MACHIAVELLIANISM - FNAF

WE'RE WORRIED

A few days after that interaction, William began to leave work early, the time he spent at Freddy's getting smaller and smaller until he completely disappeared.

Henry had never informed you of his worriment, but it was painstakingly clear on his face. Every time William's car failed to appear in its usual parking spot, you'd see Henry's eyebrows crease with perplexity and his mouth twitch downwards into a frown.

Now without the help of William, Henry has had to take on a lot more than he can handle. You always insist on tending to the robots yourself, but Henry refuses. It's not that he doesn't trust you, he doesn't help you with the repairs, he only sits in the same room as you to do his paperwork. You suppose he just prefers the idea of having at least one creator of the animatronics present while you work on them.

It's obvious he's lost sleep over all of this, the lines on his forehead have deepened from the distress and his lips are fixed into a grimace. You often observe him at his desk, staring vacantly into the intricacies of the wood on the furniture, then he removes his glasses, rubbing his eyes until his fingers close and pinch around the bridge of his nose with frustration.

You want to comfort him, but you don't know when you're overstepping as his employee. To be fair to him, it has only been a few days since William's disappearance, you suspect he's holding out hope that he'll return on his own accord before he starts spouting unreasonable anxieties to you.

Even when he's with Charlotte, his cheer is muffled, like the weight of his friend's disappearance is crushing all things good. Henry absentmindedly sails a horse toy through the air as he sits on the dirty floor with his daughter. You are only a few feet away going at Freddy's leg joints with a wrench.

"Where's Michael?" Charlotte suddenly questions, asking the both of you.

"They must be on vacation." Henry hums and knocks over another toy with his horse, staring boredly in another direction.

"Can we go on vacation?"

You try to lighten up the mood and draw Charlotte's attention away from her father, who is getting visibly irritated by the poking and prodding. "You wanna leave me all alone?" You pretend she's just stabbed you in the heart and fall backwards into Freddy's large frame as if he caught you.

Charlotte giggles out a 'no!' and motions you over to sit with them. You comply, Freddy stands still as you leave, joints still slightly loose, but he could wait. Once you drop yourself down onto the floor the kid hands you a lion figurine. She gives you no instructions on what to do with it, so you turn to Henry with a lighthearted grin and knock his horse with your animal. His eyes refocus after the abrupt interruption and he stares up at you questioningly. The unamused expression throws you off slightly and your smile falters, but you recover by shooting him a sympathetic look, as if to say you know what he's worried about, and you're worried too. Henry understands what you're trying to convey.

"Charlotte, could you play outside for a while? We need to talk about grownup stuff."

"Like what?"

Henry rolls his eyes and turns to you, he starts reciting equations with a straight face. Charlotte's face contorts into one of horror and she runs out of the room screaming, sprinkling a few giggles in as she pushes at the large and heavy door. Henry chuckles and watches her leave, yet his face falls into a serious expression in time with the slam of the door.