The Fall of the Aftons

145: William Afton

"Where's Michael?" Henry asked, hoisting himself onto the kitchen counter next to the cutting board William was using to prepare dinner. "I see an Elizabeth but not a Mike. Wasn't he supposed to watch her after school today?"

"I don't trust him," William said, then yawned, exhausted. "It worries me what he might do to her while I'm gone. So I don't want him watching over her anymore. She'll just come to work with me after I pick her up, and I can bring work home with me if I need to."

"Will, you know for a fact that bringing your work home with you is a terrible idea. You stay up all night completing it, then you're a total douche the next day." He slid off the counter and hugged William from behind. "You know that Michael feels terrible for what happened. He's already afraid of you, and if I had to guess, now he'll be hiding in his room for months if you don't talk to him about what happened?"

"Why would he be bloody afraid of me?" he said, glaring at Henry.

"You're joking," Henry said, letting go of him and stepping back to get a better look at Henry. "Have you seen the way you've been treating him? You've been acting like Terrance when he got run over!"

"What? No, I haven't!" William exclaimed.

Henry raised a suspicious eyebrow, narrowing his eyes. "Yes, William, you have. Have you heard the things you've been shouting at him? You literally called him a disgrace just yesterday!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Oh, really?" He reached into his back pocket and took out his tape recorder, holding it up for William to see. "I've been carrying this around in case the police came to interrogate either of us for what happened. And I've been tracking some of the things you said to him because I know you, and I knew that you would forget any recollection of the things you've been saying." He holds down the rewind button for a second, then presses play.

"You are a disgrace to this family, you know that? You only ever bring bad news to this family, and that's all you'll ever do! If you were eighteen, I'd have kicked you out of the house by now!" the tape played back.

William opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He had no idea what to say. But Henry beat him to it.

"That's only a little bit of what I've recorded," he said quietly. "You have said a lot of terrible things to him. The fact that he can keep a blank face the whole time stuns me. I'd be a sobbing wreck if my father said any of that crap to me."

"I guess," William muttered, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked away. "He deserves it, though. While it sounds bad, everything I said is true. He's done nothing but cause issues for my family."

"So what? He's still your son! You would be afraid of your father, too, if he said he would've kicked you out as soon as you turned eighteen!"

He sighed, dragging a hand down his face. "Whatever. He doesn't matter. He needs to learn that his actions have consequences."

"Do you fucking hear yourself?! You know for a fact that he knows his actions have consequences! He assumes the worst whenever he does anything wrong—you saw that when he killed Terrance. He genuinely believed that you were going to return him to Miss Iaea's! I had to not only promise him that you wouldn't, but that if you did, I would adopt him so he wouldn't be left without a family for the rest of his life!"

William froze, shocked to hear that. Michael never told me that part of the story. "You did?" he asked quietly.

Henry frowned. "Yeah. I did. He was terrified of how you would treat him after that. Just as he's terrified of how you'll treat him now."