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riahlynn101 · 6 months

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Whumptober - Day Twenty-One: "Polaroid."

TW: William being himself, stalking, heavily implied slut-shaming, mentions of pregnancy, and hints of emotional and financial abuse.

Set in the FNAF movie universe.

Edited: 10/23/2023 - finished and edited it (as much as I could).

William is busy (he always is, but it’s nearly the holiday season. And if he wants Fredbear’s to get ahead of the competition, Henry and him need to start planning ahead for the influx of customers). He rushes around the restaurant, trying to dodge screaming children.

Why he ever got into children’s entertainment, he’ll never know.

He’s almost to his office, when someone taps him on the shoulder.

“William?”

He turns around to face-

“Laura…?” He can’t keep the surprise out of his voice. Laura was an ex-fling of his. They broke things off a few months back abruptly. He thought it was because she wanted to move out of state, but-he looks her up and down, noting her swollen stomach and tired eyes-that apparently wasn’t the case. Without another word, William opens the door to his office wider, inviting her in.

She moves past him, not meeting his eyes.

He sits down at his desk across from Laura. “You’ve been busy,” he jokes.

Laura glares at him, a hand on her stomach. “No, thanks to you.” She takes a deep breath, settling down. “I…didn’t come here to fight.”

“Well, that’s a shame.”

Another glare.

William smirks, pretending to read over some paperwork he finished earlier that day. “I don’t have all day you know?”

Laura sighs. “There’s no easy way for me to say this, but I’m pregnant.”

“I would have never guessed,” he snarks.

Laura rubs her stomach, one hand remains there at all times, as if protecting the growing life inside. “And you’re the-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” he says, cutting her off. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I want no part in it.”

Laura stares at him, narrowing her eyes. “What I’m playing at?” She repeats under her breath. “What I’m playing at!? And what do you, William, think I’m doing here then?”

“Waste my time? Try to scam me? Take my money and hard earned assets?”

“I don’t want your money,” she spits.

“Then, what do you want?” William asks, annoyed. He really hopes one of his employees, or worse, Henry, doesn't come into his office. The last thing he wants to explain is why he’s having a heated conversation with a pregnant woman.

Laura sniffles, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands.

Great, now she’s crying. She does that a lot.

“I,” she sniffs, clearing her throat, “just wanted our child to know his father. I know what it’s like growing up in a broken home, and I wanted to prevent that.”

It’s William’s turn to sigh. “Hypothetically, say I believe you, how certain are you that it’s mine? I mean, you got around a lot.”

Laura shakes her head, looking at him with watery eyes. “I know I used to party a lot, but you didn't like when I did that. So, I changed. I haven’t been with anyone else besides you in over a year.”

He tsks, tilting his head to the side. “And I wish I could believe that, but unfortunately, I can’t.”

“Please,” she begs, putting her hands together, “I don’t have anywhere else to go and-”

“And there it is. The truth.” He laughs, going back to reading over the finished paperwork, using the sounds of Laura quietly sobbing as white noise.

“Two things can be true. This baby is your child. Even if you don’t care about me, you should care about your son.”

“Sorry,” William tells her. “I have to get back to work, but I’ll be sure to send a gift card along to the women’s shelter.”

He watches her leave, defeated.

“That was odd,” he says to himself, flipping through a file to find one blueprint or another.

Despite how cruelly he treated her, William hopes the baby and her stay safe. It’s a scary world out there, and a real monster might take advantage of them.

-x-x-x-

William forgets the encounter. Business is booming and sales are up. Laura and her unborn child fade from his memory.

But then, Henry and his wife decide to have a baby. A little girl, they lovingly named “Charlotte.”

Business slows down, and William is left to his thoughts. He thinks about his ‘supposed’ child. They would be about four or five now. He wonders what they look like.

Do they look like Laura? Him?

He mentally berates himself. None of it matters, because William will never see Laura again. He hasn’t seen her since their last conversation, so it’s safe to say that she probably left town. And it’s unlikely that the kid is actually his. It can’t be.

The next day, because he’s so lucky, William runs into Laura while grocery shopping. He almost runs his cart into hers, but stops just in time. “Laura?” He asks. “Is that you?” He takes in her appearance. She looks put-together, something that she always seemed to struggle with. His eyes linger on the gold band around her left ring finger, and stop on the little boy sitting in the front of the cart.

Laura looks at him like a deer in headlights. Her mouth opens and closes. Before she finally composes herself. She stands a little straighter. “In the flesh,” she jokes.

William keeps looking at the boy. “Is this your-”

Laura cuts him off. “My son. Yep.”

“So, is he my-”

Again, she interrupts him. “My husband’s son?”

“So, you lied to me?” William can feel his blood starting to boil. The thought of abandoning his potential child has taken up more mental space than he likes to admit. Years of trying not to think about it, and she lied?

“No,” Laura mutters. She starts to walk away, but William puts a hand on her cart.

“Then, what happened?”

Laura glares at him. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

William studies the little boy, who gives him a big, toothy grin; his two front teeth are missing. All freckles and dark curls that rest messily against his forehead and big brown eyes.

He sees nothing of himself in the boy, and yet…

“He’s mine.”

It isn’t a question, but Laura answers anyway. “I’m not talking about this in front of Mike.”

“Michael,” William says, tasting the name. “I like it.”

Laura goes to move forward, but he maintains a tight grip on the cart. “Don’t leave, I just want to talk.”

She looks at him, and then down at their son. “I-”

“Laura,” a man says, a can in each hand. “They had a sale on veggies, and I know you’ve been saying we need to start feeding Mike more greens.” He tosses the items in the cart, before turning to greet William.

“Hi, you and Laura know each other?” There’s no accusations hidden in the question, but William feels somewhat offended.

“Of course we do. Me and her go way back.”

The man, who William suspects is her husband (judging by the matching gold band on his finger), raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah, way back.” It might be childish, but he relishes the slight twitch of the man’s eye. The knowledge that he’s getting to him, albeit barely.

Laura’s husband laughs, but it sounds forced. “Hey, honey, how about you go checkout? I’m sure Mikey doesn’t want to hear boring adult talk.”

She nods, hurrying away before William can intercept her again.

Once the cart is no longer in view, the man turns to him again. He pokes a finger into William’s chest, a severe look on his otherwise handsome face. “I know who you are, and I’m warning you, stay away from my family.”

There’s so many things William wants to say, but it’s clear that anything he says will fall on deaf ears. “Okay,” he answers, acting meek.

The man stares at him for a few seconds longer. “Good,” he mutters, leaving to (presumably) go find Laura.

William goes home that night, still thinking about his son. His real, actual son. Laura hadn’t been lying, or trying to pass off someone else’s child as his. They exist.

Instead of giving him closure, the event sparks something in William. He might not be able to talk to or interact with his son, but he can keep close tabs on him.

He buys a polaroid camera, and memorizes his son’s routine. Which is hard, because most of the time he’s with one adult or another. But sometimes William can catch him alone, at the park, or when he’s waiting for his parents to pick him up after school.

He never talks to Michael, not wanting the boy to tattle to his mom or “dad.”

William sticks to blending in with the surrounding crowds, or shadows. In the case of the park, he pretends to act uninterested, reading a newspaper. But in those perfect little moments where no one’s paying him any mind and his son’s doing something cute, like yawning or giggling, he’ll snap a picture or two.

A perfect little memento for his eyes only.

But then, Laura has another child - a little boy. Which messes up William’s schedule, because now Michael spends a lot of time at home with his new sibling. And as much as he wants to spend time with his son, even he’s not stupid enough to commit breaking and entering.

William sits on the park bench, newspaper in hand and polaroid camera at his side. It might take a couple weeks, but he’s sure his son will come back.

#whumptober2023 #no. 21 #switching prompts #polariod #not finished #tw abandonment #fnaf william afton #mike schmidt #fnaf michael afton

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