“It’s not your fault, sweetheart. You did everything you could.” ( michael and rosa )
" it's not your fault, sweetheart. you did everything you could. "
[[ both my afton boys are getting love today <3 also i uh. decided to interpret this as some weird twisted up timeline thing where rosa is around to comfort michael after jeremys bite because i can NOT get that out of my mind. im sorry it fit too well and i. hm. i promise im entirely normal about michael and his assortment of Problems. ]]
-- [ asked by @khalaesi ] --
It's safe to say at this point that Michael is an absolute wreck. It'd been a week and a half since he'd received that phone call - and, oh boy, what an experience that was, when his father picked up the phone first and the poor manager who was just looking for their night guard's emergency contact ended up in a confrontation with the owner of their entire company - and he'd hardly left his room since. Well, no, that was a lie. He'd gathered up his things, walked to his mom's house, and then shut himself in his room. There was no way in Hell he was going to deal with his father's temper. Not now. Not after the news he'd received. Maybe not ever again, not after this.
He had been on one of his quick kitchen runs, looting the pantry and fridge for just enough food and water to get by before he could make it back into his room and lock himself away again. Rosa's voice startled him, making him drop the cup he'd been holding - luckily it was just one of their shitty plastic ones, and didn't break, just clattered obnoxiously against the tile floor. Fuck, he hadn't even realized she was in the dining room.
Sighing, he didn't bother to pick up his cup, slowly turning to face his mother and brace himself on the counter, resting his weight on his elbows as if he didn't even have the strength to resist gravity's pull any longer. In all honesty, he looked the part, too, with the dark circles under his eyes looking more like black holes, and his long, curled hair that he had always prided himself upon resting on his shoulders in a tangled mess. No doubt, it would mat with only a few more days of neglect and the whole mass would need to be chopped off, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. Just as he couldn't find it in himself to care about much else lately, including what used to be the well-managed, oft-shaved scraggly little bits of facial hair he was beginning to grow in. Overall, he looked like a mess. Not that he cared. But he was sure his mother would just look upon him with concern as soon as she truly saw his face, which he really didn't want to deal with right now. He loved her, sure, but the guilt over worrying her was another drop in the already overflowing bucket he was dragging around with him everywhere he went.
"You heard, huh? Who told you? Know it wasn't William, you'd rather die than talk to him again, and, honestly, I would, too. Was it Uncle Henry? Fuck, did I manage to get him dragged into my shit too?" To be fair, Henry was going to be involved no matter what. An employee was killed by one of his and William's inventions in one of their restaurants. He just... Didn't think Henry knew that he and Jeremy had known each other. Hell, he hadn't even thought that his mother knew of Jeremy at all. He thought they had been discreet. Hopefully, none of them were aware of just how close the two had been.
He let out a steadying exhale, unfolding his hands from the counter to hide his face in them for a moment. "That's the problem, I didn't do anything. I sat all nice and safe at home while he went to his shift not knowing that he wouldn't make it back in the morning," he said, trying so, so hard to keep his voice level, but, even still, it broke. Maybe he could write it off as being rusty from disuse.
"This keeps happening." Face finally lifting from his hands, his tired eyes lock with those of his mother. Such a familiar color. For as much as he's said to be a mirror image of his father, he still received his fair share from her, in his own little ways. His eyes, gentle where he could never remember William's to be anything but piercing. His curls, his smile - she was always there with him, just less noticeably than his father was. "First Evan, now... Now Jeremy. And William still acts like he doesn't know where Lizzie ended up, but... There's been too many of these 'accidents.' These animatronics are fucking dangerous, Mom. Why doesn't anyone notice? Why isn't anybody worried?"
Pushing off from the counter, he rounded the corner to the dining room, dragging a chair over to his mother's seat and plopping down next to her, movements sloppy, uncoordinated. He didn't even notice the tears dampening his cheeks until he rested his head on her shoulder, wet face pressing into the soft fabric of her top and eliciting a soft "sorry" from the exhausted boy.