Chapter Text
-One Year Later-
Michael waved goodbye to the kids as he walked backstage, prying off the Spring Bonnie costume. William was right, this thing was way too hot. He was sweating and it didn’t help that he had to do tricks, like cartwheels and sing. His voice was starting to hurt. But if it was to see the smiling faces of his siblings, Charlie and Lizzie laughing at him when his voice cracked and Evan cheering him on, he could manage.
“So, how is it going?” Michael asked as he put the costume up on the hook in the utility closet, which was more of a basement. William was standing on a ladder, screwing something together in the head of a giant bear.
“No good. This thing won’t start.” William grumbled as he stepped down from the animatronic.
“He looks nice, seems a bit much with the —” Michael referred to the plethora of colors that littered the animatronic bear. Stars and bright neon stripes on the legs and the arms of the bear. “colors, but I dig it.”
“I’m going for more of the 80’s theme, you know.” William hit Michael in the shoulder, who responded with a roll of his eyes. After the incident at the other Freddy’s , William could no longer perform with the Spring Bonnie costume, so that was Michael’s job. And now he understood his father’s hatred towards the costume. It smelt like BO even with all the Febreze you put in there, it still smelt. It was hot, even in 60 degree air condition, and it was stiff and you really couldn’t move that well. That is why William was working overtime with Michael to make new animatronics.
The endoskeleton was safer, if people wanted to go inside, even though William thought that idea was crazy, they could without getting hurt. It was tall, had padding on the hands, and had a defensive procedure in case some hobo came in with a gun or weapon. Also incredible safety settings, oh yeah, no child was getting hurt with these babies (that’s what William called them.)
“Looks great. What is it called again?”
“Freddy Fazbear. Because it was my idea in the first place, Ben!” William said to no one. “Or get this —” William cleared his throat. “Glamrock Freddy! Huh?” He waved his hands in a jazz sort of way.
“Stick with Freddy.” Michael said deadpanned.
Henry yelled to Charlie and Lizzie to stop yelling at each other to see who won in the new Super Smash Bros game. However, when, Charlie and Lizzie didn’t listen to their father until he grabbed the remote controller and switched to another channel where a football game was playing. Henry knew Charlie’s and Lizzie’s hatred for the sport. Basically he did that to annoy them.
“Aww!” Charlie and Lizzie both said at the same time. Henry shrugged his shoulders as he called William and Michael for dinner. Abby had made her famous arepa con queso . You could smell the wonderful food a mile away. William basically kicked down the door to the workshop, where Michael came follow after.
“Dad! Papa turned off the game!” Lizzie complained to William. William looked to Henry, who shrugged.
“What were you doing?”
“Well, Charlie cheated!” Lizzie moved her head towards Charlie, who quickly said: “no she did!”
“Okay, okay.” William split the two girls before they started to fight. “We need to eat, so let’s just sit down, huh?” The two girls gave each other the most deadliest stare before agreeing and sat down.
There was a hurried knock on the door and the sound of someone running away. William groaned, thinking that it might be another ding dong ditch. They had been getting that a lot from the new generation turning slowly to the teens age.
William walked to the door, opening it up. Not to his surprise, there was no one there. He sighed, but before he closed the door, he heard a whimper in the silent darkness. He looked down, near the garden, covered by the large step, was a bundle of blankets.
“Henry?!” William called his husband. He heard the scrapping of the chair and soon Henry was right beside him. “Just stay here okay?” Henry nodded as William walked down to the blankets. It seemed to be moving.
Was it an animal? Probably a dog or a cat, Charlie did say that she was old enough to take care of an animal, now they wouldn’t have to go out — oh fuck. Was that a baby?!
“Er — hello?” William said. The baby’s face was bright red, from the cold spring air. He had dark brown eyes and the tuff of curly, matted dark brown hair that matched his eyes almost too perfectly. He had a thin shirt that was too big for him, and the blankets were too thin. He must have been freezing.
“Hello? Is this anyone’s?” William called out as he opened the gate. There was no one around for a good mile, and everyone else’s house, their windows were closed shut and the lights were out. It was pretty late, so they should be asleep. William held the small child closer to his chest, hopefully body warmth would give some warmth to the kid.
“Will?” Henry called out. William came walking back, closing the door where he looked at the child widely. “Holy fuck, is that a baby?”
“Yeah. Hey, Mikey, can you hold him for me?”
“Sure.” Michael gently took the baby, who immediately launched his tiny, little finger in a death grip to Michael’s pinky. The baby smiled, cooing up to Michael.
“Aww, he’s adorable.” Abby sighed as they made faces to the small child, who giggled brightly at them.
“There’s a letter here.” William opened the letter, which had squiggly writing as if someone had written this in a panic.
‘To the Afton-Emily family,
I know you can protect my beautiful creation.
Please, there are things and people looking for him.
Please, you protected Michael, you can protect him.’
“Real sweet and to the point. And it's a bit weird how they know about Michael.” Abby said as they tickled the belly of the baby. “And I have never heard someone call their child, ‘ my beautiful creation,’ red flags there buddy.” They cooed to the baby. He made a face back at them, giggling at the returned facial expression that Abby gave to the little boy.
“What’s his name?” Michael asked.
“Oh, I got some good ones.” Henry declared. “What about Tommy? Or, wait, what about Eliot, or Elijah?” Henry kept naming off boy’s names, but the baby didn’t seem to react to them, well because he was a baby. “Huh? Don’t like them?”
“He’s not a dog.” William laughed. He turned the letter over, where another word was written in terrible writing and had a spot of blood on the end of the letter. That wasn’t a good sign. “Oh, I found it.”
“Found what?” Michael asked.
“His name.” William said. There was a pause, maybe to make it more climatic, maybe it was William’s way of trying to untense the situation. I mean, they just found a baby on their front doorstep.
“Gregory.”
“I still like Eliot better.” Henry huffed.