Chapter Text
Warmth gushed between William’s fingers as he tried desperately to plug the vicious gash at his throat. Above him, metal joints creaked as Foxy straightened, crimson staining his outstretched hook.
An injury of this severity should have had him bleeding out in seconds, but he knew from experience that things rarely behaved how they should here. The only constant in this world was suffering, and it didn’t matter to her how realistic it was so long as he bled in the end.
An animatronic bear playing video games, a chicken terrified of slipping, a red alligator going fishing—the childish imagination was at odds with the brutal torment he was facing, and William couldn’t help but be saddened by it all.
No eight-year-old should have to do this.
Harsh laughter filled the small office and he couldn't stop the whine it pulled from him, eyes welling up at the agony that erupted in his ravaged throat.
The noise only seemed to amuse Cassidy further as she watched on from the doorway. Bright red streaks flowed down her face like blood, catching on the identical wound at her own neck. The girl almost seemed to flaunt the scar, likely proud at having gotten him back.
“What, not having fun?” she teased, teeth bared in a cruel mimicker of warmth. A dark figure hovered behind her, barely visible over her shoulder; the only features William could make out were the glowing blue tears rolling down its blank face.
He didn’t have long to dwell on this, though, as the girl stepped forward and approached him, coming to a stop just in front of where he’d collapsed against the wall. Blood coated her yellow sneakers and soaked into the hem of her baggy overalls from the considerable pool that spread out beneath him.
Up close, William could make out the true extent of the hatred burning behind those icy gray eyes. It reminded him of a violent ocean storm, turbulent and unending, with powerful waves capable of dragging you under and never letting you go.
“C-Cassidy, plea—” his voice cut off, the sharp pain rendering him mute. Begging felt like admitting defeat, but William was at his wit’s end—the strong persona he’d maintained in the beginning was gone, replaced by a man who just wanted it all to end.
She’d already won, that was clear as day to anyone with eyes, but did she really have to gloat about it too?
Cassidy’s grin sharpened, clearly relishing his attempt. A dangerous sort of mirth sparked in the girl’s eyes and unease prickled at the back of William’s neck—what was she planning?
“I guess I’ll just have to make the next round more... entertaining.” she said, motioning to the stationary animatronic still in the room. The promise in her voice made his stomach drop and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she meant every word.
Somehow, she was going to make this Hell even worse for him.
With that guarantee lingering in the air, Foxy lunged forward, and the last thing he saw was the glint of gold teeth as the animatronic’s jaw closed around his head.
William jerked awake, panic searing in his chest and face wet with tears. Eyes casting frantic searches around the room, he pressed one hand to his throat, the other clutching the sheet below him so tightly it was a wonder they didn’t tear.
It took his brain a few seconds to register his surroundings, but when it did the relief alone made him want to start crying all over again. Faded floral walls surrounded him, a pleasant change from the harsh gray and white of the office. The room itself was sparsely decorated, a far cry from the cluttered mess he’d been trapped in—a few picture frames dotted the walls, and the only other furniture besides the bed and nightstands being a giant bookcase, a dresser, and a small desk.
‘J-Just a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare, you’re ok-okay. Y-You’re okay.’ the mantra repeated over and over in his mind and he clenched his fists as tightly as possible, the sharp sting of his nails grounding in the seemingly endless terror.
It felt like someone was sitting on his chest, the weight suffocating as he struggled to breathe, and William hated how familiar the sensation had become to him. But finally, after what felt like hours but had to have been only a few minutes, the last bit of panic finally drained out of him, leaving behind a sort of hollow unease.
He must have drifted off sometime during his late night vigil, though he couldn’t have gotten more than an hour or two. Dawn was only just beginning to crest the horizon, faint sunlight streaming in through the bedroom’s thin curtains.
Exhaustion clawed at the edges of his brain; the back of his eyelids burned and he felt almost lightheaded. But in spite of all that, William felt more alive than he had in decades.
The sudden shift in emotion made his head spin, and he felt almost giddy with this newfound freedom. Taking a deep, still slightly shaky breath, William slowly relaxed his hands, his nails having left bloody divots in his palms. His muscles ached, more so than that... fit should be responsible for, and William had the distinct impression that he’d probably tensed in his sleep in an attempt to keep from crying out.
This was far from his first experience with this kind of thing. When he was much younger, William had been the victim of some pretty intense night terrors—which, in retrospect, seemed like mere child’s play compared to what he’s gone through since—and the nanny that his parents hired to care for him while away on business hadn’t exactly been thrilled to be repeatedly woken up by his screams.
Even after they returned, he’d been too anxious to bother them in fear that they’d react the same way she did. It didn’t matter that his parents had never punished him for waking them in the past, his child brain could only think of the way Miss Lena’s manicured nails had dug into the flesh of his shoulders, or how her previously pretty face had turned bright red with anger.
Of course, it didn’t help that every time his parents left for longer than what a babysitter or relative could be reasonably asked to manage—which was often, as both their jobs required lengthy trips that usually lasted weeks at a time—the same woman was employed to watch over him. In time, he’d subconsciously learned to stay quiet and still during them, and those lessons had followed him into adulthood.
As he got older the nightmares lessened, though they had never gone away entirely. During the divorce proceedings, they’d returned with vengeance, manifesting his worst fears come true: losing custody of his children, his friends turning on him and believing that he deserved everything she’d done to him, or that it was all some elaborate dream and he’d wake up right where he started, trapped in her web of lies.
Even after it was finalized, that fear had taken him months to get over—though his time spent living at Henry’s certainly helped, and deciding to move back to Hurricane had felt like severing the last few ties to his old life.
It wasn’t until Chris’ death that they became permanent fixtures in his life once more, just as they had in his youth. The weight of his sins haunted his every waking moment, tormenting him at night in his dreams and growing heavier with each vile deed he committed in the pursuit of immortal life.
Although William supposed this newest nightmare was less of a figment of his overactive imagination and more of a... memory. That little interaction had occurred fairly early on, before he realized that begging got him nowhere and decided to save what little dignity he had left.
Sitting upwards, he glanced to his left, relieved to see that he hadn’t woken Chris up by accident in his frenzied state—though it honestly didn’t come as too much of a surprise.
With how messed-up his sleep schedule was as a result of his own night terrors, the boy was almost always a little sleep deprived and once he was out, he was out—so long as he wasn’t disturbed by another bad dream, that is.
The real trouble came from actually getting him to sleep.
Insomnia had plagued William for as long as he could remember, and unfortunately it seemed his youngest had taken after him in that regard. At times like this, it made him wonder which unfortunate souls in his family line he had inherited it from.
His own father was an easy guess. Growing up, he couldn’t remember a single day where the man’s blue eyes weren’t heavily shadowed by stress and exhaustion. Even as a child, William knew his father struggled to sleep without the aid of whiskey. But then, he drank to cope with a lot of things, not just insomnia.
Beyond that, however, William was at a loss. His paternal grandparents never spoke about such topics with him, and if he had ever met any of his great-grandparents, he was far too young at the time to recall it now.
Regardless, Chris had definitely drawn the short straw here. Insomnia and nightmares were a recipe for disaster that William knew all too well. He just hoped that, unlike his father at that age, he’d be growing out of it pretty soon.
But first, he had to make sure his son actually lived long enough for that to happen.
With a tired grunt, he got to his feet, closing his eyes against the brief dizzy spell that hit him the moment he straightened up. Once he was certain he wasn’t going to collapse right back down, William made his way across the room to the large dresser standing in between the windows. The drawers squeaked as he pulled them open, and he quickly grabbed the first few items his eyes landed on, barely remembering to grab his glasses from where they’d been left on the nightstand before leaving the room.
The walk to the bathroom was far more uneventful than it had been just hours earlier—at least he wasn’t puking up his guts this time—and he made sure to lock the door behind him. Laying the small pile of clothes on the counter, William pulled the long-sleeved white shirt he’d been wearing over his head, tossing it into a nearby hamper.
In the mirror, the network of scars covering his chest and arms reflected back at him, stark against his pale skin. Leaning forward, he couldn’t help but study the knotted flesh, fascinated by the way the movement caused it to stretch and pull. The body he’d possessed in Cassidy’s Hell had been almost scar-free, save for the visible few on his hands and face, and he’d all but forgotten about the rest of them, hidden away under his clothes.
The oldest one that William could remember was so faded now he could barely see it, a small incision point just a few inches above his right hip. He’d been either fourteen or fifteen at the time, midway through the school year, when his appendix burst. The event itself was mostly a blur of throbbing, insistent pain deep in his side that lasted for days until it all of a sudden went away.
His parents had been on a business trip that month, and William hadn’t wanted to pull them away from their work—it was too important and it wasn’t like he was on his deathbed, right?—so he’d sucked it up and pretended like everything was fine, even when it felt like he actually was dying. If it weren't for Henry's father calling an ambulance when he’d fallen into delirium during their sleepover, he definitely would have.
(God, he owed that man so much, and how did he repay him? By taking away his beloved granddaughter.)
After that was the thin scar that split his left eyebrow and another, even smaller one on his cheekbone, both from the same incident. William had been in his fourth and final year of college—for his bachelor's degree, that is. There had still been several years left for his masters and doctorate—at this point, working on some side project that he couldn’t even recall the details of now.
Wearing safety goggles over his glasses had always been a major annoyance to him, and while he’d been lucky enough to avoid any mishaps in his teenage years, it couldn’t last forever.
He’d tripped over someone’s bag that had been left laying out and ended up smashing the side of his face into the corner of the metal table he’d been working at. His glasses had thankfully protected his eye, but the area around it had been blackened for weeks afterwards, and the sharp edge had split open his skin, the deeper of the two injuries requiring stitches.
William had thought he’d never hear the end of it from Henry afterwards—honestly, the age difference between them was never quite so obvious as when the other man was lecturing him. Henry was only a year older than him, yet he could so effortlessly make him feel like a misbehaving child.
In the end, it’s no surprise that he turned out to be such a good father.
He’d definitely learned his lesson after that: never believe you’re above proper procedure, because the universe will prove you otherwise. Just the thought of what Henry would say if he ended up maiming himself was enough of a deterrent to prevent him from cutting corners.
Despite the damage done to his face and pride—William had flushed beet red every time he walked into class for about a week straight afterwards, fully aware that a not insignificant chunk of his peers had witnessed his embarrassing fall and subsequent departure, half-conscious and bloodied in his best friend’s arms—the experience as a whole wasn’t all bad.
The highlight came when Michael, not even two-years-old yet, had tried to kiss it better—even if he, like all toddlers, lacked the necessary coordination to be gentle. William hadn’t minded the pain one bit, though, because that pure affection had soothed the injury better than any prescription painkiller could.
Alright, maybe that was because of the mild concussion he’d ended up with, but it had certainly lifted his spirits higher than the dose of lidocaine he’d been given.
The scars that came next were far less pleasant to think about, which clearly said a lot because William wouldn’t really call bashing his head open or a near-fatal illness ‘pleasant’, and yet here we are.
His wrist clicked softly as he slowly rotated the joint, a faint leftover from when Clara had broken it, and his eyes fell upon the thin line that ran down the side. This one had taken place back when Chris was only a few months old, he and Clara had gotten into an argument over something pretty minor in retrospect, though he can’t quite remember what it was anymore.
William wasn’t sure what exactly he’d done, but whatever it was had caused her to fly off the handle, and the next thing he knew was the sharp, throbbing pain of a broken bone. How she managed to do it, he couldn’t say, nor how she even got the strength in the first place—she certainly didn’t look strong enough to break someone’s bones, though he supposed her years of ballet dancing must've granted her some serious hidden muscle.
He could still remember the sugary-sweet words she’d whispered to him, all tearful apologies and honeyed comfort, as if that somehow made up for hurting him.
The break itself hadn’t been that bad—a clean snap across the radial bone with no splintering or fragments—but the fractured edges had ended up displaced and required surgery to realign.
It didn’t help that he’d been forced to drive himself to the hospital, since Clara had to stay back to take care of the kids and Henry was busy working on the preparations for their future business venture. Calling an ambulance was out of the question, too—they were far too expensive to waste on something as little as a broken bone.
That had been the last major injury she’d ever given him, because only a few weeks later he was serving her the divorce papers. Despite what most would think, the broken wrist had not been the final nail in the coffin for William. No, he probably would have stayed for much longer—perhaps the rest of his life, however long that would've been with her around—were it not for what he had soon witnessed.
Clara hadn’t always been a bad wife and mother, at least in the beginning, but as the years passed by she only got worse and worse. The last straw came when he witnessed her lay a hand on one of his children for the first time. He’d returned from work early one day and arrived to the sound of Chris crying, and not the usual cries for food or affection, but ones of pain and fear.
He was practically screaming, and when William had rushed to the nursery, he’d found his wife harshly pinching their son’s soft skin, the boy’s arms and legs mottled with tiny bruises and the indents of her nails.
And suddenly, he was second-guessing every interaction he’d had with his wife about their kids. Every bruise and scrape that’d been excused as the result of roughhousing, that he’d believed, because it made sense to him.
Michael had always been a rough child, he enjoyed pretend wrestling and exploring places he shouldn’t. And Elizabeth, while not quite as outdoorsy as her older brother, was energetic and clumsy. William had bore witness to many a scraped knee and bumped head before.
And so when newborn Chris began toting small bruises, he’d believed her when she said it was because he was premature, that even the smallest of bumps would color his fragile skin.
But just how many of those were really because of a fallen bike or game of tag gone wrong? How many times had she lied straight to his face? How many times were Michael or Elizabeth put in timeout or otherwise punished because their mother had used them as a scapegoat?
He hadn’t realized that by passing off his own bruises as nothing, he’d normalized it for his kids, and they’d gone on to do the same.
Last, but certainly not least, William turned his attention to the most recent set of scars on his body. He’d been doing his best to avoid looking at them so far, which was pretty hard to do considering the fact they covered about seventy-percent of his body—stretching all the way from his neck, down to his wrists and ankles.
The series of hooks, dots and lines formed a pattern upon his skin, a permanent reminder of how close he’d come to dying all those years ago, when he first experienced springlock failure.
He’d been testing out an early iteration of Fredbear, back when the spring-loaded retention-locks were little more than prototypes. William wasn’t stupid, he had known what he was doing was dangerous, but there was only so much they could do when it came to testing an empty suit.
Someone needed to try wearing it before it really became clear whether or not what they were doing was even feasible, and who better than the very man who first came up with the idea of wearable animatronic suits?
Henry, of course, hadn’t been so convinced it was as good an idea as he was. “Are you sure about this, Will?” he’d asked, brow furrowed in the same way it always did when he thought someone was about to do something idiotic.
And, because William Vincent Afton was nothing if not reckless and arrogant, he had replied, “Relax, Hen. I know what I’m doing.”
Despite the initial awkwardness that come with Fredbear having been designed with Henry’s height and build in mind, and not William’s own shorter and slimmer one—they couldn’t even do a proper vision test, on account that he simply wasn’t tall enough for his eyes to line up with the mask’s—everything had gone surprisingly smoothly as they slowly made their way down the list: making sure the joints functioned as intended by taking a lap around the workshop, seeing if he could even hold a guitar, let alone play it, and even demoing a few ideas they had in mind for an actual performance.
But then, William made a mistake. He got careless, let his guard down, stopped paying as close of attention to what he was doing as he should have and everything went to Hell in a handbasket faster than Henry could say, I told you so.
Luckily, most of the electronic components and framework required for the animatronic mode hadn’t been put in yet, otherwise he definitely would have either died or ended up horrifically maimed. As it was, he’d barely gotten away with just scars.
Even now, about three or four years later, they looked just about the same as they did when they were fresh. Raised, angry red and pink lines spanned the visible flesh of his arms and chest, stark against his pale skin. The hardest to hide were the twin crescent moons that marred the back of his neck, too far up for his shirt collars to cover.
Lifting a hand, William traced the path from his neck to his chest, over his collarbones and sternum and down to his ribcage, feeling the textural contrast between the scars and his otherwise smooth, undamaged skin.
The little he could remember of the whole incident came and went in waves: the loud snap of the springlocks going off like fireworks, unrelenting agony, the sound of screaming, Henry’s desperate cries as he called an ambulance, wailing sirens.
“Will?! Will, just hold on a little longer, okay?! Help’s on the way—!”
That should have been the end of it, the final straw that pulled the plug on the whole project. If Henry had gotten his way it would have, but unfortunately for both of them, William had never been one to stop while he was ahead and as one would expect, he wasn’t so lucky the second time around.
Six pairs of eyes stared back at him, white pinpricks in the looming darkness and he shuddered, white-hot lightning burning through his veins. The laughter from before still bubbled in his chest, adrenaline mixing with hubris and the blood no doubt pooled there.
His fingers scrabbled uselessly against the mask, the scrape of metal on metal almost as grating as the Marionette’s endless gaze, simultaneously accusing and pitying from where it floated protectively behind its five spectral charges.
He was drowning, vision swimming as he struggled to pull oxygen into his lungs, and he just barely noticed as the spirits began to fade away, leaving him alone in the darkness. Desperation rose in him, a primal sort of fear that he had only ever felt once before in his life.
He didn’t want to die.
Please, he didn’t want to die alone—
William screwed his eyes shut and forced the memory away as hard as metaphorically possible, turning away from the mirror and focusing instead on changing his clothes rather than the marks on his skin. Only once he was finished did he turn back, now dressed in a thin purple sweater and plain black sweatpants. It was far more casual than William would’ve normally worn in the past, but the fabric was soft on his mangled skin and it wasn’t like he was planning to leave the house anytime soon.
Smoothing a hand over his hair, William took a deep breath, then grimaced at the taste of stale bile in his mouth. Thankfully, brushing his teeth was a pretty quick and mindless activity, over before his thoughts could even begin to drift away from him again.
Finally stepping out of the bathroom, he continued on, past Michael, Elizabeth, and Chris’ respective rooms, to where the hallway finally ended, splitting off into two directions—to the left was the front entrance, and the right opened up into the living room and kitchen area. Perpendicular to the front door, nestled in a small alcove, were the doors to the laundry room and basement.
Reaching up, William ran his fingers along the rim of doorframe, feeling for the spare basement key he kept there—it was the perfect hiding spot: easy for him to find, but too high up for any of the kids to reach on their own. The door swung open with ease, revealing the u-shaped staircase down.
Resting his hand on the railing, he slowly began his descent into the plunging darkness, wincing as the wood groaned beneath him. The cold concrete floor at the bottom felt like ice against his bare feet and he shivered, fumbling for the lightswitch.
With a soft click, the lights flickered on, illuminating the sizable but crowded space. Walls covered in a motley of blueprints, boxes stacked upon shelves, various tools hung from pegboards and lay scattered upon the many workbenches and machinery tables.
The basement was one of the few places in the house—the others being his children’s rooms, for obvious reasons—that William had actually bothered to remodel fully, seeing as the space doubled as both his workshop and home office. If he was going to be spending the majority of his time somewhere, it wouldn’t be with décor that threatened to burn his eyeballs out of their sockets.
He could tolerate the bright orange wallpaper that consumed most of the living space upstairs, and the brown and green ‘avocado’ bathroom, but he drew the line at shag carpet and wood panel walls. Not only were they an affront to anyone who valued their ocular health, but it was also just a plain fire hazard. All it would take was one stray spark while he was welding for the whole place to burst into flames.
So, he had it all torn out and replaced. Nothing too fancy, just concrete tiles and fire-rated drywall, but it was at least a little more interesting than an entirely concrete box. William had been tempted to soundproof the room while he was at it so that he could get some peace and quiet while he worked, but being a single father of three meant that wasn’t a good idea.
Any kind of loud noise—like screaming, or the fire alarm—bled through the ceiling and he left the door unlocked while he was down here, so he could be easily reached in the event of an emergency. The kids knew better than to interrupt him while he was busy—his work could be very dangerous, after all—though on rare occasions he did allow them to sit in during some of the less hazardous steps of his projects. Elizabeth especially was very interested in what he did.
Would she have followed in his footsteps, given the chance to grow up? William knew she enjoyed creating things, like clay statues and papier-mâché volcanoes, almost as much as she loved taking them apart. He couldn’t leave his tools anywhere upstairs because she would try to dismantle something: an alarm clock, a radio, even some of her own toys!
Her favorite was the white-and-pink Foxy figurine he’d made for her—the basis for what would one day be Funtime Foxy—Elizabeth had torn him apart and put him back together so many times that William honestly lost count.
Ironic, considering what would become of his future Toy iteration.
Would that passion have extended to engineering? Perhaps not animatronics, exactly, but maybe something similar? The thought saddened him, though it also hardened his resolve. He was going to fix this, no matter what it took. Even if it killed him, it would be worth it to give his children the chance to live long, happy lives without him.
Gathering himself back together, William made his way further in the room, past sheet-covered projects and heavy duty machinery, and froze at the sight of the calendar that hung above his main desk—or, more specifically, the date circled in bright red marker: June 17th, 1983.
Chris’ sixth birthday.
He’d known already that it had to be coming soon, though he couldn’t be entirely sure. He had hoped to have at least a few days to process his new situation and think before he had to act, but the sea of red X’s that preceded the date only confirmed what he had been dreading.
In just a handful of hours, his son was going to die: his skull crushed between Fredbear’s blunt teeth, then withering away in a hospital bed for a week until what was left of his brain finally gave up under the immense trauma. He’d just gotten him back, and now he was going to be snatched away again if he didn’t do something about it. Wincing at the tension headache beginning to build behind his eyes, William released a soft growl.
Well, there was absolutely no way that party was happening. He would have to come up with some kind of excuse as to why he was canceling so suddenly, especially since he had been pretty dead set on having it take place at the diner.
Faking a family emergency was immediately out of the question, he hadn’t been in contact with his parents or any of his extended family in years, and Henry would see through it immediately. A hospital visit would definitely derail the whole event, but he wasn’t exactly thrilled at the thought of having to injure himself to make it work, and he didn’t want to completely ruin Chris’ birthday.
Perhaps he could pretend to be ill? Granted, that hadn’t ever stopped him from working in the past, but it was the most believable out of everything he could think up. And besides, it didn’t have to be perfect. Henry would probably accept just about anything so long as it wasn’t life-threatening, regardless of whether he really believed it.
Truthfully, William was just looking to avoid as many questions as he could, and this option seemed the best for it.
With that settled, he turned his attention to the small push-button telephone he kept on his desk. It was still pretty early in the morning, but he wasn't particularly worried about bothering Henry. The man had always been quite the early bird, waking up on time each and every day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, regardless of how many hours he’d gotten prior.
William used to envy that about him, being a perpetual night owl himself, though he did have to admit that the role reversal during late work sessions made it all worth it. It was rather amusing to see someone who was normally so lively yawning into their coffee mug, especially when you yourself were unaffected.
Smirking fondly, he picked the handset up off of its cradle and lifted it to his ear, listening for the familiar long buzz of the dial tone. Even now, over thirty years after the last time he used it, William still had Henry’s phone number memorized—though even if he didn’t, muscle memory alone was enough as he quickly input the number.
Ring!
Anticipation rose in him like a tidal wave, overtaking the anxiety and dread that settled heavy in the pit of his stomach. After escaping Fazbear’s Fright, William had often wondered what would happen if he called Henry.
Did he still have the same number?
Would he answer even if he did?
How would that conversation go?
William couldn’t imagine that Henry would’ve been happy to hear from him after three decades worth of radio silence, and as much as he wanted to ask, he also hadn’t really wanted to find out whether or not Henry had even bothered to look for him.
As long as he didn’t call, he could pretend that Henry missed him.
Ring!
In the end, he never did work up the courage to go through with it, despite how much he longed to hear Henry’s voice. It was probably for the best, anyhow, considering how their eventual reunion did play out.
It said a lot that his best friend was willing to quite literally burn alive just to make sure there was nothing left of him on Earth.
To say nothing of the fact that William still wasn’t sure how exactly he ever would have gone about explaining his new form. It’s not everyday that a man has to inform one of his loved ones that he died and is now haunting his own mummified corpse inside a decaying rabbit suit.
Henry always had a way of seeming like he knew every little thing William tried to keep secret, something he’d found annoying when they were growing up and then nerve-racking after he’d begun his plans, as if the man would know all his sins just by looking at him.
Which was ridiculous, frankly. Henry wasn’t omniscient, just observant and it was no surprise that he knew all of his tells after nearly three decades of friendship. But even so, he couldn’t deny the mounting fear that the other man would answer and discern everything just from the tone of his voice.
After all, didn’t he somehow figure out that William was Springtrap all on his own? Who’s to say he won’t figure this out, too? That he won’t just know?
Ring—click!
“...Hello? Emily speaking.”