"Not now, William," the old man sighed in irritation and weariness, His once-bright orange shirt was pale, faded, and stained with alcohol. But if the stains weren't obvious, the stench was. It smelled like spirits. The orange man and everything within a 12-inch radius of him smelled like liquor. His son, who wore a finely-pressed purple shirt, held his breath as he stood a mere three inches away.
"But, please, Dad, I-" the boy tried to hold out several pieces of what appeared to be a model airplane.
"No!" the orange man snapped, anger overtaking weariness. He struggled to sit up taller in his recliner, but slumped back down quickly. He did not need to rise up, however, because his sharp word did the job. William seemed to deflate, face and outstretched arms falling.
"Oh," he said, in a very small and quiet voice. "Ok. I get it. Maybe later. Ok?" but he didn't wait around for an answer. He turned around and scampered to his room while his father turned back to the TV in front of his recliner and neither of them looked back even once.
Such a scene was very common at the Afton household. It had been as such ever since Edward's drinking problem drove his wife away, leaving William stuck with him. Every morning, William got himself up and boarded the bus to school. Every afternoon, he came home and hid in his room until the next day. All the while, Edward would be in and out of the house, working a crappy part-time job to buy more alcohol if he wasn't lost in his own bed, still recovering from a previous night's binge. Because of this, father and son rarely ever saw one another, and when they did, it was anywhere from a neutral and awkward to outright hostile encounter that never lasted more than maybe half an hour at a time. The two were estranged, to say the least, but Edward did not care and William was too afraid to try and confront his father about this. It broke his heart that Dad would never play with him the way normal fathers and sons would, but he was far too afraid to ask why. Instead, he simply took his unbuilt plane model back to his room and wept softly into his pillow as he held the many pieces, as numerous as his broken heart, to his chest.
In William's earliest days, Edward had only drank a little. Maybe more than the average man, but certainly not enough to qualify as alcoholic. Back then, Edward had been funny and fun. William was not afraid of him then. But then something happened. And William wasn't sure what it was. He didn't know which came first: the increase of alcohol consumption, or the fights between Edward and Victoria. All William knew was that both increased in a vicious cycle until Victoria up and left. She hadn't even thought to try and take William out with her. Instead, she walked out and William would never see her again. In her place came copious quantities of alcohol, dangerous amounts, but Edward was far too used to the effects to be at risk of death. Now this was where William stood, in a very broken home, but the house and the neighborhood in which he lived seemed so typical that no one ever once thought that William's home life might've been abusive. It never even crossed their minds because such a thing did not happen in that town. Even after William had tried to explain, nobody ever believed in.
"In my father's house," the boy had said to a friend one day when she asked what he did for fun, "I just sit in my room. I don't have any video games or TV or anything like that."
"Ah, well, that sucks," William's friend replied nonchalantly. Although she thought it was strange he seemed to have so little entertainment (no TV, no movies, no video games, etc.) it never registered with her that such a thing might've been a warning sign.
"Yeah. In my father's house, I don't really have much of anything. Except a few robots I've built out of spare parts I've found around the house..."
William smiled slightly at this thought. Since his father was so very inconsistent, there were rare times when William could explore pretty much any room in the house without fear because his father would be out cold, drunk, or away working a 12-hour shift. In those days, William took whatever he wanted from anywhere. The old screwdriver in the basement? Yes. The rusty spoon at the back of the utensil drawer? Sure. The broken picture frame still halfway under Edward's bed? Why not? The nuts and bolts from the "spare parts" closet in the kitchen? Absolutely! Bits and pieces of the couch that had fallen off? Might as well!
So William became a bit of a collector in his father's house, finding novelty items and toys wherever he could. He took all those bits and pieces and, up in the solitude and secrecy of his room, built marvelous creations to entertain him. Robots, animals, vehicles, action figures, you name it! William made everything from spare parts, from loose ends that he would tie up again. All of them were made of his house and his hands, amalgamations assembled and given life. Perhaps it was his own strange way of coping. It wasn't just a way to garner entertainment from the miserable life he led. Perhaps it was his subconscious trying to show that bits and pieces can come together to form a happily ever after, or that spare and broken parts can be rebuilt, together, to form one functioning unit. It was certainly an idea that attracted the young man.
And his interest in robotics carried on for his whole life until he reached the end of high school.
"I am thinking about pursuing a degree in engineering and business," he had told his academic advisor in his senior year.
"Ah! How very ambitious!" the councilor replied. William smiled crookedly at him, a sneer almost embedded in that grin.
"In my father's house, I would spend all my time constructing robots from spare parts and I know he could never hold down a job, so I would like to do better even than that and to create one all my own! I will use my robots, perhaps..." William trailed off, a satisfied grin on his face. "My father, that worthless bum, is of no use to me..."
"Now, now, William, we mustn't judge others for the circumstances of their lives," the councilor warned the young man, suddenly frowning upon William's last statement. And it was strange, he noted, how William always said, "In my father's house" but never, "In my house" or "At home", like he was trying to disassociate himself from home...
William was a nearly-perfect student. Sure, he was no valedictorian and he had a few misdeeds to his name (most of them involving theft and vandalism and a few more serious ones labeling violence), but he was such a try-hard and constantly improving himself, both as a student and a decent human being that he was considered a huge role model. William might've been a problem-child in his youth, either too sullen or too aggressive to interact with other children. And the problem only got worse. In elementary school, it had been mere envy and a few bitter remarks. In middle school, it devolved into fights and bullying, where he was on both ends of physical and verbal attacks.
Then, in the first part of high school, he took the first chance he got to obtain a car. To William, a car meant freedom, it meant escape, it meant that he didn't have to spend all his time alone with his drunken dad. But with the newfound freedom that came with a car, there was also newfound ways to cause trouble and start fights. For William, drag-racing was where it was at. He loved the thrill of high-speed, high-stakes races across dark and empty roads where he could do as he pleased, entirely unhindered. Of course, his father would yell at him when he came home at 3:00, engine roaring, but William didn't care anymore. He refused to let his father see how much the abuse hurt. Instead, he would allow his father to yell until his voice was gone, then William would go quietly to bed only to do it all again the next night.
At last, there came a time when Edward stopped remarking upon his son's behavior. This new silence hurt William more than the shouting and there were nights when William would actually want to goad his father into an argument, or to at least ask why he was so quiet now, but a small part of William that was still capable of genuine empathy would always stop his desires.
"I should leave him alone, he's had a rough night," William muttered to himself one night after he came home from another police chase. His father was staring at a static screen. That was how William knew tonight was particularly rough. It was usually sports or the news, but tonight? The static was even scarier than the yelling or the silence and William made his way to his room without a sound, his father still staring at a blank screen.
But then, some time during his high school career, all of that did a total reversal and William became so polite, charming, and beloved. His transformation, which he chalked up to his ambition and brilliance, was renown. He had a total change of heart and went from delinquent to scholar. Once again, he was far from the top of his class, but he had shown so much growth that all the school's faculty agreed that, with continued effort, he would make it anywhere. Now the question was what he was going to study. His reply had been robotics and business.
All throughout college, this continued in the same vein. His roommate was named Henry, a fellow robotics and business major.
"Wow! Not bad, dude," Henry complimented William as William pulled out a few of his older builds.
"Ah, they're all kinda crappy. I did them as a boy," William said as he set a small bear down in front of Henry. Henry, however, seemed enchanted.
"I've got something too," he said, and he whipped out a bunny. It looked a bit more steampunk than William's, which looked very life-like, but they functioned in very similar fashion. It hopped around, slowly, but steadily.
"Impressive," William nodded approvingly. Henry looked proud.
"I was thinking about being a toy-maker," he confessed.
"A toy maker?!" William scoffed, almost sneering in disdain.
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" Henry suddenly grew defensive, wary about the scorn in his new roommate's voice.
"Oh, nothing's wrong with it," William promised, quickly correcting his behavior. "I just mean that surely you could aim higher?"
"What do you mean?" Henry was still guarded, put off by William's sudden change in mannerism.
"I mean, don't just build little toys, little knick-knacks, build something bigger!" William opened his arms as though to gesture to a robot about the size of a man. "I'm thinking life-sized robots! Like in all the sci-fi movies!"
"Ha! And you think toy making is silly?" now it was Henry's turn to laugh, though his was far more good-natured than William's had been.
"Well, in my father's house, I never had toys," William replied, annoyed by Henry's remark, despite having laughed at Henry just the same way.
Henry, however, did not notice William's hypocrisy, instead focused on the implications of his statement.
"Ah, I am sorry for that," he muttered awkwardly. He really didn't know anything at all about his roommate, except that he seemed to like the color purple, so this was the first time Henry was getting a glimpse into William's past.
From what it sounded like, it wasn't pretty. Henry never had the nerve to ask more, but in the four years the two acted as roommates, Henry was able to glean that it was just William and his alcoholic father, living an ugly life in a pretty neighborhood, but now that William was relying upon his own wits and not what little his father offered, he was doing much better. His confidence was high, his ambitions were many, and his concerns about ever going home again were nonexistent.
"Father may still see me as his son," William said one day. "But I don't care anymore. He can drink himself into a ditch. I'm never going back again!" and he seemed very proud by this statement, though it unnerved Henry just a little.
But despite this, Henry considered William to be his best friend and it seemed that such a feeling was mutual. The two even started up a business together, combining their biggest dreams. William got to design robots, create things, full-time! And they got to be whatever he pleased. Just like in his father's house, William collected parts and pieces from all over to build his beautiful creations. Henry, meanwhile, got to live out his more joy-bringing side of the dream because the place they opened up was a pizzeria. The robots were entertainers at the pizzeria, so in that regard, Henry was indeed building robots for children, just on a larger scale, like William had suggested when they were both only freshman. It didn't seem so silly now, did it? And the two men and their little pizzeria prospered. In time, even, both of them married and had children of their own. Henry was amazed and impressed by what having a family did to William. For this man, who had come from a broken and abusive home, to father a family all his own was so beautiful and inspiring! What Henry did not know, however, was that this new family was eerily similar to the old one.
William loved his wife, he really did, but for some reason, she always seemed a little uneasy around him. From the very first date to the very first kiss to the very first night to the very first child, Alice always seemed nervous around William. He chalked it up to her not understanding his genius and let it slide, but after they had two sons, Michael and Scott, Alice seemed to reach a tipping point.
"William! You mustn't let Michael pick on Scott so!" Alice defended her younger son from her older one.
"They're just boys! It's what boys do!" William scoffed. "In my father's house, fights happened all the time! It's good for them! It builds a spine!"
"No, William! We've had this talk before! This is not your father's house! Bullying never breeds courage, it breeds cowardice in many forms! And boys, ours and others, will be held responsible for their actions and I expect any one of them to behave in the same way I would expect anyone else to: with kindness and respect!" she was passionate about her spiel
"What are you reminding me for, woman? If Michael is the one you have a problem with, go sort it out with him! I'm busy right now!" and he waved Alice away impatiently, missing the look of outrage she gave him for being so dismissive of his own sons.
Alice had one last child, a little girl she named Elizabeth, before she died. Although she survived the initial birth, due to complications, she did not last much longer than that. With her dying breath, she made William promise to be a better father, to all of his children. He did not make the promise, though he did swear that he heard her.
"Do you hear me?" she demanded weakly.
"Of course I do," he replied.
"Then will you promise it to me?" she was passionate about her spiel, but William never gave a definitive answer.
From then on, William's neglect towards his sons increased while he doted upon Elizabeth, his daughter and favorite. The funeral was somber and William was genuinely grieved over Alice's death, but it was clear that the grief he was feeling was of a different nature. He didn't just miss and want Alice back, he seemed disappointed that she "left" him and he was almost too fascinated with the process of death to grieve in a way that was entirely natural. But since grief is different for everybody, nobody paid too much heed to it.
Michael's way of coping with the loss of his beloved mother was to grow even crueler towards Scott while Scott's way of coping was to do what William did as a child and hide in his room, never facing any of the rest of his family. William's way was to focus on Elizabeth, seeing her as the closest piece he had of his wife. For this, Elizabeth was the only Afton to be unbothered by Alice's death. Sure, she wondered why she didn't have a Mommy like all of her other friends did, but she had Daddy and he was the best in the world, so why did she need anybody else?
Not too long after that, Edward died as well. By some miracle, he died of natural causes. It wasn't alcohol poisoning, as William thought (and maybe hoped). He just passed away in his sleep, making it into his mid-80s, which wasn't bad for someone of his lifestyle. But if anything, this only made William angrier. Despite having not even thought about his father for years and years now, to have someone from his hometown call him and bear the news brought back every old argument and wound, physical and mental, and William's anger and bitterness returned. He wanted to smash his phone, then smash the person on the other end of it. He wanted to kill his father for dying on him even though neither had made any effort to contact the other since high school graduation. William's teeth were on edge with fury as he attended his father's funeral as well, bitterly cursing the fact that his wife was taken so young while his father was the one who got to live until 85.
But then, as soon as the old man had been put in the ground, all of that anger faded into something... different. It did not quite have a name, but William felt himself a changed man. He did not miss his father, not at all, but something about his father's passing reignited that interest in death within him and this time, it wouldn't let go.
For the next few years, William threw himself headfirst into his work, building more and more advanced robots, trying to mimic life by starting from the point of "death" and working backwards back into life. He was like Dr. Frankenstein, suffering from delusions of grandeur and a passion for his work that bordered on insanity. Nobody noticed, however. Nobody ever did. Not even Henry, William's "best friend". That man was too invested in his own daughter, Charlotte, to really care about the Aftons anymore. Sure, he was still a close family friend and sure Charlotte was practically an Afton sibling as well, but it became unduly clear to William that Henry was no longer truly with him. And now his wife was gone too. And somehow, in William's twisting mind, this all equated with a need for revenge. But against whom? Children.
In William's warped mind, children were the root cause of most, if not all, of his problems, and he began to despise them, but in a very passive way. He would observe them, allow them to play freely in his pizzeria, but he began to try and fuse himself with his own creations, bringing up hybrid animatronic suits and he began to use those suits for very sordid purposes. He lured snotty little brats away from neglectful parents using his beautiful creations to set up all kinds of traps and tricks. Then, as soon as the ungrateful little swine was hidden away in some secret area, like the pizzeria's "spare parts" room, William would end them. Using every weapon imaginable, including the robo-suits themselves, William would slaughter the children. And he was far too cunning and used to hiding to ever be caught, thus did his reign of terror truly begin.
Even after enough children had gone missing to warrant the closing of William's pizzeria (including Charlie, Scott, Elizabeth and at least five others), the pizzeria was not finished yet. On the contrary, its story was still going in full swing despite all the locations being shut down. But then again, that made sense. William's life was nothing but a cycle of life and death, one that he was actively recreating. It stood to reason that the pizzeria itself, as an entity, would never die either, because of the man who built it from the ground up, gears and cogs and springlocks and all. And everything inside those abandoned locations was infected with that life-death curse, also doomed to endure the everlasting legacy of the pizzeria.
In fact, rumor has it that even though William himself is gone, the robots he left behind can still be heard, chanting in an eerie drone:
"In my father's house, we never die, and the stories never end. In my father's house, we are forced to live and reign forever, acting as guardians over this wicked and sinful place. In my father's house, there is no rest, for the good or the wicked. In my father's house, we are still very much alive and we are very hungry..."
AN: Sorry this took so long to get out, Darkgamer FNAF. I've been busy with college. I hope it still suits you, however. I know it wasn't quite as "There Was a Little Girl" as the other two, but I still tried to show how William basically went from Scott to Michael on the sliding scale of "cry baby" and "bully", you know what I mean?