A Second Chance

Care

He gasped and clawed and flailed in the darkness around himself. William couldn't scream. He couldn't speak. He had already tried. The darkness had looked familiar, but didn't hold the ambivalence that the void had been known for this. There was no ambivalence here. There was no here. No Real Fredbear.

He didn't know where he was. His shoulder hurt so much. He wanted to scream. He can't scream.

Henry must be torturing him. There was no other explanation for this. He knows.

He knows now.

William feels an explosion of pain in his shoulder. He screams. He can't scream.

What can he do?

Henry knows now.

He fucked up. Peter, Dee, Steven.

Jack.

Henry would put them all in danger again.

He would kill them again.

No.

He had put them all in danger.

Just because he had a panic attack.

And had regretted killing Henry.

Why?

William winced, trying to not dwell on the reason. He can't still be sentimental. Henry is a monster. A pink douchebag at best and a salmon colored sociopath at worst.

He isn't capable of caring for William. He can't change. No matter how much he wants him to, he simply can't.

So why does he want him to? Why does he feel a shred of-of...

Warmth? Sympathy? For this bastard. It makes no sense.

"Fredbear... Why did you make me go back"?

He wasn't given an answer.

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Henry dabs a wet towel onto William's forehead. He frowns as the other man groans in pain. A slew of unintelligible syllables rolls from William's tongue. It reminded Henry of the prayers he'd heard from the Jehovah's Witnesses down the street from his childhood home. He used to think it was beautiful, until he was told by the boy from their house that they were cursing him and his father for being non-believing sinners.

That was when he decided to be an atheist.

Henry is dragged from his thoughts almost as violently as when he had been bludgeoned and springtrapped by the man below him as William thrashes in his bed. Henry grabs him by the shoulders and tries to restrain him, quickly correcting his grip and pinning William's left arm instead. He can't have his shoulder more injured than it already is. William, in his hysterical state, is nearly impossible to hold down. His eyes open deliriously, scanning wildly in every direction like a trapped animal, eyes seeing everything but taking in nothing. Henry grits his teeth and tries to steady him as best he can. After a minute, the night terror seems to run its course and a few beats later, he finally stills. Henry breathes a sigh of relief.

He collapses onto the stool near the bed and rubs his temples. Noticing the sweat he was accumulating, he grabs a tissue and dabs his forehead. He never liked the feeling of sweat on his skin. It always made him uncomfortable. The stickiness of sweat after working in the sun is a sensation he tries to avoid. Why nearly every living creature had to relinquish one of their most precious life sources, water, to any amount of heat was absurd to him. People die from the excessive loss of water everyday and yet no one has tried to remedy this fault in human physiology. No one would have to worry if they would leave him to his work.

Of course, his discomfort was minuscule compared to William's right now. He hadn't actually thought William would get sick when he had been rolling pitifully in the dirt outside. Sure, he had warned him at the time that there was a chance but he didn't think that it would've led to anything.

A part of him briefly wondered if he should bespeak to God so William wouldn't die. Him coming back from deadly assault is reliable information, but what of illness? For all Henry knew, he wouldn't be able to come back from dying of illness. What then? Would he have to kill himself to follow William wherever he went? To that strange, dark abyss where he'd found his son?

Would he have to dig up his son again to even follow William?

Henry shakes head. He wasn't one for incessant worry, truly. It was too distracting. Didn't allow for his mind to process or analyze a situation to the best of his ability.

Glaring at the clock, he barely makes out the numbers 1:39 am. He should have assumed that caring for William would have made him lose focus of time. Not that it matters. He's only nine minutes past his usual bedtime anyways. He stares wearily at the purple man for a pause, before getting up from his stool.

He quietly exits the office. He grabs his pillow and blankets from his room and places them on the floor next to William's bed. Henry frowns as he remembers the sleeping bag he had left under his bed. He decides against grabbing it as he moves his makeshift bed as close to William's bed as possible. Proximity, even forced, can be interpreted as intimacy. His father would do the same after a night with one of his women.

Henry yawns. He crawls under his blankets and grimaces feeling the cold, hard floor underneath him. He can only ask that his plans of getting close to William will help him get him back on his side. For now, there is nothing for it.

Today will be my finest day.

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I'm so tired. But like these characters, I ALWAYS come back!

Thank you all so much for the patience over the years. If I can be honest, I was wondering if I should cancel this story as I felt embarrassed at the quality of some of the later chapters in the story. I wanted to write a good story when I felt it was becoming okay at best. I'm starting to realize this doesn't matter anymore though. This story, to me, was about having fun and attempting to write my first novel length story that was hopefully fun, engaging, and endearing to myself and my readers. I realized that I need to love the good and bad or messy of my stories and I need to apply that here, especially. So, thank you all again. I'm going to try and write the best story I can but I also am okay if sometimes the writing is a little weak. I am still learning and truthfully, I want to have fun with this. Thank you.

PS: This chapter is short because I'm using it as a kind of diving board to getting back to writing this story. Let's hope I can keep making a deeper dive!