The Failure of a Father

Ch 6: Regaining the Trust of a Family Member

"I didn't expect Father to regret his mistakes, to the point he would see the glass as half empty." Michael replied.

"What do you mean?" Lori asked, confused by the idiom Michael used.

Michael already knew Lori was a total airhead when it comes to using idioms. He said. "Father was always sad, and pessimistic, talking about the bad times."

"Oh." The eldest Loud sister said. "I understand…"

Later that morning…

Elizabeth and CC told their parents about what Lincoln told them last time. Olivia fell to the couch, while William went outside to the front yard.

The mother of the Afton family sat on the couch, putting a hand over her lap. Not only was her baby boy mad at her for not even standing up for him when William was treating him like some sort of garbage, he threatened to pull the police into their matter if they didn't respect his wishes.

She sobbed silently to herself. Olivia thought to herself, while hot, fresh tears roll down her cheeks. "Oh Michael…my baby boy, I'm sorry for not helping you…"

Elizabeth and CC looked on at each other, concern etched on their faces.

Meanwhile…

William was banging his head against one of the porch's supports, all the while, he was silently crying to himself. Sure, the father of the Afton family would sometimes make mistakes, and the result? His son Michael would forgive him, well…at least not this time. William Afton screwed things up harder this time, to the point that his baby boy would unleash the threat of calling the police on his ass, and get slapped in the face with a good amount of time behind bars, maybe a decade or two.

Heck, how will he even call himself a father after what he put his son through in the past 21 days? He could even feel his own father looking down on him in disappointment. After 15 minutes, he had a slight headache but he believed he deserved it anyway for what the fuck happened over the last three weeks.

Just as William was banging his head against the one of the porch supports, the voice of Lynn Loud Sr. was heard.

"Want to break your head? I think the concrete will be a better option."

Turning to his right, he saw Lynn Sr. throwing out the trash for today.

"Not now, Lynn…I'm busy moping…" The father of the Afton family said, slumping down on the stairs of the porch of his house, just looking at the sky as if Jesus will come down from there or something.

His friend let out a sigh, and crossed his arms. "OK, Will, was it about your lad or somethin'?"

William's eyes focused on Lynn Sr. as he said, "H-How did you know?!"

"Let's say, while me and the fam were eating dinner, I heard Michael screaming his head off like he was some sort of punk rocker or something, but on to the real deal, what did you do to piss the poor lad off this time?" Lynn Sr. said in a stern tone.

"I-I became an abusive bitch to Michael, treated him like a slave, and…and, I hit him for stupid reasons…" William replied to his friend.

"You think you could just treat your own son like some sort of slave?" Lynn Sr. said, balling his hands into fists.

William didn't know the answer to Lynn Sr.'s question, so his response was shaking his head.

"Makes me disgusted to be living next to you…" Lynn Sr. said, a bit venom in his voice.

The father of the Afton family grimaced a bit at the response he received from Senior.

"Listen, I wouldn't give a damn if the police were out there looking for you 'round the town." The patriarch of the Loud family spoke in a bitter tone.

This set alarms for the father of the Afton household. "They're not out there…right?"

"No, that was just to warn you of future consequences, if you did it again." Lynn Sr. said, unclenching his hands.

"That isn't helping me with my problems…" William muttered, standing up from the porch stairs.

"Sure, it wasn't supposed to, but I warned you just in case you play dumb when the cops are on your doorstep. If the whole neighborhood heard it, that's a one-way ticket to get your ass squatting in a prison cell one day."

William then combed his hair with his hands. "This is the second time I hit my children for no reason…" He slumped back to the stairs of the porch. "…WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!"

"You gotta remove that mentality of yours, friend, listen, I used to always hide from my kids when they start a fight, and it causes a mess in the house. There was this one time when my boy Lincoln saw a quarter in the couch, and his sisters saw it, they fight over it, and we asked them what they were doing. Pretty absurd, right?" Lynn Sr. cleared his throat. "There was also the time they fight over the best seat in the van, and it was still EARLY in the morning. The girls would drive Lincoln up the wall during his trip in the van like the time Junior saw a truck."

William chuckled a bit. "Yeah…"

"But hey, get your hopes up!" Lynn Sr. said, smiling. "Michael will forgive you over time, just give him some space to think, maybe he's on the fence about it." He turned to go back to his house, and shut the door as he went inside.

William did the same, with a smile on his face.

Tomorrow…

Mondays, the one day everyone loves to hate and dread, the one day that signaled the start of a fucked-up week at school and work, minimum wage and angry bosses are common.

However, for one family, Monday was a grim reminder of the current situation they are in. They need to get Michael in the house to see how much pain the family is in, but given the teenager's attitude, they're not on easy street right now.

Sure, Michael may have forgiven Elizabeth and CC for forcing his ass to come home, as for William and Olivia, he wasn't going to forgive his father for acting like a total asshole to him. As for his mother, he wasn't going to forgive her for laying low and not defending him when William was abusing him.

In the Loud residence…

Lincoln got up from his bed, stretching his arms while yawning. He got out of his room and went to the bathroom, only to see a long line that was his sisters lining up.

Lisa had been there for the past 5 minutes, she's probably checking the cleaning properties of the shampoo in there, again.

"LISA!" Leni shouted. "Come on, it's 8:00 in the morning, we'll be late for school!"

Lincoln facepalmed. "Seriously, Leni?" He looked at the clock. "It's quarter past 7 in the morning, it's 45 minutes away, we won't be late."

Lori shook her head upon Leni being just a total dummy.

Lisa got out of the bathroom. "I was checking the cleaning properties of the shampoo over there!"

Now the parents are there, waiting in line to use the bathroom.

Later, they all finished freshening up for the day.

Lincoln went downstairs, and looked at the calendar of the year today, which is, March 1974. He went to the dining room, and they all ate breakfast, and went to school.

Later at school…

Lincoln scoffed as he opened the doors that welcomed him to the halls of the school, the sound of children talking and blabbering was heard in the background as Lincoln put his backpack in his locker, then went to the school library to cool off for some time.

In the school library…

Lincoln opened the doors, and sighed as the sound of kids chattering had fade away, as he ventured out into the bookshelves to find something to read, he saw an interesting fiction storybook to read, and he pulled it out of its spot, only to see Cassidy's face looking at him from behind it.

"Pineapple Boy? What are you doing here?" Cassidy asked, clasping her hands behind her.

Lincoln, irritated, stands up and said to Cassidy, "Stop calling me Pineapple Boy, and it's annoying."

"What's your true name?" The Fredbear fanatic asked. "I heard Daniel, you know him? The one who got you banned from the grocery store, right? I heard him call you Pineapple Boy that one day."

The 11-year-old Loud shook his head, and introduced himself to the girl. "The name's Lincoln, Lincoln Loud." He shrugged. "There, happy?"

"OK, I got it now." Cassidy said, giggling.

Lincoln put the fiction piece back into its shelf. "Anyways, got to go see Daniel and give him a piece of my mind." He said as he went out of the door and ventured out to find the Pingrey child.

In the hallway…

Lincoln saw Daniel talking with his crush Cristina in the hallway, and he tapped his shoulder, surprising the other kid.

"Pineapple Boy? Is that you?" Daniel said, surprised.

Lincoln pulled up Daniel's collar. "Call me Pineapple Boy…I fucking dare you…"

"OK, fine, fine, I'l stop calling you that!" Daniel said, raising his hands in defense.

Lincoln Loud lets go of Daniel Pingrey, and the boy landed on his butt.

Later…

The students groaned as the teacher explained the subject topic of the day. It was a pain in the ass for all of them, expecially Michael, they'll just wait for lunch, the thing is, it's a few hours away for all of them.

They started jotting down notes, right after the teacher finished explaining the subject topic and their homework for the day.

Lunch came, and students went to the cafeteria to get their well-deserved break. Michael sat on the table where his friends are, and when they saw Lincoln with Daniel, they thought as if Daniel was Lincoln's lost brother.

"Oh my God, is that your long, lost brother?!" Robert said, analyzing Lincoln and Daniel's respective hair colors. "Your hair looks the same!"

Lincoln facepalmed. "Seriously, Robert? He's not my brother."

"Your hair color looks the same, probably he is." Elijah added.

"Guys—" Lincoln was interrupted when Stephanie and Michael started talking.

"Oh my gosh, Rob, you're right! Daniel really is Lincoln's long lost brother!" Stephanie said, looking at the Bonnie-masked boy.

"Your hair color can tell you two are a pair of brothers." Michael said, picking on strands of Lincoln's hair.

"GUYS!" Lincoln yelled, making them shut up. "Daniel and I are not brothers! We may have the SAME hair color, but when you look closely, it's different!"

"I accidentally used my sister's hair dye…" Daniel said, blushing while moving his foot in a circular motion. "…and that's the reason my hair looked the same as Pineapple Boy, my hair used to be blonde, and it changed to platinum when I used the hair dye instead of the shampoo…"

"So that's why yours and Lincoln's hair looked the same?" Elijah asked.

"Well yeah…" The Pingrey boy replied to the Freddy fanatic.

"Well, I think it's time you need to change that hair of yours…" Robert said.

"I was born with poliosis, so it makes sense." The 11-year-old Loud said.

"Oh…" Michael said. "…but Mrs. Loud never told me you were born with that medical condition."

"Well, at least you found out now."

To be continued in Ch 7…

A/N: Hey, FNAFLHFaN2006 here. Well, seems like things turned the other way for the Aftons, and this is Daniel Pingrey and Cassidy Schmidt's first apperance, same as Michael's other 2 friends, the ones wearing the Bonnie and Freddy masks, right? And this is the chapter where Lincoln explains his birth story, much to Michael's confusion. Peace out.