The Bond [REMAKE]

Ch 4

"Bold."/"Bold italic" : animatronic is talking/animatronic is talking in mind

"Normal."/"Normal italic." : human is talking/human is talking in mind

***

Michael watched Henry carefully. Henry called him to come today to ask him to take back his father's belongings which had been left at the Emily's house for years. The man with light brown hair arranged the files into a cardboard box, even some mini spare parts and he found that there were one or two blueprints also put inside. He never learned about things related to the two men's passion in the past, he never felt interested, recognizing that his soul had been controlled by art, not tinkering with machines or anything related to that.

Well, he studied once, perhaps the only time he got along with his father was in his teens, probably at the end of 1982 when that happened. CD cassettes were still relatively new and popular; no, they didn't buy it. His father made a replica of it after researching and researching the newest product, and he showed him how to make a CD as well as put some programs and files inside. He couldn't deny that man was a genius.

"Uncle," he called as he stood on his feet, leading him away from the living room following Henry who was going back to the basement to get more things.

Henry let him trail behind him. "Yes, Mike?"

The man showed a warm, thin smile and stared at the eldest Afton for a few seconds before focusing on his own steps down the stairs. They led to a messy room, lots of iron plates and scattered papers, newspaper pages piled together in a pile corner and Michael could read the headlines from afar; 'ALLEGED PERPETRATOR OF ABDUCTION AND MURDERER OF THE MISSING CHILDREN IN 1984'. Nice capslock.

"Do you have, uh," Michael paused with his fingers tapping on his own arm after he crossed his arms over his chest, "some blueprint designs for animatronics, perhaps? Like, you know, their endoskeleton or their programming, or their initial design." He shrugged his shoulders briefly, Henry had to stop tidying up his desk to glare at him as if he was joking, his forehead furrowed. "What?"

It seemed Henry had just realized he had been staring for too long, so he laughed softly. "No, nothing. I'm just surprised you asked about blueprints considering you usually hate them because they always kept William to working," he answered softly, Michael felt his ears heat up with embarrassment for a moment. "I have some blueprints of basic animatronic frameworks if you want."

"And I need literature at home to read, can I bring them?"

"Of course." Sometimes he wondered, did Henry ever get tired of smiling all the time? That person was too kind. "If you find it difficult to understand, you can ask me whenever you want."

Michael nodded slightly, he glanced out of the corner of his eye watching Henry take something from a shelf, papers he recognized as blueprints. It seemed like that was all Henry wanted to take in the basement, they just had to go back upstairs and into the living room, put them in a cardboard box, then he could go home and study them. Through the hall of the house, there were framed photos displayed on the walls, most of them of Henry's only daughter who was the same age as his sister, died before the winter, quite close to his sister's missing case. That same day his mother left him alone.

If he did the math, he lost a lot of people in just three months, then was forced to be trapped with his father before he disappeared too the following year. Followed by his death in 1988. The series of events felt like a nightmare where he couldn't wake himself from sleep.

Eyes blinked to see Henry stop in his tracks. "Uncle?" Michael called for caution, but Henry shoved the papers into his chest and he caught them in frantic so they wouldn't fall. "What is it?" He turned his head where Emily had gone, leaving him to the place they had just visited.