Chapter Text
One of the only times William has been grateful for anything in his life was meeting his best friend, Henry Emily, at the ripe age of eighteen. William had moved to America at seventeen and soon started college that next year when he turned eighteen. He was a complete outcast in that school being that he was from halfway across the world. He was bullied horrendously for it, and throughout high school he had earned the title of ‘The weird British kid’.
That’s when his gaze suddenly fell on Henry, the (also outcasted) weird, nerdy kid. The kid who never talks to anyone because he’s afraid of what they’d think of him. The kid who could never relate to anyone else his age because he didn’t like the things that they did. The kid who gets bullied by his peers because he was different.
William decided to introduce himself to him, just for the hell of it, which Henry thought he had been dared to do at first. But once his honey brown eyes met William’s silver-gray eyes, he knew that William was genuine. The two instantly clicked and were by each other’s side every single day, even though they found out they were polar opposites from each other.
Of course, nothing could happen as William planned, and that next year they were approached by two women, both about their age. The two of them happened to be sisters, but at first glance no one could tell they were related. One had blonde, slightly wavy hair, deep sea blue eyes and had fair skin, her name was Heather. The other had brunette straight hair, dark green colored eyes, light freckles on her face and tanner skin than her sister, her name was Evelyn.
They both had started hanging around them often, which annoyed William because he had just wanted to be alone with Henry, but he didn’t want to say anything because he didn’t want to come off as rude (and give his family a bad name like he did back in England) especially upon those first few meetings.
Then during their third year at the college, Heather confessed her love for Henry and Evelyn confessed her love for William. Both were surprised, to say the least, being that they were both outcasts. The week after the confessions were made, Henry confessed his love for Heather, which William was shocked he had confessed because he had never heard him say anything about it.
What the fuck?! William thought. He thought it was just going to be him and Henry for college, but these two random women who they had never seen before came up and confessed their love for them, and now Henry was together with Heather. Henry assured William he’d still stick around, and he stuck to his word thank God, but Evelyn kept following William around like a persistent puppy, like she wanted him to love her back. William desperately tried to ignore her, but he couldn’t. He had tried for months on end to get her to stop bugging him about it, and nothing seemed to work. He didn’t love her, or even like her for that matter.
William eventually decided to fake a confession of love to her thinking it would work and she’d stop being persistent. That didn’t work out as well as he thought, and the two eventually got together. William decided to stay with her just to see how it goes, and he found she wasn’t as bad as he thought, but he wasn’t in a relationship he wanted to be in. He wanted to genuinely love, to genuinely care about someone but he couldn’t quite feel anything when he was with Evelyn.
He had tried everything, even convincing and forcing himself to love her back, but nothing seemed to work. But William decided to stay with Evelyn because of two reasons. First, because he could see Evelyn genuinely loved him and didn’t want her nagging him again. Secondly, because Henry and Heather were madly in love with each other, and since Evelyn was Heather’s sister she would probably try to prevent him from seeing Henry because she would see him as untrustworthy, which he couldn’t stand the thought of.
That last year of college was the strangest William had ever experienced. Not school-wise, but relationship-wise.
That next year after William and Henry got out of college, they both scraped up enough money to get themselves places to live. Of course, Henry was going to ask Heather to live with him since the two seemed like they couldn’t stand to be apart for more than a week. But alas, William decided to do the same with Evelyn. He wasn’t sure it was what he wanted, but he decided to do it anyway out of spite.
He wanted to prove his parents wrong. He wanted to prove to them that he can live a ‘normal’ life. Granted, his father had died earlier that year and took the last name William hated, Miller, with him. William had to admit that he was joyful for his father’s death, but his mother didn’t treat him any better than he did.
She was always calling him a disappointment, that God had somehow made a mistake with him, an embarrassment to her or some other insult she made up just to make his life miserable. He hated her. The only difference between his father and mother was that his father would hit him with anything he could find if William did something he didn’t like.
The two women excitedly accepted the offer to live with them, since they also wanted to get out of their house with their little brother who’s five years younger than they were. Soon, Heather was living with Henry in his apartment and Evelyn was living with William in his apartment.
Those next few years after that seemed to fly by in front of William’s face. At first it was pretty slow, and Henry asked him to work as a partnership on this restaurant he had dreamed of opening since they met. William agreed and they both got the legal phases down in no time and were now starting to work on animatronic mascots (they were both very much into mechanics, but Henry had it as more of a passion than William being that William was more of a business person, and they both decided William would handle the business aspects of this diner) and the restaurant Henry’s always wanted to own was being built.
After it was finally built and one animatronic mascot was finished (complete with spring locks, which was William’s pitched idea to save money) Henry ended up proposing to Heather, and she said yes. William never thought that their relationship would go that far, but William decided that since he didn’t want to go looking for another partner, that he would do the same to Evelyn in that same year which she excitedly said yes to.
But, both Henry’s and William’s engagements were different. Henry and Heather were treating each other like any normal engaged couple would, while William ended up getting Evelyn pregnant a month before they were married. William, of course, didn’t know until after he was officially married to Evelyn. William never meant for it to happen; he didn’t want to start a family so soon. If anything, this was the result of merely being drunk.
One night while he was home a week after after he was officially married to Evelyn and she left for bed, he fiddled with a vial of a strange substance he had for years. He had no idea what it was and didn’t dare tell anyone about it, but his attention was drawn to the television screen when he saw something that had never appeared before. He thought he was going crazy since he was half asleep on the couch, but he rubbed his eyes and it was still there.
The television suddenly went static, and William could barely make it out, but he saw a face. Not just any face though, the face of Evelyn’s father. She had only mentioned him once or twice, and told him he died of suicide their first year of college while he was away on a business trip. William was frightened to say the least, but he knew what he saw was real. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it.
William and Henry used to live close to one another so they would see each other often. But what Henry had at home were two siblings and his mother. One older sister and one younger brother.
One day during the summer the youngest had gone with his mother to run errands, but he was kidnapped, taken to a dark alleyway and killed.
Henry and his younger brother were close as can be, despite their age difference. They were always there for each other, shared interests and really the only person the other trusted. When Henry learned that he died he fell into a state of depression and often refused to take care of himself. He would vent to William and bring himself to the point of tears and William hated seeing Henry this upset. William knew that he had to get revenge on this person, even if it killed him and nothing was going to stand in his way. He was going to make sure of it.
As crazy as William was, he found out where the man was staying, and it just so happened that it was Evelyn’s father who had did this crime. It turned out that her father was in their town for a business trip, so he was staying alone. William eventually found a way to sneak into where her father was staying and killed him without mercy, he had no sympathy towards him or his family and he was never caught for the killing of this man. William, at the mere age of twenty, had committed his first murder. Not for himself, but for Henry.
William eventually got up the courage to walk over to the television set, but he got frightened by the volume of the static being turned up suddenly, but he dropped the vial on the set and was so angry that he kicked it, but the screen shattered. He figured that it would be alright because he had enough money to replace it.
“Aren’t so scary now, are you Mr. Schmidt?” he said. William laughed and went to bed.
But what he now knew he had was an irrational fear of the paranormal.
Months passed, and soon William was pacing all around the smoke-filled waiting room. Evelyn was at the hospital finally giving birth but, since it was 1969, William wasn’t allowed in. Heather was in the room with Evelyn since she was allowed to call her female friends and relatives to help her, but no males were allowed.
William sat back down and could hear the screams of pain from both his wife and the other mothers, which gave him flashbacks of Evelyn’s father. He shuddered at the thought as he took the cigarette out of his mouth to exhale the smoke.
He felt Henry put a hand on his shoulder when he put the cigarette back in his mouth. He had called Henry so he wouldn’t be alone in the hospital waiting room (William hated hospitals) but Henry seemed more disturbed from the screams than William, even though his wife wasn’t giving birth.
“Scared of a couple screams?” William asked Henry teasingly.
“No! You are!” Henry said as he took his hand off William’s shoulder, which he realized he was squeezing tighter than he thought. William laughed and offered Henry a cigarette, which he took. They both waited anxiously for any news about Evelyn or her pregnancy, and after what felt like hours they saw Heather come into the room. Henry smiled as she came over to them.
Great. I have a kid now, William thought.
A while later William was able to see Michael, but only from behind a nursery window along with the rest of the newborns. He was in the back, but William only recognized him by his last name, Afton. William saw that he looked strangely like him, almost identical, but he thought he was just seeing things.
A week later, William, Evelyn and baby Michael went back to the apartment. It was then William realized he wasn’t seeing things, Michael looked almost exactly like him but smaller. He had wavy, dark brown hair (almost black) like William’s, the same face shape as William’s, and gray eyes, like William’s. The only noticeable differences between them was that his eyes were tinted with a sky blue, and he had many tiny, dull freckles scattered on his face which were inherited from his mother. Michael’s tiny, curious eyes would dart around, making sure he got a good look at everything since he knew he wasn’t in the hospital anymore.
Within weeks, Michael would find his voice and babble and make noise almost nonstop, which William was not prepared for in the slightest. After babbling for months, he learned to talk. The simple words mainly, ones that many toddlers could say. When he was almost a year old, he started walking and learning to run.
A few days before Michael’s first birthday, the diner had opened for business. The one Henry’s been dreaming about since he was young. The one William was asked to own in a 50/50 partnership with Henry. They were both proud of what they accomplished, and they both felt like genuinely proud parents. Within months it was already a huge success, even though the diner was fairly small.
The two decided to call the diner ‘Fredbear’s Family Diner’ after Henry’s decided name for the bear animatronic. William decided to name the rabbit animatronic Springbonnie because it was a springlock animatronic, and because when he was a child he always called rabbits ‘bonnies’ before he could say it correctly. Both the rabbit and the bear represented them as a partnership, both so different but had eventually come together by fate.
As little Michael got older, William and Evelyn learned that he was very extroverted and would talk almost 24/7, even to himself. He would play and make messes with anything he could reach and his parents constantly had to tell him not to. Although, Evelyn was usually a lot more calm when telling him; she would say something along the lines of ‘Mike, don’t do that please.’ and Michael would listen.
William, on the other hand, was very easy to piss off and would yell at him. Evelyn would almost constantly have to stop her husband from hitting their four year old and Michael was more scared of his father than his mother, but regardless he still looked up to his father. Michael would sometimes watch William silently when he worked, which annoyed William but he would be so invested in his work that he barely seemed to notice him.
Henry and Heather would come around often since Heather and Evelyn were sisters, but what William learned is that both of them loved kids. He noticed that whenever they were around Michael, they would care for him like they were also his parents and Michael was happy around them.
When William got Evelyn pregnant a second time, Michael would stay at the Emily’s (who had just gotten married a few months prior), where Henry introduced Michael to drawing. Michael immediately loved it. Henry would teach him how to draw simple shapes since he was young and Michael quickly caught on. Even though he wasn’t the best at his young age, he wouldn’t let that stop him from trying. He was as happy as ever at the Emily’s, but he knew all good things couldn’t last forever.
He knew he would have to go back sometime. But there will also be a new person in their family which Michael wasn’t ready for. He’s gotten used to being an only child for four (almost five) years already, so he didn’t know what to expect.
Once William and Evelyn brought baby Evan home, he wasn’t as bad as Michael initially thought. He noticed that baby Evan looked like a weird mix of his parents: light brown hair from Evelyn, he ended up getting bright blue eyes with no hints of gray from William and of course, Evelyn’s dull freckles.
The only thing that Michael couldn’t stand was his crying, not just when he was a baby but even as he got older; he cried whenever he felt scared, which was often. The only time he wouldn’t cry is when either William or Evelyn was with him and he knew he was safe. Michael soon caught on to this and would simply hide behind doors and jump out at him and yelled ‘boo!’. Evan would get scared and run to his parents crying while Michael would laugh at how easily he got scared.
When Evan was three and Michael was seven (almost eight) William ended up getting Evelyn pregnant a third time. Every time he got her pregnant he would rant to Henry that it was an accident or he didn’t mean to get another kid. Henry usually assured him that it would all be fine, that he will still get through this, that he is strong enough and he would still be there every step of the way.
William always knew Henry was telling the truth whenever he said those things and that they weren’t just some rehearsed dialogue. Whenever he says that he would still be with him every step of the way, for a brief moment he actually feels safe and protected which he never usually does. Every time, William can’t help but smile at Henry.
Nine months later, Michael and Evan were at the Emily’s house again (both the Afton’s and the Emily’s got their own houses around the time Evan was born, only a couple miles apart from each other). But this time was different. Usually, the Emily’s didn’t have them around for about a week, a few hours to a night at most. Michael was a lot more hectic this time and loved seeing how badly he could scare Evan. They would constantly have to tell him to stop and eventually resorted to threatening to take things away. Michael seemed to calm down after that and go off to draw pictures Henry.
What a lot of people didn’t know is that he had started scaring Evan because it’s what his father would have done if he had a younger sibling. Michael just wanted his approval, even at his young age and for his father to notice him. He only scared his brother because William saw Evan as weak, being that he always needed to be around them, so he did as well.
William had noticed Michael was a lot like him in many ways. Sure, the looks were one thing, but Michael has taken interest in a fox animatronic blueprint his father had in his office recently. His father had noticed that Michael had taken interest in it, just like how he had taken interest in Springbonnie.
William’s plan for his son to follow in his footsteps was coming along nicely.
When William and Evelyn came back a week later with baby Elizabeth, the two boys noticed she looked very different from them. She looked almost like Evelyn, bright green eyes and the freckles all of the Afton kids got, but she had bright red hair which none of their parents had. Even if the boys thought it was strange that she had red hair, both William and Evelyn knew it was because William’s mother had red hair as did Evelyn’s mother.
“When are you going to settle down and have a couple of your own?” William asked Henry one day, a little teasingly. He really didn’t want him to, but he knew Henry had a soft spot for children.
“Kids?” Henry asked.
“Yes kids! What did you think I meant? I know that you want them.”
“I do, we both do. But uh, I don’t know.”
What William didn’t know is that Henry and Heather have tried a couple times after they got married, but each time Heather has had miscarriages very early on in the pregnancy. They were both devastated that they failed to have the family they always dreamed of having together many times, but were determined.
A few months after that conversation, Henry learned that Heather was pregnant with twins and they were both strong enough to live. Henry told William excitedly but William felt his heart drop, he was just joking around with him before, but now Henry and Heather were starting their family, so where does that leave him?
When the twins Charlotte and Samuel were born, William noticed Henry started acting differently. Henry started devoting all of his attention towards his children (especially Charlotte). Sure, they saw each other at work but it was different. They were in a professional setting at work and it wasn’t the same as being off of work on their own time.
Henry only spent a lot of time with his children because he didn’t want to be like the father William was. William was neglectful, almost always threatening to hit his own kids when they made him angry and his kids were constantly trying to get approval from him just to make him proud of them. He didn’t want to end up like him, he wanted his children to see him as a father who will care for them and make time for them. He wanted them to know he was there for them the rest of his days, he believed that’s what children needed and that was his job now as a parent.
Henry decided to risk it and bring all of it up to William, just to tell him to be a better father and that his kids will probably cut him off if he kept up the way he was acting towards them. William lied straight to Henry’s face and said that he will try, but once he got to the privacy of his own home he found a pen and took out his journal that he hasn’t written in for months that was starting to collect dust.
He flipped to the next empty page, most of the pages were filled with him ranting about the kids or obsessing over Henry, which wasn’t any different than it had been for the last several years. He took out his pen and started writing in his same messy but readable handwriting.
‘Henry said that he wants me to be a better father, but I know that’s never going to happen. I haven’t changed for years, what was he expecting?! I think Henry thought I was being selfish even if he was being nice and said he didn’t think so, but just because he’s had three of his unborn kids die and I haven’t. If Evelyn would allow me to have him adopt them instead, I would. But, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I want to keep them now that I have them. I want to show Henry that I am their father, not him. Hell, while I'm at it, the whole reason I married Evelyn was to show him and my parents that I could be with her! I only got together with her in college because Henry decided to fall in love with Heather! Granted, I did love Evelyn at first, but it quickly died out and the only reason I stayed with her was because Henry was with Heather, and I wanted to show him I can be her husband. I didn’t want to be with Evelyn. But if I broke up with her when my love for her died out, Henry would probably think I was a total loser or some type of sick in the head like everyone else did in England, and I couldn’t afford that. But who knows how long I can keep this lovey-dovey act up. I’ve already done it for what, more than ten years? I’m tired of pretending. But I want to see how long it takes before I’ve fully decided I’ve had enough. That probably won’t be long.’