Wren's mind was completely taken over by the encounter that had just happened.
She had no clue what had changed so suddenly, but now she was brimming with boundless anticipation. She couldn't wait until the next time, what it would entail, and by what he just did there will definitely be a next time. She could just feel it.
You are absolutely losing it over this man.
I know, but I've never felt so light.
Their lips were so close, yet so far, not nearly close enough. He only touched from her shoulders and up, but she felt like he had seeped through her entire body. She almost regretted not closing the distance at that time.
No, no, let him have his time. Yours will come soon...
It only took her a moment to gather herself. She knew she would have to act as nothing happened, and she didn't want anyone asking any questions. Not that she wouldn't be able to handle them, it would just be a waste of her time.
She wanted to spend her time unraveling William Afton, or rather, letting him unravel her. She would allow turns to be taken, after all, she normally didn't enjoy the dominance of others. She was so used to taking control all for herself, but the way William carried himself, the way he moved, the way he spoke...
It was intoxicating. More so when his attention was on her.
When she entered Pirate's Cove, William was looking at the bins he had placed on the floor at his feet. One hand was on his hip, while the other was holding his phone to his ear. He was speaking calmly and professionally, which led her to believe that he was not talking with his wife.
"Yes, very good. I will be on my way in about ten minutes, should take me about thirty to get there," a short pause. "Very good, see you there," then he hung up the phone with a sigh.
Wren walked closer, still holding the jug of bleach. "You need to be somewhere?" She paused at the stage, setting the bleach down on top of it. She was collected, acting as if nothing happened.
William turned around with a tired smile on his face. "Unfortunately, I have some business I just attend to," he replied, pocketing his phone and making his way over to her.
She stood straight, tilting her head back as he grew closer so she could look at his face. "Shall I continue with cleaning Foxy?"
A bit of what she had seen earlier in the utility closet had seemed I to his eyes again, and the corner of his mouth turned up into a sly smile. "That would be very good of you, darling," he said, raising a hand to let his fingers trail down her cheek.
Wren let out a long breath. "As you wish, William," she said.
William's smile widened ever so slightly. "I will return before your shift ends, Wren," he then brushed his thumb over her chin once before pulling back his hand, and walking around her to the exit without another word.
It was a lot easier to fill the bins once she found the small cleaning room in the back of Pirate's Cove. William must have been really stressed to not mention it, but it was easy enough to find behind an employee's only sign.
While she scrubbed the dirt and grime from Foxy's shell, she thought about the events of the day. How electrified she had felt in that closet, how she hated watching him leave. The idea of letting him take even more control than she had originally decided made her stomach twist in the most delicious way.
Curiosity was also getting the best of her. She wanted to know where he was going, what business he had to do. Perhaps it was a lawyer, at least, that's what she thought was the most probable.
She sighed. She wouldn't know unless she was told. Hopefully, she would be able to get a hold of Henry at some point, maybe she could get it out of him. Hell, he had just given her free information on William's life last night, and she didn't even have to ask. She had forgotten that about Henry, that he was such an open guy to those closest to him.
Wren was so far like Henry, it was strange she found herself admiring the man, let alone getting along with him. She could count the people she truly cared about on one hand, and he was on that list. She didn't like most people, tolerated little, and though the gender didn't matter, she knew she hated men the most. They were the ones who had hurt her and the people she cared about the most.
Because of this hurt, because of this pain, Wren had lost a lot of the qualities she liked about Henry, lost the selflessness she saw in him, the kindness.
No. No, she was not kind. The mask she wore did not make her kind, she knew. She always tried to keep people at arm's length, not wanting to deal with them or waste her time. She was not selfless. Things came at a price for her, she always had to be getting something out of a relationship; romantic, sexual, or platonic relationships.
What did she get out of Henry? Witnessing the parts of herself that were sucked into a void, never to return.
And what do you get from William?
She closed her eyes, the ghost of his fingers on her neck, on her face. The chocolate scent of his breath caressing her face. The absolute thrills he sent up and down her spine, with so little effort, so little time.
He gives me things I forgot I needed.
The head was going to be the hardest part. It was going to be scrubbed with a detail brush of some kind, so that was the only thing that wasn't left set out to dry on a tarp when Wren decided to wash herself up.
The steam from the hot water she used while cleaning the shells had made her makeup run, so she fixed it up neatly.
Her stomach was doing flips. It was thirty minutes until the establishment closed, and an hour until her shift ended. William should be here relatively soon. She only hoped she could run into Henry before she was hunted down by Bree, and lucky her, he was on his way towards the door she had just walked out from.
"Oh, good. You're still here. William stopped by earlier and told me you would be," he said, giving her a smile as a greeting.
She returned the smile. "Yes, I just finished up with everything else, except for the head."
"That fast? Some of those pieces are pretty heavy," he said like he could barely believe it.
Not heavier than a dead body. "Oh, trust me, I'm a lot stronger than I look," she held up an arm and half-heartedly flexed, patting her bicep. "These babies can lift a lot."
Henry laughed then, a sweet innocent laugh, and Wren found herself laughing lightly with him. "Okay, okay, I believe you, Wren. Come on. Let's get things cleaned up. All of the private parties are done, and I need to get up early in the morning."
One room became two rooms, and two rooms became three. Wren was looking at the clock so much it was making time go by terribly slowly. It was like she could feel the ticking and tocking of the clock's hands under her skin, wishing to break forward and spring forward. By the time it was ten minutes for her shift to be over, all of the other employees had left except for Wren and Henry.
Wren was beginning to grow impatient. Henry was so focused on his work that he hadn't really spoken at all with Wren, so she hadn't even been able to try to get any information about William out of him.
When they were nearly done with the main party room, she allowed herself time to walk over to him as he was wiping a table down. "Did William mention anything about coming back tonight? I wanted to show him the progress with Foxy," she asked casually, chugging some water from her water bottle.
"Oh, yeah, he said he would probably come back, but he went out for something pretty important," Henry said, straightening up and tossing his rag over his shoulder. "William, uh, well, he went-" he lowered his voice, even though there was no one else there with him. "He went to his lawyer, and he said he had to go meet some investigator about something."
Wren let her brow raise slightly to show her surprise. As she suspected before, he had gone to see his lawyer, but what was this business with an investigator? "Henry, William isn't in any kind of trouble, is he?"
Henry laughed. "No, no, um. No, it's more business that deals with his wife...or soon-to-be ex-wife, rather."
Wren rolled the bottle in her hands around idly. "I hope he can get through it smoothly."
Then you can have him all to yourself.
Henry let out a sigh. "So do I, Wren, so do I. He's been through way too much to have his wife treat him this way. She blames him, you know. She blames him for the death of their youngest," he sighed again, but this time it was so tired, Wren thought the man would fall asleep right there.
"You think we're done here?" she murmured, taking the liberty to remove the rag from Henry's shoulder. "You have to get up early in the morning, remember, and sleep is important."
He managed a smile. "Yeah. Let's lock-up."
Wren was beginning to lose hope that William would show up. Henry had left as soon as he saw Wren get in her car, and she decided to wait at least ten more minutes while she smoked a cigarette. But he didn't come. Not a single car drove by.
Tired of waiting, she turned the key to the ignition and drove home.
When Wren arrived for work the next day, she was fully prepared to hear some type of gripe from Bree, but it seemed to be a day off for her because the manager that greeted her after she clocked in was different altogether. She was around the same height as Bree, but she had more of a strawberry hue to her hair. She was much more welcoming and warm compared to the other manager, and Wren found it easy to tolerate her, even like her the way she liked Sora.
"My name's Cynthia. I'm the other manager here. Sorry you had to meet Bree first," she said in a Southern Belle accent, reaching her hand out.
Wren took it, shaking it a few times before letting go. "Oh, no bother, she doesn't scare me," she replied. "Everyone else here has been a lot more agreeable."
"I still hope she wasn't too hard on you, I heard from June that she had been makin' nasty comments behind your back. Said you made a big fuss about not getting a break one day, and she was chewed out by Mr. Afton for it," Cynthia huffed.
"Oh, I hadn't even realized I-"
Cynthia waved off her attempted explanation. "No need, no need, hun. She does it all the time. She'll go hide somewhere with her damn crosswords and forget about everything if she didn't get chewed out every now and then."
Wren gave her a curious look. "How come she is allowed her job?"
"Oh, well, Mr. Emily is such a good-hearted man, and he really needs the workers, ya know. It really is so good of you to work here, we really need your help. I'm gonna do my very best to make sure you're comfortable here, darlin'," Cynthia put a small hand on Wren's shoulder and gave her one good squeeze. She honestly reminded Wren of an older southern lady, but she looked quite young, even younger than Wren.
"I thank you. That does make me feel more welcome here, Cynthia," she said with a smile.
Cynthia told her that Henry wanted to see her once she put her things away and that he would have her tasks for the day, so the second she had locked up her locker she headed straight towards the offices. She was hoping she would run into William at some point, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The door to Henry's office was slightly ajar, so when Wren just slid her head in to see if he was in there. He was there, on the phone of course, but he waved her in any way, so she walked in and took a seat while he talked about ball pit upgrades.
Not only was Henry here, but there was also a rather extravagantly wrapped gift basket, decorated with black, silver, and a rich purple. Everything was discreetly wrapped, except for the obvious bottle that was probably wine or champagne. She wondered who it was for and why.
Her questions were answered soon after Henry hung up his phone with a formal goodbye. "Sorry that took so long, I really had to haggle with that guy."
"No need for apologies, Henry," Wren replied with a playful smile.
He smiled back, then gestured for the basket. "This was left at the front, addressed to you," he said, though he looked skeptical, like he was unsure of it.
Wren's brow furrowed in confusion. "Does it say who it's from?" she asked, standing up, stopping when she was standing in front of the gift.
Henry shrugged, looking over it warily. "There is an envelope with your name on it, but nothing else. I wasn't about to open it myself," he said.
Wren had a better angle on the gift now that she was looking from above. There were some gifts tucked away where she hadn't been able to see before, and right in the center of it all was a lavender-colored envelope. She plucked it up and used Henry's letter opener so she wouldn't destroy it.
There was only a single sheet of parchment folded once, and she opened it up to an elegantly written script. She was hit with a strong scent of lavender.
My deepest apologies,
I have not forgotten the promise I made, darling. I got caught up more than I liked. Hope this makes up for it.
I will return tomorrow. Wait for me.
W.
Her breath had hitched while her eyes scanned his words. This was from William. She didn't even blame him for not returning, she had just been disappointed. But this. This was something that made even Wren's heart light up for a fraction of a second, sparking something she thought had been placed forever out of reach.
Henry was concerned, readying himself to get up if he needed to. "What's wrong, are you okay?"
No, you're dying. You feel like you're dying.
She folded the letter and put it back in the envelope with a sheepish smile, and allowed the genuine, festering blush to take over the apples of her cheeks. "Oh, everything's fine," her voice was a lot higher than she wanted it. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, everything's fine, this is a gift from an old friend. In the letter, she said there would be some things in here to help me relax. By myself."
Henry took the lie quickly, raising his hands up to stop her from continuing any further. A blush of his own had formed. "O-oh, well now, alright. You don't gotta explain further, so long as you know who it's from."
"Yes, good," she let out a grateful breath, making sure the note was tucked nicely away underneath the wrapped gifts. "Do you mind if I go ahead and take this to my car? I don't want to have to explain it to anyone else-"
"Yes, of course, by all means. When you come back in you can go ahead and go back to cleaning Foxy," Henry was trying to look anywhere other than Wren or that basket. "Just don't touch the endoskeleton."
Wren pulled the basket into her arms, exiting Henry's office with a chuckle.
Maybe she just liked to torture herself, but she didn't allow herself to open up a single gift from that basket. No, she was going to enjoy that all on her own when she got home. The thought was agonizing, but she knew the payout would be greater.
Sora helped time move a lot faster. Cynthia sent her to learn how to clean the animatronics with Wren, and she was honestly grateful. The shells needed at least one more scrub down.
The material was not as easy to clean as tile or granite.
Her break came and it went. She didn't allow herself a cigarette in her car. She didn't know if she would have stopped herself from opening something small.
By the time they were supposed to start cleaning up, Wren had Foxy's head drying on a towel. Clean up was quick, they didn't have a lot of parties that night, and soon everyone was saying their goodbyes while they got in their cars.
The ride home was longer than usual as Wren tried not to keep glancing at the abstract shadow in her back seat, and when she finally got home she rushed in with her treasures, barely stopping long enough to take her shoes off at the door to put on her slippers.
Her cats meowed loudly at her, angry that her attention was not on them as soon as she came through the door, but she continued to ignore them as she went to her room.
She opened the obvious one first, revealing an expensive bottle of sweet red wine. She walked over to the little bar set up she had in her room and picked out a wine glass to fill. Now that she was finally opening everything, the urgency had left her. After taking a few sips of the wine, she sunk down on the edge of her bed to enjoy her offering.
The gifts were all fairly high-end. Enough to show that William was a wealthy man, but not too much to make her think he was trying too, too hard.
Hell, him trying as hard as he already had was enough for Wren to about lose herself.
There was a pack of face masks with a variety of scents. There was a lovely perfume, the very one he had used to spray the letter. There were three boxes of chocolates, and she was delighted that one of them was her favorite. Caramel. There were a few candles. One had a lavender scent, one had a cherry scent, and the last one was apples and cinnamon.
She lit the lavender candle instantly before she looked over the final items. The rest was just different types of sweets, ones you couldn't find at a regular store. She indulged, picking a salted caramel taffy bite.
A second glass of wine had gone down. She was lounging on her back now, staring up at the black drapery surrounding her bed. She felt like she was going crazy. There was no way he was able to take a hold of her like this, to such a degree.
She didn't think she would want someone in this way, let alone a man. She would have much preferred it to have been anything other than a man.
But William. William. William.
Even in her drunken state, she could see the early signs of obsession, and that wasn't something she was prepared to handle. No, she was prepared to handle quick slashings and quiet deaths, but she was not prepared to want someone like she wanted William, to need someone like William.
She fell asleep like that. Thinking about herself, thinking about William.