opponent.
“Hey Willi-“ You pause in the middle of your sentence as you realise he’s gone into one of his staring moods again, engrossed in your presence in his work space. He’s silent for several seconds before he realises that you’ve called his name three times.
“Yes?” He snaps out of his daze, eyes now fully looking into your own. You’re a bit taken aback by the unrecognizable emotion that’s running through them but choose not to worry too much about whatever’s going through that brain of his. You decided to stop asking about what he’s thinking quite some time ago when his psychopathic tendencies clearly shown through his usual demeanour… which you guess was also quite psychopathic.
“I was just wondering if I could go home a bit early today? It’s the end of the week and I was feeling a bit tired.” You lie. You’ve been taught how to lie properly and it seems that William doesn’t see through your lie.
“How early?” He questions.
“Like… maybe right now?” A small frown graces his lips and you suck in a breath, preparing yourself to hear the inevitable “no” but it never comes.
“Okay. Take care then.” He pushes himself off from the shelf he’s leaning on and opens the basement door for you. You tuck the small prototype sensor circuit you made into your pocket and make your way up the stairs. William stops you at the door and your heart starts pounding thinking he saw you take the circuit with you. You’re about to open your mouth to make up some stupid excuse again but he doesn’t stop you to confront you. Instead, he wants to thank you for your hard work and you’re taken aback by the kind gesture.
“You’re… welcome. Best of luck with your other… inventions.” You bow your head slightly and then leave through the door. Once you’re out of sight of the house, you start running towards the old pizzeria, determined to get there before sun down.
“I need to start working out more often.” You pant to yourself quietly, seeing that the street lights have started to go on. You take out the key that you forged from William’s from your pocket and unlock the pizzeria door, stepping into the darkness and heading straight towards the hallway. You’re starting to sweat, not from the exercise you just got, but from the fact that you’re stupid and bold enough to face those eyes ago along with the stomping feet. Why are you doing this exactly? To save some kids, and maybe kill yourself in the process by accident. You take a deep breath when you turn into William’s office, glad to see that the door is unlocked and that everything seems to be just as messy as before.
“Alright, do I just need to wait here until the big clunky dude comes clunking down the hallway?” You sit down on the chair in the corner, your leg bouncing up and down in anxiety and teeth chewing on your bottom lip as you fiddle around with the collar of your shirt. 30 minutes pass and you get up to leave, but right when you reach the door, you hear the clunking of big animatronic feet. The thought just reaches your mind that if Elizabeth could’ve potentially possessed that circus baby animatronic, what was stopping the other kids that William has murdered from possessing other animatronics like the one right outside of this office? Without a second to think about this notion further, you open the door and lift the circuit with the sensor right in front of the animatronic. It’s standing closer to you and you can make out its shape, it looks quite thin with a button front and mask like face. There’s no way that that thing was walking down the hallway with big clunky feet meaning that… the blood drains from your face as realization hits. Mission abort. There’s more than just one animatronic wandering these hallways and you’d be damned if you get caught by these beings.
“BYE. HAVE A GOOD DAY!” You yell as you spin around on your heel and burst through the doors, barely missing the scream that erupts from the marionette looking animatronic. It seems to have wanted to maybe communicate with you, but you don’t think about that as panic shoots through your veins and you stumble into the parking lot of the pizzeria. Sweat trickles down your forehead and you don’t stop running until you realise that you’re lost and in some unknown part of town at night.
You stand dead still as the knife tip trails upwards and starts applying pressure to your cheek, dragging down slowly. You can feel blood welling from the cut, your eyes darting downwards for a moment to see some of it dripping onto William’s palm. The knife settles itself under your chin and tilts your head up just a bit, your eyes remain steely and cold when they meet William’s.
“You have some nerve trying to confront me.” He says, lowly.
“But my accusations weren’t wrong, were they?” You respond, refusing to back down even though the stinging pain in your cheek is causing tears to slightly mist your eyes. William barks out a laugh.
“No, you really weren’t. You’re too smart for your own good.” His hand reaches up and you flinch ever so slightly as his hand smooths across your cheek to wipe away the blood. The hand with the knife in it gestures towards the build-up of the unidentifiable purple substance.
“Do you know what I want the most in this world?” William suddenly asks, his eyes no longer on you and you feel relieved.
“What?” You question, slightly curious as to what his answer might entail. You’re only just now thinking about why you didn’t call the police, why you’re not running out of this place screaming, but when he tilts the knife and the light catches on it, you’re reminded of the reason why. You’d rather be alive than dead in this moment.
“I want to be immortal.” The words reach your ears and your brain takes a moment to process what kind of egocentric and nonsensical answer he just said to you.
“You want to be- what?”
“Immortal.” You snort loudly, doubling over in fits of laughter at the notion.
“I’m sorry-“ You take a moment to breathe. “I don’t think I heard you right… You want to be immortal? Don’t you know that that’s literally impossible. Alchemists have tried finding the answer to that for eons and they weren’t successful. What makes you think-“ He cuts you off.
“That.” Your eyes follow his hand and land on the liquid pouring out from the animatronic. Your mind clouds in confusion for a quick moment.
“You mean that will make you immortal?” He doesn’t answer, only moving forwards and kneeling down. From seemingly nowhere, he brandishes a glass jar and scoops up some of the liquid, sucking on the parts of it that trickle down the back of his hand. You feel sick just witnessing the whole thing and have to sit down to make sure you don’t throw up all over the floor.
“That doesn’t seem like it’ll taste good.”
“It’s better injected into the bloodstream directly rather than consumed.” Ew. What the fuck? This is some type of science experiment gone wrong.
“Yeah. That sounds absolutely disgusting. I’m gonna leave.” You turn away from the scene before you, satisfied that he’s further away from you now and more unlikely to stab you in one second. Your thoughts are interrupted when a screech tears from your mouth at him grabbing you around the neck. Your hands instinctively fly up, scratching at his hands. Your breaths are shallow and starting to come out as wheezes as your vision starts to fade and you’re certain that you’re going to faint or be suffocated to death. Then all of a sudden, the pressure stops and you’re on your hands and knees, coughing and trying to intake all the air that you possibly can. William stands over you, the glass jar in one hand. Fear racks through your body at the sight of him smiling devilishly. It only spikes when he kneels down to where you’re laying on the ground.
“You’re not going anywhere. Now that you’ve witnessed what I’ve done and what I’m going to do, you’re going to help me.”
“Help you with what?” You ask even though you’re fairly certain you already know the answer.
“Killing some more children.” You gulp. Do you have a choice anymore? You’re not sure. So you say the one thing that you’re always thinking about.
“How much money are you willing to pay me?” Now that you’ve said it, you internally wince. You just asked a murderer how much they would be willing to pay you to murder kids. Who the hell says something like that? But you’re not a normal person, you’re a desperate money hungry person and you’d be down for anything that can keep you fed and dressed.
“How much do you want me to pay you?” You’re left baffled by the response. You had never in your entire life been approached with such a question before. You had thought that salaries were set in stone and not made by the person who was being hired. After all, someone can name some ridiculous price and potentially make the whole company bankrupt if such a thing existed.
“I- uh.” You splutter, numbers flowing into your mind of what an unreasonable salary for a killing job would be. “10000 per month?” Damnit. Why did you say per month like you’d be working for this guy for like a solid year?
William is silent for a moment and you curse yourself for naming such a price, he’d definitely want to kill you now rather than actually pay you and find a cheaper person to hire that would be more willing to do this kind of a job with him. Then again, he would probably have to hire an assassin or someone. Your mind is content with the fact that you’re probably the best suited person he can find for this.
“Deal.” Your eyes widen and your jaw drops at the word.
“Are you serious?”
“What. You’re having second regrets now? I can always lower the price.” You stand up quickly from where you’re lying on the floor.
“Uh- no. No no no. 10000’s great. Thanks.” You awkwardly say. You just negotiated a price to kill people at with a serial killer. That’s one thing ticked off your non-existent bucket list. You stand around, not really knowing what to do after that whole encounter. Your mind is busy thinking up ways you could avoid the whole job offer part but still get the money and leave Hurricane when you’ve saved up enough. You can feel William’s eyes on you and you can’t help but get even more uncomfortable with the whole situation.
“Can you please stop looking at me?” You hiss at him harshly.
“Please? I’m surprised you still have manners in you after everything.” You roll your eyes in his direction.
“Well you did just agree to pay me 10000 per month, regardless of what the job description says. So should I not be respectful of that?”
“If all it takes to keep your attitude like this is money, I wouldn’t mind paying you more.” His voice is directly in your ear and you immediately take a step back, flustered.
“Where’s your son? I think we should get going by now.” William spends some time trying to hide the animatronic somewhere, you don’t want to know. It’s already disturbing how he’s not necessarily devastated about his daughter’s death. But those eyes he has hide everything, it will only be a matter of time before he starts showing how crazy he truly is.
“That’s where you were? I was looking everywhere for you guys!” Michael appears through the entrance. He takes one glance at your blood splattered attire and then narrows his eyes at the man approaching behind you.
“This is either some really creepy kinky shit that you guys were doing or a crime scene just happened. I would rather think about the crime scene than the first thing I just said.” The disgust is clear on his face and you hold your tongue to stop yourself from saying anything.
“Relax, Michael. It was just a prank I wanted to pull on this young lady right here.” William wraps his arm around your shoulder and pulls you in slightly. You resist tugging back and instead give a weak grin with a thumbs up. You can feel the cool metal of the knife on the side of your torso digging into your skin as a bit of your shirt hiked up when he hugged you. It’s just another reminder that everything that happened was real and that you’re not in a dream. You just agreed to work for a man who kills people for fun and you’re straight up lying to his son. What else could possibly go wrong in the next few days?
Sitting in a car with a grumpy teenager, overjoyed 7 year old and slightly pissed off founder of a pizzeria is not how you imagined your morning to start. Instead, you were imagining something along the lines of getting the animatronic (which William named Circus Baby) safely in the trunk and silently drive to the new pizzeria location, Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental. Quite a name if you ask me.
“Elizabeth. Only 5 more minutes,” William mumbles in response when the girl asked how long until we reached the pizzeria for the gazillionth time.
“ELIZABETH GET OFF OF ME!” William slams the brakes the moment Michael yells at Elizabeth despite there being no stop light and we are literally in the middle of a busy street. A bunch of horns start going off around us and I shrink down in my seat subconsciously, wanting to not be a part of this whole situation. William takes in a deep breath and turns around to face Michael.
“Do NOT speak to your sister like that.” William scolds in a low tone. Your eyes widen when you spot a man about to get out of his car to confront William so you quickly tap his arm and shake your head.
“Later.” You whisper to him, nodding your head over at the man who’s unbuckling his seatbelt. William doesn’t say anything but he does listen to your request of leaving right now. The rest of the ride is in silence which is in your favour as you don’t want to listen to anymore confrontations between the family members.
The moment you all arrive at the new location, Elizabeth is already taking off her seatbelt and Michael is mumbling to himself about how annoyed he was the whole time and how this whole party is stupid. William seems to be more invested in getting Elizabeth safely inside so you open Michael’s door and allow him to step outside. You grab onto his arm gently, forcing him to pay attention to you.
“Michael. Behave. I know you don’t want to be here, but if you try and allow yourself to enjoy the party, then maybe you might have more fun than you’re currently thinking.” You see him mull over your words for a quick moment before giving you a curt nod and running off to join his father and sister. Your eyes trail after him until you decide that you must do something about the huge animatronic in the trunk before people who’re attending the party start to ask questions. You open the trunk with minimal struggle, lifting the animatronic from it’s middle and supporting it’s head with one of your shoulders. It’s much taller than you, measuring to be around William’s height and you internally complain about how this thing had to be so big and why you didn’t say anything earlier during its construction phase. You manage to get the animatronic through the back door and towards her own special room. According to William, she would be serving ice cream for the duration of the party. Why in her own special room? You weren’t quite sure and were too tired last night to question in. You don’t know where the light switch is so you walk in the dark with your flashlight for guidance. With what you can tell, there are bright light bulbs that dangle in succession from a rope that hangs like a canopy, framing the stage beautifully and the whole room seems to be themed a bit like a circus. Fitting, really.
“Need help?” You finish setting the animatronic up in the centre of the stage before facing the doorway that’s shrouded in darkness on the other side of the room. The dim lighting turns brighter as William flicks a switch and comes into view. You can now clearly see the whole room, confirming your suspicions of the circus theme. There are a few long tables lined along the edges of the room with party hats equally spaced out for the children to wear, all white striped with different base colours. You take some time to ogle at the scenery before you. When you turn your attention back to William, you find that his eyes are shining at the sight of Circus Baby all set up and looking exactly like he envisioned.
“This looks absolutely perfect.” He breathes, moving closer towards the animatronic with your toolbox in his right hand.
"Hey. Why do you have that?” You can’t help but be defensive of your signature object, hands instinctively reaching out to grab it from him. He moves before your hands can even brush the handle, holding it out of reach.
“I needed to do a few things before she becomes fully functional for the children.” He replies, short and to the point. You try and ask what kinds of things he needs to do but he’s oddly defensive about the whole thing and you give up trying to ask, instead sitting on one of the party benches with your head relaxed on your hand while you watch him carefully do something with Baby’s stomach hatch.
“Why don’t you go and supervise the children? I’ll be there shortly.” He says, breaking the silence. You hesitate for a brief moment, not wanting to see your toolbox out of sight and left with a man you still don’t yet trust.
“Just… don’t do anything rash with that toolbox or I will kill you.” You threaten. William just laughs at the threat.
“There won’t be a single scratch.” He says as you exit the room and head into the main area that’s teeming with children. There’s party food covering every inch of the long tables and Elizabeth is standing next to a mountain of gifts, clapping her hands excitedly as she receives a new one. Her frilly white dress twirls lightly whenever she moves and her ponytails bounce around, the pink bow clipped in them struggling to keep them in place. She spots you in a matter of seconds, waving you over to her. You walk towards her, trying to avoid the mass of kids that charge towards the arcade station and popcorn.
“What’s up?” You ask her, bending down to hear her response better.
“I don’t know where to put the gifts.” She points towards them and you think for a moment before deciding that the room with Circus Baby in it was a good idea. You take the gifts in your hands and then ask her to follow you into Circus Baby’s room.
“Your dad really wanted to surprise you with her. He wanted to make you your very own special animatronic.” You walk through the doorway and set the gifts down on the table before starting to gather the party hats, thinking that it would be more likely for kids to wear them if they were in the main area of the pizzeria instead of in some random room.
“She’s lovely.” Elizabeth walks up towards the animatronic.
“Elizabeth. Don’t get too close.” William comes out of nowhere and you almost jump out of your skin when you hear his voice. Why shouldn’t she get close to it? It’s there to give her ice cream. Elizabeth ignores her father, giggling when the robot’s stomach hatch opens and out pops a cone of ice cream. She takes it with another giggle and hops off the stage with the ice cream in her hand.
“I love her!” She exclaims, taking a big lick from her ice cream as her eyes shine with excitement and joy. She positions herself to face you and her father, jumping up and down so much that you think her ice cream is going to just collapse right out of her hand.
“Thank you for making her!” She beams at the both of you and you can’t help your heart from slightly melting, knowing that those two long nights at the Afton house was definitely worth it.
“Run along now. Go have some more fun.” William says, putting his hand on the small of her back and pushing her slightly out the door when she’s calmed down just a little.
“She’s absolutely adorable.” You comment as you watch her leave and William turns towards you, his hands on his hips and strands of brown hair slightly falling into his face.
“She is.” He responds. You watch him carefully as he walks off, having a slight suspicion on who this man says he is when he just “added features” to an animatronic in like two minutes. You head back outside, standing around with the other fazbear employees as they either mop the floor, hand out arcade prizes or just complain about the whole party to their coworkers.
“Fancy seeing you here.” Emily nudges your side and you crack a smile at her. “Where have you been?”
“Working. Not waitress work, just engineering stuff.” You say. Emily gaps in surprise.
“No way? You’re working with… him?” She whispers the last word into your ear while glancing over at William talking to one of the party kid’s parents. You nod your head, looking around at the kids once again in case any of them got into trouble.
“Is he a tough guy?” She asks. You shrug your shoulders, not wanting to say anything more about William when you can see him looking at the two of you out of the corner of his eye.
“He’s… got his quirks.” You respond when she keeps asking the question. She seems satisfied with the answer as she doesn’t repeat the question again. A small victory for you, you guess. A few of the kids have started to notice Circus Baby’s room and you watch them disappear in their in groups for a few minutes before they all come out with cones of ice cream in their hand, this going on for the next couple of hours until near the end of the party. Elizabeth still has cake all over her face and a huge smile when she comes up to you. So far, nothing of interest had happened apart from a birthday song and a bunch of excited, screaming children trying to scam the arcade machines before the arcade machines scammed them.
“Can I get another ice cream?” She asks you. You shrug your shoulders, looking around for her dad but you can’t find him.
“I don’t see why not.” You respond and watch as she disappears into Circus Baby’s room. The smile on your face slowly drops when you realise that she still hasn’t come out of the room after 15 minutes and all of the party people have started to leave. You walk quickly as your heart starts to race, your mind thrown into a panic. You fling open the door leading to the room and your heart drops, a gasp leaving your mouth in an instant. The animatronic is still functioning, waving at you when you appear in the room with that permanent smile on its face, but from its stomach drips a waterfall of blood. Elizabeth’s pink bow is lying on the ground, no traces of her or anything she was wearing to be seen apart from the bow (and probably the mass amounts of viscous red liquid). Your eyes travel back up to the animatronic and rage fills you so fast that you’re lunging at it before you can think. Your hands immediately find its power switch and turn it off in a matter of seconds. The moment you hear it shut down, you collapse on your knees with a huge sob. Your face buried in your hands that are covered in the young girl’s blood. Some of the liquid has started to stain your clothes but you don’t care as images of Elizabeth’s last moments flash through your mind. How did this even happen? An animatronic malfunction? This sort of feature wasn’t implemented and you swore that it worked fine when you and William were in the room so why was this any different? Your brain’s gears turn as you know that you’re onto something but you can’t think what. Then it clicks and you freeze completely.
“Elizabeth. Don’t get too close.” “The animatronics are meant to detect the amount of kids in the room to give the right amount of ice cream.” Your eyes narrow as you inspect the hatch in Baby’s stomach, your mind whirling as you realize that there is only one claw. You’re so stupid.
“What did you do?” You hear a stern voice behind you.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?” You let your anger all out, yelling so loudly you’re sure that everyone would’ve been able to hear you if they hadn’t gone home yet. William doesn’t react, only crossing his arms and tilting his head to the side like he’s confused. That confirms it for you. He isn’t even concerned by the blood all over you, despite having clearly looked at you when you faced him. You’re shaking at this point, tears welling up in your eyes while your mind tries to process everything that transpired in the last 30 minutes. You walk up to him, staring him dead in the eyes as you poke his chest with your index finger. He’s unmovable while you continue speaking (yelling) at him.
“You knew. YOU KNEW! You told me that it could detect the amount of people in the room. And for what? To serve the right amount of ice cream? It only has one claw, William, and then it scans again. The amount of ice cream, the way we programmed it, it wasn’t made for that. Was it? Was that one thing you were working on to kill the first kid it saw alone?” His eyes are detached, focused onto something behind you, not on you. You let your guard slip ever so slightly as you turn around and look at what he’s so focused on. There’s a bit of purple goo emitting from Circus Baby. You feel sick just looking at it, turning away to avoid the sight of purple mixing with the red of Elizabeth’s corpse. You make a huge mistake as turning around allows you to see William’s creepy grin stretching across his face and the knife in his hand, positioned conveniently in front of your heart.
The reason you wake up isn’t because of your alarm clock. It’s because of an arm that slaps you in the face, jolting you straight out of your dreams (not like you remember any of them). You immediately sit up, rubbing the sleep from your arms while the arm on your face slips down to land in your lap.
“What the fuck?” You mutter to yourself, staring at the hand that lies limply on you before turning to your right and spotting William lying right next to you. You barely manage to force down the screech that leaves you. Your heart thumping loudly in your chest. You swear that you fell asleep on the couch, not on William’s massive bed next to him. The light that shines through the curtains gives you some idea of what time it is and you confirm it by looking to your right and seeing that it’s about 7:30am, well after the sun rose considering that is the summer.
“Dad? Are you awake?” You hear a bored voice and footsteps inching closer towards the door. As soon as you swing your legs over the edge of the bed, the door opens and Michael walks in, face bright red when he looks at the two of you.
“Michael. I swear… we didn’t-“ You don’t have the time to finish your sentence before Michael shuts the door, avoiding eye contact with you. You don’t notice that William is awake until he speaks.
“We didn’t what?” He looks over at you and you roll your eyes before grabbing your pillow and smacking him in the face as hard as you can.
“How did I get here?” You glare at him from where you’re seated when he takes the pillow off his head and sets it down next to him.
“The couch looked uncomfortable and I didn’t want you feeling sleep-deprived so I brought you here.” You feel a false sense of security at his words. Does he actually care about you or he just staying stuff like that so he would get you to trust him more? Also he was drunk as hell when you carried him to his room, was he just faking over the whole being drunk thing so he could fall asleep on you and leave you to suffer when walking up the stairs? A small frown forms on your face from the thought.
“I’m always sleep-deprived.” You shoot back before looking to the side. “But thanks.” You say quietly before scooting off the bed and opening the door into the hallway. Once downstairs, you hear a knock and immediately walk towards the door to look through the peephole. A lady who looks a lot like Elizabeth is standing there with Elizabeth in her hand. You don’t hesitate to open the door, knowing that Elizabeth was at a sleepover yesterday.
“Hello!” You greet the lady and Elizabeth.
“Who are you?” The lady looks at you with a disgusted look and tone. You stare at her for a quick second, trying to figure who she could possibly be and why she’s judging you when she barely knows you. You ignore her question and instead look at the girl standing next to her.
“Elizabeth. Why don’t you come in?” You say to the girl and she lets go of the lady’s hand and squeezes through the space between you and the door.
“Okay bye.” You close the door on the lady but before you can, she sticks her foot through the doorway. You reluctantly pull the door open again to reveal her unamused face, anger evident in her eyes.
“Excuse me?! Where’s William? That was my child that just went into this house.” Oh. So that’s what William meant by a sleepover, why he couldn’t just say that Liz was sleeping over at his ex-wife’s house? Hm. Maybe it’s awkward to say that to someone you don’t know personally.
“He’s upstairs, ma’am. I’m William’s colleague. He invited me over so we can work on a few things for your daughter’s birthday.” You explain. She seems to become even more infuriated.
“So now he’s sleeping with a colleague? You fucking-“ You stare at her while she throws insult after insult at you until you give a frustrated sigh and slam the door fully on her before she can say anything, locking it behind you.
“Why did you need to slam the door that loudly?” William asks you as he descends the stairs, Elizabeth in his arms.
“There’s a Karen at the door and she’s being annoying, so I slammed the door on her.” You shrug your shoulders and walk towards the kitchen where you help Michael with handling the eggs in his hands.
“Leave this to me. I don’t trust you with the stove.” You say to him as he just nods his head and runs off towards the couch to probably watch some TV or whatever kids do at that age. You bring out a pan from the cupboard and set it on the stove before turning it on and letting it heat up for a bit and drizzling some olive oil onto the pan’s surface.
“What kind of eggs do you want, Michael?” You yell over the sound of the oil that started to sizzle.
“Scrambled.” He yells back as you crack the eggs into the pan with some salt and pepper and start to scramble them. Once they’re done, you call him over and set them down onto a plate with a fork for him to eat with.
“Enjoy.” He pulls the plate over to him before digging in, a small smile gracing his features and you can’t help but smile as well.
“They’re better than dad’s eggs. He doesn’t know how to cook.” You snort and look over at William who glares at his son before looking at you.
“So the man knows how to make a bunch of robots, but doesn’t know how to cook. Sounds reasonable.”
“Cooking is a skill you acquire.” William protests. “It takes practice and time before you get it right. Whereas, robotics comes naturally to me.”
“Weird way of saying that you’re naturally gifted at engineering. But okay.” You shrug your shoulders at him.
“I’m gifted at other things too.” He says nonchalantly. Your mind immediately catches onto what he means when he gives you a certain look but you can’t help when you burst into fits of laughter to try and take away the uncomfortable silence that settles over the kitchen. William frowns at you ever so slightly but you choose to ignore him, telling Michael to wash his dishes before opening up the basement door and making your way downstairs. You contemplate possibly locking the door on William, but you decide against it. He probably has a key to his own basement and you’ll be in for it if he finds you trying to hide from him again. You resume your tasks from yesterday, building more circuits before finally being able to attach them to the animatronic. Tomorrow is a big day and you’ll definitely be killed if you couldn’t finish this project for William’s favourite child.
“Took you quite some time to get down here. Got lost or something?” You tease as the door opens and you wipe your greasy hands on your pants, construction glue getting slightly stuck to the fabric. You grab a wet towel from the wooden bench next to you and dry your hands with it, finding it easier to clean them this way versus your pants.
“Kids being kids. You wouldn’t understand since you don’t have any.”
“Fair enough.” You respond curtly, putting away the towel and turning around the finished chest plate for him to see. His hair looks dishevelled and he looks even more tired than before, if that’s even possible. Those kids he has must have taken a huge toll on him.
“You look like you just survived the apocalypse.” You can’t help the small giggle that escapes your lips at the sight of him. “But regardless, this area is done. Just test out the rest of the parts and all should be good. I see you got a lot of the work fitting the arms, legs and head to the chest plate done yesterday.” William walks a bit closer and squats to examine the parts that you worked on closer, a small hint of a smile plays on his lips when he finds that the parts on the chest plate function as they should. The longest part was fixing together that ice cream dispensing thing that he wanted from the chest area, it was a good idea but you were pretty sure that any kid would be petrified from getting an ice cream handed to them from bootleg Chuck E-Cheese’s stomach. According to William, however, it was a brilliant idea as
“She can dance, she can sing, she can even dispense ice cream.” Yeah. Like anything that can dance, sing and dispense ice cream is a miracle.
William stands up from his examination and makes his way over to where you’re standing, back leaning against the work table with your arms hanging loosely by your sides as you watch him closely. Before you can protest about him getting too close, he pulls you in for a hug. Your arms unconsciously wrap around him as he pulls you closer.
“Thank you for all your hard work. I’m sure Elizabeth is going to love this.” And you can’t help yourself from smiling into his shirt.
“Hey. Wake up.” Your eyes crack open ever so slightly but you close them shut again when the bright porch light makes them hurt. You lift a hand to shade your eyes from the light before opening them again to more success.
“I’m awake.” You grumble when you feel a hand shaking your shoulder not too gently. You push yourself carefully off of the car door before finding the door handle and opening the door. Once you step outside, you can get a good look at the house. It’s a classic American suburban house but the size of it reminds you once again that you’re dealing with a literal CEO of a company and not just any old guy.
“Are you going to help or just stand there?” William calls making you turn around to find him opening the trunk and taking out the animatronic parts. You sigh knowing that you don’t have much of a choice and lift the parts you brought out of the pizzeria into your hands. He climbs the stairs leading up to the front door before you and you follow quickly behind him, shifting anxiously from foot to foot as he takes his time with the lock. You both enter the house and you’re a bit taken aback by the state of his foyer. The carpeted floors have got questionable stains on them and on your right, the kitchen sink is filled to the brim with unwashed plates and a few alcohol bottles scattered around the perimeter.
“What are you- Oh.” William takes notice of where you’re looking, standing ridged and unmoving as your eyes scan the rest of the place. “MICHAEL!” He yells and the teenage boy stomps down the stairs, placing a hand on the white wood banister to support his spin when he faces both people standing in the foyer.
“Yes dad?” He questions, taking his hand off the banister to cross both arms over his chest. He looks just like his father when he does that and goosebumps raise on your arms when you see the same cold glare in his eyes that his father sometimes gives you.
“Wash the dishes and put away the bottles. You know damn well where they’re supposed to go.” William orders with a stern tone that would normally make you obey his orders immediately but instead causes the young teenage boy to get even more annoyed.
“First, you come home late at this hour and now you’re ordering me around?” Your eyes widen in shock at the tone Michael uses and you open your mouth, effectively cutting William off before he can say anything else.
“They’re your dishes, Michael. You should clean up after yourself. After that, you can go back to what you’re doing. It’ll only take 5 minutes and I can help you if you need it.” You offer, not knowing where the hell that last part came from since that isn’t something you would normally say. You’re really starting to treat this kid like he’s your child or something. Your stomach turns just imagining adopting a kid like Michael. The boy in question narrows his eyes at you.
“Who do you think you are?” You stay silent, initiating a staring contest with him before he lets go of the eye contact and mumbles his next words. “I guess I can wash the dishes myself.” Your eyes follow him as he makes his way to the sink and picks up the bottle of soap before lathering it on a sponge. Once you’re satisfied that he’s actually starting to wash the dishes, you look over your shoulder at William who’s staring at you once again with a look in his eyes that you can’t quite decipher. Does this man ever stop staring?
“What?” You say somewhat harshly and he only shakes his head at you before tilting his head to get you to follow him to another part of the house. You both pass through a hallway lined with photos making you realize that the rumours about William that you heard in the last couple of months were probably true. The images with some sort of lady with similar hair and eyes to Elizabeth are completely crossed out along with the image of a small boy with a similar hair colour to William and eye colour to the lady. Your eyes peel themselves off of the pictures when you realise that you’ve reached the end of the hallway and there’s a door that has stairs that lead down towards some sort of basement area. William holds the door open for you as you lug the equipment in your arms down the stairs and set it down on the cold, concrete floor. A singular bulb is the only source of light in the room that flickers slightly before illuminating the room. The air in the room is a lot cooler than in the rest of the house and the room resembles the parts and services room quite closely.
“Need help?” You question, seeing William struggling to walk down the stairs while carrying three different animatronic pieces at once. He shakes his head at you as he sets them down in front of the parts that you had already brought down with you. A man of few words.
“Come to think of it, where is your daughter?” You ask, hoping that that question wasn’t too much to ask and he would actually reply seriously without throwing you some glare that would chill you to your core.
“Sleepover.” He replies simply, fishing around in the cabinets for something, you don’t know what. However, you find out quite quickly when he locates the thing he’s looking for. In his hand is a bottle of Whiskey that he sets down on the table and uncorks.
“Are you sure you should be drinking before we start working on this?” It’s not your place to say anything about his drinking habits, but you don’t want this whole process to get much longer just because your fucking boss is too drunk to deal with circuits and needs your help with everything while sitting around and being a lazy ass.
“It’s just a bottle. I can work perfectly fine.” He responds, pouring himself a glass and downing it in one shot. You only deadpan at his actions before shrugging your shoulders and sitting on the cold floor to finally unpack your stuff and get back to work with what you were doing.
Only an hour or two passes before you start feeling quite tired and realise it’s almost 2am. You feel a bit embarrassed to say anything to William though about feeling tired as that would show a sign of vulnerability and you don’t want him exploiting that weakness and turning it against you in the moment. You debate with yourself a bit over the matter before sucking in a deep breath and turning around to confront the man about letting you go home.
“Um.” You start but stop when your eyes take in the sight of the grown man literally passed out on the floor with a screwdriver in his hand and a screw in the other. You’re at a loss for words honestly, not having expected William to be the first to fall asleep out of the both of you. You stand up, carefully picking up the empty bottle and glass lying next to him, frowning at the idea of having more dishes to clean when he could’ve easily just drunk straight out of the bottle. Doesn’t matter, if he turns over and manages to smash his side into the glass bottle, it could easily pierce him. Oh, maybe then I wouldn’t have to go into work anymore. You allow your mind to mull over the idea before shaking your head. What am I thinking? That would just cause more trouble for me and him. You walk back upstairs and wash the glass and bottle before setting the glass down on the drying rack and the bottle in a corner where all the other bottles are. The sound of someone walking into the kitchen makes you turn around, you’re half expecting to see Michael still up at this hour probably either sneaking out or wanting to get a snack, but instead you’re met with William’s messy hair and dark eyebags.
“Why are you awake?” He slurs, stumbling over to you and looking deep into your eyes. You’re visibly uncomfortable at this point, knowing that this man could easily overpower you in seconds if he suddenly decided that he wanted to kill you or something.
“Finishing up on what we were working on.” You answer casually, stepping past him so as to not be in close proximity with his drunk self.
“Oh.” He lets loose a deep chuckle before stabilising himself with a hand on his kitchen counter. He seems a bit giddy with the amount of alcohol in him and you can’t help but compare him to a school girl in your head. “Time?”
“2am.” You reply. “And I’m going home. There’s no way I would want to stay here right now.”
“But…” He slumps heavily down onto the kitchen counter before lifting his head to give you a lopsided smile that causes you to cringe ever so slightly. His eyes are a bit wild with the alcohol running through his system and you ignore looking at him when you put one of his arms over your shoulder and drag him up the stairs. Once you reach the top, you’re panting due to the weight of this man. Maybe it would’ve been easier if you just left him to sleep on the couch.
“Alright. Where’s your bedroom?” You question before realising that he’s quite literally dozing off on you. You roll your eyes and with newfound energy, walk around the hallways and open doors until you reach the end where it definitely looks like some place that William would sleep in. You don’t take the time to admire the bland walls, bed and cupboards in the room as you’re on a mission to get this man to bed and then bolt out of there.
“Where are you going?” William mumbles when you set him down and pull the blankets over his lanky frame.
“Home.” You reply simply.
“You don’t even know where you are.” You freeze in place. He’s right. You don’t actually know where you are.
“So what do you propose I should do?” You turn back to face the man who’s struggling to stay awake with both hands on your hips.
“Sleep here.” He lazily pats the empty space beside him. Your face contorts into one of disgust.
“Absolutely no way. I would rather sleep on the couch than with you.” You miss the small frown that forms on his face when you turn around and head back downstairs. While you lay on the couch your mind flows through the different things you experienced in one night. Drunk William is really clingy, drunk William definitely has no filter and you definitely don’t want to deal with that situation again. You drag a hand over your face with a big sigh before turning on your side and shutting your eyes to fall into a deep sleep.
Well today doesn’t look like it’ll be any fun at all. You frown at the blueprints that William brought from his office, the paper’s a bit crumpled like they were carelessly stuffed in a drawer and you have to smooth over the curled-up edges multiple times to be able to read them. The writing on them is messy like he rushed them (which he probably did) and some parts of the diagrams he drew are entirely incomprehensible.
“Do I look like a mind reader to you, Mr. Afton?” You question, turning around from the blueprints to look at him. He’s currently sitting on the floor, fitting together the parts that he welded in the past week or so. He doesn’t look up from his work when he replies.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because how the hell else am I supposed to read your diagrams when they’re literally chicken scratch on a page.” He only shrugs his shoulders.
“Figure it out.” You huff, annoyed at his behaviour and lack of enthusiasm. You decide you have no choice but to somehow figure this out before the end of the day in hopes that you could get this done and not have to take a little trip over to the Afton household this evening. The first order of business looks like it’ll have to be building a whole circuit just for the chest plate area alone. Looking over at William, you can tell that he has all the outer shells of that animatronic done and you slightly get the creeps when he adjusts the head on top of the chest plate and its green eyes stare into your own. You mutter to yourself while you work, ignoring everything the man behind you is doing as you get your soldering iron out and start placing parts together, only occasionally looking to the side at the blueprints sitting next to you to be able to gauge the size of the circuit and the other various parts you may need. You work like this continuously until the end of the shift, only having stopped once for a quick lunch break before getting back to work.
A hand on your shoulder almost causes you to drop your pliers directly onto the breadboard you were building your model circuit on.
“Can you please stop doing that?” You turn around, glaring at the owner of the hand.
“Doing what?” He tilts his head in faux confusion but the smile on his face gives away the fact that he does know what the hell he should stop doing.
“Scaring the fuck out of me.” You respond roughly, shrugging the hand on your shoulder off.
“How else would I get your attention?” He asks as you set the pliers down and move towards the shelves to get some more parts.
“By calling my name, maybe?” You suggest as you pull out the plastic bin containing the parts that you need and grab a handful before pushing the bin back into the shelf. When you turn around, you see that William is standing over your work, eyes carefully analysing every little thing you did over the course of the day.
“This looks pretty good.” He comments and you have to force the smile on your face down, knowing that the man you’re dealing with is an absolute asshole that actually doesn’t care about how your circuits look. God, how underappreciated have you been in the last few years that the tiniest praise from someone gets you all giddy?
“Thanks.” You mutter, gently moving him aside so you can splay out all the pieces on the desk and get back to work. Before you can start fiddling around with the motor in your hand, William stops you.
“We should get going. It’s pretty late and we’ve been working here for ages.” You deflate a little bit inside, knowing that you have no choice now but to get to William’s house. Curse him and his stupid project that will definitely take longer than 2 days to finish…
“Fine. Do we need to bring everything with us though?” You say, looking around the room at the unfinished empty shell of an animatronic and the small messy pile of electrical equipment sitting right next to it.
“Yeah. We’ll have to.” You breathe in deeply, getting yourself ready to start heavylifting things through the door.
“I guess I’ll get the electrical parts then. You can deal with all the actual animatronic casings.” You don’t give him an option to say anything in response to your directions as you immediately start putting your work into bins and packing them up quickly before heading out into the hallway. The darkness makes you pause for a minute to let your eyes adjust as you can barely make out the double doors that lead outside to the main pizzeria area. So first he makes you come to this place 2 hours before they open and now you have to leave later than everyone else? This job is bullshit. You decide to stop wallowing in your own thoughts and make a move towards the doors, pushing them aside and finally making it outside where the hot summer air makes you feel like you’re suffocating. There’s only one car here, a purple chevy camaro.
“Is everything that he owns, purple?” You whisper to yourself as you make your way towards the car and set the box of parts in your hands down on the floor. Maybe you should’ve let William go first so you could actually get your things inside of the car instead of having to wait outside in the heat for ages. 20 minutes pass and you’re getting impatient so you push yourself off the car door and head back into the pizzeria, relief flooding your being as the air-conditioned air bathes your skin.
“Um. Mr. Afton? Where are you?” You call out, pushing past the double doors again to head back into the parts and services room. When you push on the door handle, you realise it’s locked. Maybe it’s just jammed? You start rattling the door handle a bit before realising he did really lock it and you probably just got scammed by some stinky owner of a pizzeria. A scowl forms on your face as you look around a bit more, wondering where the hell this guy must’ve gone. Maybe his office? You head back the way you came, feet tapping quickly on the floor as you walk towards his office. You’re so angry that you’re not even planning on knocking when you get there but the sound of mechanical gears whirling gets your attention. You turn back around, seeing two eyes glowing in the dark on the opposite end of the hallway. What the fuck? This is so creepy.
“Stop the party or else bad things will happen…” A child’s voice floats around the hallway. What the fuck does that even mean?
“Like what? Two floating eyes in a dark hallway?” You state, trying to make a joke at this time so your mind can stop panicking. The stomping of the feet is unmistakeably like the animatronics and you notice that the eyes are moving closer. Screw it, I’m out of here. You promptly turn around and sprint down the hallway, not even giving a second thought towards warning William of a potential animatronic murderer on the loose. The metal feet on the floor get louder behind you until you burst through the doors and continue running towards the parking lot. A yell of your name behind you makes you turn back around as you realise that William is standing next to his car, hands crossed over his chest as a confused look appears on his face.
“YOUR FUCKING PIZZERIA IS LIKE HAUNTED OR SOMETHING. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” You can’t control yourself as you yell at him, your whole body shaking as you stutter through an explanation of everything that happened. Your chest heaves as you struggle to catch your breath due to all the running and adrenaline pumping through your veins.
“You’re probably just tired.” William replies calmly as he opens the car door for you and you slide in, but you know better. You’re not just tired, that was real and you’re most definitely going to be in for a real treat because there’s absolutely no way you can convince William to not have Elizabeth’s party in two days. You lean your head heavily on the window of the car as William starts up the engine and pulls out of the parking lot. The calm hum of the car engine gets you to calm down and you feel your eyes closing, barely registering William’s hand rubbing up and down your arm soothingly in an attempt to make you feel better. The last thing you see before you fall into a dream state are the two glowing eyes.
You yawn while walking down the clean floors of the pizzeria in the early hours of the morning, your left hand in your pocket casually while your right hand holds your toolbox. William had rung your home phone the night before requesting that you be at the pizzeria 2 hours before everyone else now that you’re assisting him. Getting the call at 2am, 4 hours before your shift, left you unsatisfied with the night of sleep that you got.
“Well good morning to you too.” Your mind just registers the opening of the door to Afton’s office and his voice carrying over the empty space.
“Uh huh. Maybe you shouldn’t have called me at 2am if you wanted me wide awake and ready to assist your shenanigans.” You snap, slightly annoyed at his attitude already. William says nothing while you rant about his unprofessional and quite obnoxious attitude towards his job and yours. You finish with a deep, frustrated sigh before staring at him, waiting for some sort of movement to get work done.
“Are you done complaining?” He questions and you can feel the anger in you rising once again but you stuff it down with all the willpower that you have, opting to just nod your head in response to his aggravating question. He turns around, beckoning for you to follow him through the dark, creepy hallway. You stare at his outfit the whole time you’re walking to god knows where, annoyed at the fact that you’ll probably never get enough money to own even one piece of clothing that he has on.
“We’ll be working in here in preparation for my daughter’s birthday.” He announces, flicking on the light after unlocking the door. The sign on the front reads ‘parts and services’. The lights flicker for a brief moment before warm yellow light bathes the space that you’ll be stuck in with that god-awful man for the rest of your shift.
“Cozy.” You say sarcastically, taking note of the overstocked shelves and scraps of animatronic suits that lay about.
“Definitely is.” He responds, choosing to ignore the sarcasm in your tone as he starts to untie his tie and puts it on the back of a chair before unbuttoning the top buttons on his dress shirt. You don’t notice you’re staring until he speaks.
“It’s a little hot in here, don’t you think?” The teasing lilt in his voice makes you scowl as you look away, face slightly burning from getting caught. Your eyes catch on to the glint of the spring locks on a corner table when you look away and your feet are already moving towards the table, hands reaching out to feel the cool metal in your palms. You’re so engrossed in the mechanics of the spring locks that you don’t realise that William is standing behind you. He takes the component from your hands and sets it back down on the table, both hands on your shoulders when he spins you around to face him.
“Don’t touch those until I say you should, understood?” You find yourself nodding instead of giving some snarky remark, tucking your hands behind your back and leaning back and forth on your heels.
“Why did I need to be here so early?” You question, gaze following his movements around the room as he stoops down to pick up a stray bolt and moving towards the shelves to place it back in its box.
“I wanted to show you the animatronics up close before we started to work with them, and maybe a few of the arcade machines.” He digs in his pocket before pulling out the capacitor that Michael got shocked with. “But I’m sure you’re already quite familiar with those.”
“I wouldn’t be if they stopped breaking down so often.”
“Fair enough.” He responds. “But the company can’t afford to get better ones so we’ll have to stick with the constant repairs, which I’m sure you can handle.” He stands up a bit straighter, blue eyes piercing yours before moving towards the door once again.
“I guess it’s animatronics time.” You say as you follow him out the door and into the backstage area of the pizzeria. You both walk past through rows of discarded, unopened boxes and lost childrens’ toys before spotting the animatronics on the stage behind the curtain. William reaches out a hand to pat the giant, yellow bunny on the back.
“Henry and I perform for the kids sometimes, I take Bonnie and Henry takes Freddy.” He points towards the bear that you know all too well from your time working here.
“But… don’t they move around by themselves? They’re animatronics, not humanotronics.” You state.
“They have two modes, suit mode and animatronic mode. In suit mode, the spring locks can be moved aside so Henry and I can fit, any moisture or sudden movements can cause them to snap back into position and they can seriously harm the person inside.”
“Sounds like a risk that only you and Henry would be willing to take.” Your mind takes you back to your interview with Henry, he was a sweet guy but it was clear that he had a slight distaste for the way you answered his questions. You were quite lucky that this place was understaffed when you applied or else you may have never gotten the job.
“Can you come here for a moment?” William asks and you cautiously step forward. He takes your arm gently and guides your fingers underneath the casing of the animatronic, your hands latch onto some sort of switch and the chest casing falls away revealing the wires underneath. You gasp upon seeing the wiring. Expensive equipment covers the whole expanse of the animatronics skeletal chest that you would have never found in your days when you foraged for spare electrical parts in waste bins.
“Is that…” Your eyes widen, fingers carefully grazing the electrical piece. “An actual transistor?”
“You mean to tell me that you’ve never seen one before?” You shake your head.
“Only in books. I could never afford to get electrical parts so I read about them and only made simple circuits with parts that I found in the bins of tech stores.”
“So you mean to tell me, that all your knowledge comes from reading shady underground books and building recycled circuits?” You snort at the terms he decided to use.
“They’re not shady books and the circuits are recycled from spare parts but at least I could make them work.” You respond. He only breathes out heavily through his nose and watches as you experiment and play around a bit more with the wiring and different components that you had been itching to get your hands on for years.
“I’m planning on making another one.” His voice permeates the slight gasps that you make upon finding a circuit breaker that piques your interest.
“Another what?” You turn around to face him, hands pulling themselves out of the chest of the bunny animatronic.
“Another animatronic. I’m thinking something that resembles my daughter.” You tilt your head to the side.
“Hm… sounds interesting enough.” You’re a bit suspicious about what he’s planning on doing with this new animatronic but considering that he did mention that his daughter’s birthday is coming up soon, it must be for that.
“I’ll also be opening up a new location.” You let out a bit of a shocked sound.
“I thought you just said that this place didn’t even make enough money to buy new arcade machines. Why on earth would you open another location? Just for your kid’s birthday?” William gives no reaction to your shocked outburst.
“I didn’t phrase that correctly. I meant to say that I already did open up a new location and we’ll be hosting the party there.” You deadpan at his words.
“Don’t blame me for your company’s financial troubles,”
“Wasn’t planning on doing so.” You turn around to head back to the parts and services room upon seeing that you wouldn’t be getting any more dialogue queues from this slight NPC of a man.
“Oh. And one more thing.” You turn around again. “Would you mind coming over to my house this evening? We need to rush this project as my daughter’s birthday is in two days.” You groan in response.
“Are you serious? And no. I don’t feel comfortable going to your house.” The look he gives you chills you to your core.
“Like I said before, I can make you do things that will make you wish you got fired.” At that moment it seems like you have no choice, your evening will be spent with William Afton instead of alone.
The short walk to William’s office had you sweating buckets. Needless to say, you are very close to shitting your pants out of fear. Arriving at the door to his office you’re left shifting from foot to foot wondering whether you should knock or just walk in. Maybe waltzing in like you own the place would give you a bit of confidence.
“Are you going to stand there like an idiot or actually come in?” William asks roughly, opening the door to reveal your quivering frame in the doorway.
“I was- you know what? Nevermind.” You answer, shutting your mouth quickly as any further words from you would likely just further irritate William and he was and is still very upset with you. You feel small in the centre of the vast space, memories from when you hid in here all those months ago coming back in waves.
“Sit down.” William instructs and you feel your body obeying before your mind could fully register his words. You pull aside the plastic chair in front of his desk and watch as he sits down in front of you, hands folding on the desk like he’s about to start a business meeting.
“Am I gonna get fired?” The words come out on instinct, your fear clouding your judgment on the right things to say. There’s a nerve-wracking silence before you hear something akin to… laughter? You lift your gaze from the small grooves in the wooden desk to see William’s chest moving up and down in fits of laughter. You tilt your head, a bit confused and also a bit annoyed that he finds your impending and imminent unemployment to be a funny topic.
“The things I’m going to get you into would sure make you want to be fired.” The words have you clutching the edge of the chair, hearing the plastic creak slightly under your grip. You swallow nervously and take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down before you ask your next question.
“What would you have me do?” He grins like a small child at your question, pleased with your curiosity of whatever awful job he could possibly have install for you. There can’t be anything worse than cleaning the bathrooms and taking out the bags of trash, right?
“We’ll see.” He stands up, crossing the room in a few steps to pull out a map of some sort. He lays it down in front of you and you see that it’s not a map, it’s a diagram of some sort with a bunch of scribbles and arrows that show… animatronic parts? It’s a much rougher sketch of the official blueprints that you saw when you were running from William. He sets down a pencil in front of you and then just crosses his arms and stares at you. Does he want me to draw on it or something?
“Uh…”
“Go on. Show me what’s wrong with that.” Your eyes scan the sketch carefully until you take notice of the circuit diagrams drawn on the right hand side. A quick glance gets you tapping your pencil lightly on one of the diagrams.
“I know it’s just a model of a possible rectification diagram that probably won’t be used in the animatronics, but the diodes aren’t oriented in the right way.” You point out, circling one of the diodes and then reorienting it.
“That all?” He questions and you scan the diagrams again, not fully satisfied with your work.
“What’s the purpose of the hole in the animatronics’ bellies? You might want to put support beams in there to hold up the whole structure.” William hums approvingly of your answer.
“Don’t you have engineers to do this work for you? Why ask me? I just have an interest in it but I’m by no means an expert in the work of engineering or anything physics related.” He flashes you another grin.
“I don’t have to pay you as much as hiring a full-time, qualified engineer.” You scrunch your face at the response, knowing that he was right. Since you already worked under him and without any sort of official college degree (you did drop out), there would be no justification as to why he had to pay you any more than a waiter’s salary.
“Huh. I don’t like the sound of that to be plain honest with you.”
“You’ve been nothing but bluntly honest since you started working here.” He shoots back and you snort, gaze now on the drawings in front of you.
“Yeah. You’re right. This place is a bit of a shithole, but at least some of the people here are bearable.” You respond just as fast.
“I hope to be one of those bearable people to you.” Your head shoots up to meet his eyes, surprised by his words and you open your mouth to say something but close it quickly. This man has hated you, and probably still hates you, since you started working here. Why would your skills suddenly change his mind about your worth? Did he see something in you now that he didn’t see before? You’ve come to the realisation that hiding your skills for as long as you did was a great idea or else you might have had to come face to face with this exact situation months prior and you’re already not liking the situation as it is now. The man in front of you casually grabs the paper from under your palms and rolls it up like a scroll, turning around to face the bookcase once again so he can place the scroll back in its place. You take the time to look around the office once more. It had changed only a little bit since you were last here, a new chair sitting in the corner and a small Fredbear plush sitting in the centre of it.
“My youngest used to love Fredbear, I’ve kept him there as some sort of reminder.” It seems William has noticed your gaze on the brown bear plush. You hum in response, taking your gaze off of the bear to face him as you cross your arms over your chest and lean back in your chair as much as you can on the old, shitty plastic.
“You do know your son will be fine, right? The teenage one.” You say to fill the awkward silence as none of you make a move to leave the room. “It’s just a small electric shock. Now that I think about it, maybe it wasn’t a flash burn, it looked much better after the ice was applied on it.”
“That insolent being? He’ll be fine, he’s tougher than he looks.” William responds, disgust evident in his tone when talking about his oldest son. “I was more worried about Elizabeth than Michael.” You look at him a bit confused and he responds to your look with a blank stare, one that is devoid of any sort of emotion. You sigh after studying him for a moment, annoyed that his aura of mystery covers all sort of information that you may get from his stance alone. You get up from your chair, pushing it in a bit carelessly under the desk before moving towards the door. William’s hand on your arm stops you from moving any further as you turn back around to face him, cocking your head to the side slightly as he holds out the hand that was on your arm.
“I’m looking forward to working with you as a fellow engineer for the rest of your time here. First big project is tomorrow and I expect you to be prepared, especially in this department,” He taps a forefinger to his head with his other hand and you roll your eyes.
“I wouldn’t still be alive if it wasn’t for my brain.” You respond, hesitantly taking his outstretched hand in yours as you shake his hand, signalling the end of your time here as an innocent waiter, and the start of your time working as William Afton’s assistant.
