Chapter Text
August 12th 1981: Afton household.Hurricane,Utah
“Cmon Mikey, it’ll be fine, your dad won’t even notice. In and out, it’ll be a breeze.” Charlie had an innocent expression on her face, sharp contrast to Michael’s own terrified gaze, like she was asking for something safe and normal instead of the terrifying idea she had just proposed.
“I already said no Charlie.”
Yeah. Like that’ll convince her.
“Miiiike” she pleaded, eyes widening to an astonishing size. Probably giving everything she had to convince him to partake in this suicide mission. Charlie might have been the only one to hang around long enough to become his friend when he was the twins age, as Michael Afton, the William look alike that everyone loved to hate, rapidly becoming his dearest ( and at the time, only) friend but that didn’t mean he had to entertain every whim that popped into her head, right? Especially one like this.
He felt Charlie’s gaze boring into his soul. He sighed. Reason clearly wasn’t working, but no harm in giving it one more go. Maybe she’ll actually to reason for once. Not like he was much better, of course.
“Charlie—” He was really starting to regret letting her in today, when in typical Charlie fashion, she had appeared at his front door minutes after father had left. Knowing her, she had probably been watching his house for hours until his father had left. “Listen, Charlie— we absolutely cannot go into my father’s office. To do so would be completely suicidal. when Lizzie went in that one time, father completely lost it. He actually slapped Liz. And Liz is fathers favorite, I, on the other hand am not, just imagine what he would do to me if he caught me in there!”
Did I convince her? Michael thought as he glanced at her with a feeble feeling of hope.
Misplaced hope.
“ I am the master at sneaking, as long as you follow my lead, your dad won’t have a clue.”
Stupid stubborn Charlie Emily. Did she actually expect him to agree? He wasn’t that spineless!
Charlie had her thinking expression on her face and apparently decided to change tactics. “ guess I’ll just go all by myself then, if you’re too scared to come. I’ll tell you what I saw if I get back.” She started to walk towards father’s office.
Michael knew exactly what she was doing. Charlie was targeting his protectiveness and competitiveness to make him come with her.
What was completely infuriating was that it was working.
“ Charlie, wait!” Michael quickly hurried to catch up with her. “ you win, okay. I’ll come. Just please, try to be careful.” He saw her squash a grin. He pretended not to notice and carefully reined in his annoyance.
“I’m always careful Mikey.” Charlie perkily replied.”
“ no. you are not. And…” he felt frustration over the long standing dispute. “I told you to stop calling me Mikey. Call me Michael or Mike. Just not Mikey”
“Sure… Mikey”
Charlie was so annoying. Good thing he knew the perfect response to use.
Okay, Charlotte”
Charlie glared. Michael grinned. That was always the perfect way to stop this sort of conversation immediately. Michael wins again!
She sighed dejectedly “Fine, Mike.” She brightened up a bit, her next words sending Michael’s stomach plummeting.“Well, here we are. Let’s snoop in your dads office” Even in context that sounded disturbing. Michael swallowed, regretting most of his life choices thus far. Maybe I can get out of this somehow. “Cmon Charlie, instead of risking our life to satisfy your curiosity, let’s—“ Charlie was already gone. Well it was worth a shot, Thought michael, as he hesitantly entered the forbidden space.
__________
Hand on her hips, Charlie glanced around William’s office. It was as put together as the man itself, filing cabinets storing everything alphabetically, neat stacks of paper, a spotless floor. Charlie headed towards the nearest filing cabinet,eager to snoop, when she heard the floorboards creep behind her. She froze and glanced back.
For a terrifying moment she thought it was uncle will staring back at her, and nearly gasped in fright. Despite all her bold talk she was terrified of William, same as everyone else. He looked nervous, rubbing his hands together, why would— ? Ah. It was just Mike.
Now Charlie believed that Mike, despite his occasional nervousness, was and is an excellent friend and she’d fight anyone who said he wasn’t. He was kind, funny and usually went along with her plans, which people rarely did. However he did have the bad luck to look like William.Maybe that had something to do with his difficulty making friends, who knows? All charlie knew was that he was a great friend who would never be an evil face like William. It annoyed her how she kept on doing this, mistaking Michael for William. Michael always tried to set himself apart from William, he wore colourful messy clothes and had very long and unkemp hair, in sharp contrast to mister no hair out of place. Clearly only one thing to do here.let out a breath and pretende nothing had just happened.
“ what took you so long Mike, cmon help me look through the files.” She grinned, eager again. Mike was always so nervous when around his dad and his dads stuff. It was so funny.
She pulled energetically on the filing cabinet. Locked. Dang it. Maybe…
“ Mike, you can pick locks, right?” Mike glanced up, his fear being replaced by an incredulous expression. “since when?” He snorted, apparently his disbelief shocked him back to his normal self. “I mean really Charlie, why do you even expect me to be able to do that?”
“ I dunno, just seem like something you’d be into” she replied distractedly, looking through the papers on the desk. Boring. Even her dorky twin brother, Sammy wouldn’t be interested in this junk.
“Oi! It is not! What makes you—”
Michael was probably still talking, sounding hilariously British in his outrage, but Charlie wasnt listening anymore. Bored, she glanced around distractedly, until: wait what was… she looked again and saw a little safe in the corner of the room.
___________
Michael was furious. The nerve of that Charlie Emily! How did he look like the sort of person that knew how to pick locks? While admittedly, it was a cool skill, Mike had never given any thought of that or any skill similar, what did she take him for, a hoodlum?
“And another thing!” He was saying, still fixated on this offending assumption. He opened his mouth to continue his long winded rant, but before he could—
“Look Michael, a safe!” Charlie gasped, like it was the most wondrous thing ever. Michael’s outrage had momentarily made him forget where he was, but at Charlie's exclamation all the fear immediately rushed back.
“Charlie… I don’t think—” he started, feeling jumpy and nervous without the rage to distract him.
“ Too late!” She rushed over. “ Are you really as clueless with locks as you’re pretending?”
Oh, for the love of—
“I am not clueless with locks, Charlie. I just don’t fixate on them, like a bloody idiot I know the same amount as you do, you— wanker.” Mike was slowly turning red, not only from anger but from embarrassment. He usually tried his best to mask his accent, but it usually showed up when his temper did. He hated how the uncool it made him sound.
“ yeah, whatever britboy. Y’gonna help me or what?”
“I—you— whatever!” Michael managed to snap out, annoyed and flustered. He still walked over to check out the safe, though. It was a small safe, cleverly painted to camouflage against the wall.how did Charlie even spot this? It had a small dial to input the code. Michael inspected it, It was a three digit code that was needed. Maybe… a date? Michael pondered a few. Hesitantly he reached forward and imputed the numbers 1-2-6
His birthday.
no way It’ll work. He thought to himself, father hates me. If anything the diners opening date or the twins birthday has a better chance. He watched, flabbergasted as Charlie eagerly turned the handle and it opened.
“Looks like I was right. you are the sort to know about locks after all.” Charlie called back, looking way too smug for such a baseless accusation!
He opened his mouth to rant again that NO, he was NOT the sort to fixate on locks and he DEFINITELY didn’t look like like the type and what was that even supposed to mean— but before he could— “ Mike, check this out!” Charlie’s peppy voice distracted him from his thoughts of indignation.
She was holding up a journal.
A journal that had the words property of William J. Afton printed neatly on the front cover.
Mike felt his stomach plummet down to his shoes.
“ Charlie, NO’” he hissed, feeling his heart spike. That was FATHERS notebook. If something happened to it—
Well, let’s just say Michael would be insanely lucky to get off with a mere slap, like Liz. Why was Charlie even doing this, did she enjoy risking her life for entertainment?!
Actually yeah, she probably did.
“Cool your jets mike, before you pop a vessel. I’m just going to look through it and then we can go, a’ight matey.”
“ 2 things. 1. Don’t do that Charlie, it's annoying and makes you sound stupid. And 2…” He wasn’t going to let her damage something if Williams, no way. “Give me that!” He snatched the journal from her hands, ignoring her attempts to snatch it back. “ we came in here, looked around and now we are leaving this room and never setting foot in it ever again! I am putting my foot down. Go back to the living room as I put this back in the safe.” He quavered abut at the thought of being in this room, alone but ignored it.
“ but Michael…”
“NOW, Charlie.”
She dropped down her eyes, knowing not to push her normally controlled friend anymore. “ See you in a few Mike.” She walked out the door.
Mike really wanted to leave this room right now and spend the rest of the day playing with charlie, maybe at her house, with kind uncle Henry watching over them. Once you put the journal back, you can do just that. He reminded himself.
He crouched forward and—
Dropped the journal.
Imagine, all the worlds where Mike didn’t drop the journal, or dropped it on a different page or never came into this room at all. Where he would just put the journal back into the safe, no idea of the shocking knowledge it would bestow him. Where he would continue on his life, as his friends and everyone he knew, died around him, the worlds where, he too, died unable to save anyone.
But for all those worlds, there is a select few where something like this happens, when the fates change something so small it barely seems important, but that one thing, awful though it must seem at first, changes everything for the better. This is the catalyst of the change.
Michael crouched down to pick up the journal. Luckily, he was pretty sure it wasn’t damaged. He was about to pick it up when he noticed the date written there. 1979. The year before he was born.
And a word.
Clone.
Stomach sinking, Michael stood up and skimmed the page. He forgot why he was here, he forgot where he was, he forgot about Charlie, waiting, and he forgot about his father and how mad he would be right now. Everything else disappeared except for father’s impeccable handwriting.
It’s been years and the incident still fills me with dread. I can vividly remember the horror when I heard the springlocks fail, the pain as they dug into my flesh, leaving numerous scars, the lights and sounds of the hospital and above all, the realisation of how temporary life is and how close I came to losing it that day. I know I’m so close to cracking the secret of eternal life now, but I know that there is a chance, however small, that I may perish before I discover it. I believe I have finally discovered a solution, though. I will create an exact genetic replica of myself, or in layman's term— a clone. He will look like me, act like me and share my ideals. he will BE me, and in the event that something does indeed happen to me, he will continue my work until he learns to bring me back. And I will name him MICHAEL.
William Afton— March 8th,1969
The only sound in the room was Michael’s numb fingers dropping the journal.