Death Of Me (William Afton X Reader)

ȻħȺᵽŧɇɍ Ɇłɇvɇn

William absently tapped his pen against his desk, the rhythmic clicking filling the empty office as he glanced at his phone. Annoyance flickered in his chest, growing with every passing second of silence. He was waiting-waiting for a message from you, a simple confirmation that you'd made it home in one piece and hadn't managed to wrap that scrap metal excuse of a car around a lamppost.

Not that he cared. No, this was a matter of... decency. Yes, that was it. You were his apprentice, after all, and it would reflect poorly on him if anything happened to you after he sent you home in that state. His gaze drifted toward the door, his thoughts tightening into an impatient knot. But it was your own fault, he reminded himself. You were the one who had stumbled into work today, feverish and visibly sick, wrapped in those ill-fitting clothes like a makeshift armor. He'd known the moment he saw you that you had no business being here. Yet there you were, pale and flushed, eyes rimmed with exhaustion, hair haphazardly thrown into a bun that looked barely held together.

On any other day, he might have found your disheveled appearance somewhat... attractive. It was a look that suited you, oddly enough-a messiness that appealed to something surface-level in him, something he would never admit. But today was different. The usual intrigue had been overshadowed by an unwanted, irksome concern as he watched you stumble through the day in, refusing to admit weakness. Stubborn, as always. He almost smirked at the predictability of it, though it irritated him to no end.

He caught himself lingering on the thought a second too long, forcing his attention back to the paperwork in front of him. This was nothing more than the simple duty of a mentor. He told himself that, repeated it, even as his gaze drifted back to his phone, waiting for a message he pretended didn't matter.

It was ridiculous, really, that he had let you stay, especially knowing you'd push yourself too hard and eventually collapse. He'd seen that determined, reckless glint in your eyes-one he was all too familiar with by now. He had anticipated it, seen the signs clear as day, yet he'd allowed it anyway. Perhaps he'd wanted to see how far you'd take it, or perhaps he'd just assumed you'd stubbornly push through as always.

But you hadn't.

He could still feel the fleeting weight of you going limp in his arms, the surprise jolting through him as he caught you without thinking. It had been instinct-pure reflex, nothing more. But the sensation lingered, a warmth that clung to his skin despite his best efforts to ignore it. One moment you were standing, pushing yourself past your limits as usual, and the next, you'd crumpled forward, collapsing right into him.

For a split second, he'd frozen, holding you up and feeling the heat radiating from your feverish skin. His chest tightened, though he dismissed the feeling immediately. It was simple decency, he reminded himself-anyone would have caught you. But even as he steadied you, ensuring you wouldn't hit the ground, there had been a strange, unwelcome surge of something else. An unspoken frustration, perhaps, or maybe even a flicker of something dangerously close to worry.

And now, as he sat waiting for the confirmation that you'd made it home safely, he found himself uncomfortably aware of that memory-of your weight against him, of the silence that had stretched out in that single, unguarded moment.

Even when you finally woke up, the embarrassment was written all over your face. You wouldn't look him in the eye, cheeks flushed with more than just fever. There was a flicker of shame there too, but of course, you tried to mask it, scrambling to prop yourself up and throw out some half-hearted sarcastic remark. Another flimsy attempt to hide behind that sharp tongue of yours, like it could somehow keep him at a distance.

It almost amused him, watching you try so desperately to cling to that defense, as though he couldn't see right through it. He knew the game you were playing, each word and glance calculated to make him think you were unaffected, untouched. But it was laughably transparent. You weren't some puzzle or mysterious enigma, despite whatever you liked to believe. He had you figured out the moment you first set foot in his office.