Chapter Text
There were two kinds of quiet in the Afton household.
One meant things were safe as long as you were good. The other was the calm before Father's storm.
Michael and Elizabeth were good at interpreting these. Evan was less so. He was too young.
Usually Father came home happy, greeting his children who all waited to meet him at the door, the picture of a happy family. He would do something for their dinner and retire to his office or the basement to work on some project or other. This routine was good, and the Afton children knew it by heart.
But sometimes Father came home angry. Elizabeth was always quick to console him when he turned up in a sour mood. And sometimes it worked; Father cheered up and ruffled her hair and life resumed with a tenuous peace. She was good like that.
Dinner was always a hurdle, though, on those days Father wasn't too busy to join them. Michael always spoke too loud and too impulsively. And his siblings always snitched.
'There's no such thing as snitching in this household. We all hold each other accountable.'
As if. It was always snitching when Michael did it.
The worst bit was the trouble he always got in afterwards. When Father asked if there was 'anything he needed to know about' and Evan shrank back in his seat, Michael knew that any good part of his day was over. Evan always folded like wet cardboard under Father's questions, even if Michael threatened him not to tell.
Michael wasn't born lucky, nor an actor like his sister. The night would only ever end one way. Father would take him into his office and Michael would be punished.
He tried not to think about it too much. Mostly, he tried to think about the times when Father was nice. When Father felt safe. Michael often ruined it, but when he didn't, it was wonderful.
Tonight was one of those nights.
Father had gathered them all together for a family movie night. They were allowed to stay up late, tomorrow wasn't a school day.
When they had been called, Michael followed his siblings downstairs with ice in his belly, expecting to be scolded in front of his siblings as an example and taken away into the office. But instead, Father was smiling. A happy smile. A real smile that reached his eyes. A smile he usually saved for Elizabeth.
Evan didn't snitch. No one wanted to ruin this chance. Ever since Mum left, there was very little love to go around.
Liz bounced on her toes, and her hair bounced with her, curls like little springs. “Thank you, Daddy!” She hugged him, and the last traces of sharpness melted from his face, replaced by satisfaction.
”I brought ice cream.”
“What flavor?” Liz asked.
“Strawberry, of course.” That was Elizabeth’s favorite.
Strawberry was Michael’s favorite too, but that was a secret. Strawberry ice cream was pink, and fruity, and girly. So if anyone asked, he said chocolate, because that was Father’s favorite, and that meant Father approved. Sometimes Michael pretended that Father bought it special for him. Evan’s favorite flavor was cookie dough.
The family piled onto the couch together carefully. Father first, with Liz climbing into his lap. Michael on one side, and Evan making sure to stay on the other. Evan leaned into Father’s side, and was accepted into the cuddle with a light chuckle. One of his hands clutched Father’s sweatshirt, the other his Fredbear plush.
Michael stayed where he was. He was ten now, and Father said he needed to start acting his age. He wasn’t sure if that extended to couch cuddles, but he refused to be a baby about it.
The bowl in his lap was cold, soothing compared to the desert heat that permeated the house no matter how high they ran the air conditioning. It would melt soon, but he didn’t mind. Ice cream soup tasted just as good as regular ice cream.
It took a moment for Father to find something on TV that they were “old enough to watch” (which translated to “dumb and babyish”) but eventually he settled on a cartoon. The Immortal and the Restless.
They all stayed up past their bedtimes, occasionally rushing to the kitchen for refills or to the bathroom on commercial breaks. When Father finally switched the TV off, it was past eleven. He scooped up Evan, who was half-asleep. Michael and Liz trailed upstairs after him, fighting yawns. That didn’t seem to fool Father, though.
“All tuckered out, are you? Even after all that sugar.” He readjusted his hold on Evan. “Off to bed with you two, then. I’ll see you in the morning. Late. You still need a good eight hours.”
All three of them (even Evan, who was beginning to wake up properly) answered in unison. The appropriate response when Father told you to do something was, “yes, Father.” To do otherwise would be disrespectful.
“Good.” He ruffled Michael’s and Liz’s hair in turn, then carried Evan to bed. He called over his shoulder one last time. “And you older two, don’t forget to brush your teeth.”
“Yes, Father!”
They both scrambled to the bathroom before he came back. Michael hip checked Liz at the doorway so that he could get to his toothbrush first.
“Hey!” She cried out. “Mike, you made me stub my toe!”
“Did not!”
“Yes, you did! You pushed me!”
“QUIET, both of you! Or you’ll wake your brother!” Father snapped from Evan’s room, loud enough to justify calling him a damn hypocrite. No one did.
Michael pushed Evan’s step stool away from the sink so he could stand in front of it, grabbing his toothbrush. Compared to the darkness of a living room lit only by the TV screen, the fluorescent light of the bathroom made him squint. He hiked up his shoulders, watching the doorway to Evan’s room by its reflection in the mirror.
It was obscured immediately by Liz as she followed him in, limping exaggeratedly. She elbowed him to the side, reaching for her own toothbrush. Hers had Sleeping Beauty printed on it. Michael’s had Superman.
He rushed through brushing so he could finish faster than her. Maybe Father would like that he’d followed instructions first, and he wouldn’t be mad. After all, it was late. He was more lenient when he was tired.
Soft footsteps on carpet. He glanced up at the mirror again.
His skin prickled, his back exposed. He stuck his toothbrush back in its holder.
He turned around.
“Michael.”
Liz crept to her room while Father was busy with her brother. She didn't want to get caught in the crossfire, nor did she want to be forced to sit (or stand) through one of Father's monologues about good behavior and respecting your elders.
She didn't respect him. She didn't respect any grown-ups, except maybe Uncle Henry. But she was good at pretending to.
Grown-ups liked to feel big and important. They wanted to feel smart and in control. All you really had to do was listen and nod and agree. Act like their every word was an epiphany, because you were little, and you were a girl, and you needed a guide to carry you through the big scary world.
She closed her bedroom door and left the lights off, sitting on her bed. Her comforter was powder pink, like most of the things Father bought her. The same color as her baby blanket had been, in the pictures that used to line the mantle. Little girls were always given pink things.
Liz wasn't sure where the pictures had gone. It didn't matter much anyway, though. She remembered.
Liz reached up and undid the red bow that held her ponytail together. It, at least, was her favorite color. Her hair fell to her shoulders, and she ran her fingers through it, fluffing it out and relieving the tightness in her scalp.
"Downstairs. Now."
"But--"
"Do you really want to be in any more trouble than you already are?"
Father’s voice was a hiss, close to a whisper but not quite. His quiet anger was much worse than when he shouted, and even from her room, Liz felt her chest constrict.
"...No, Father."
Two sets of footsteps descending the stairs. Once she heard the second set reach the creaky step near the bottom, she allowed herself to lie down. Liz pulled the comforter over her head. She wished that it would block out the nauseating crack of the belt downstairs, but she knew it wouldn't.
This was why she had to pretend.
Good girls didn’t get punished.
It didn't take her long to fall asleep. Staying up late had been more exhausting than she would admit, because she wanted to do it again. It felt very grown up to stay up late, and Liz was mature for her age. Ms. Anderson had said so.
When she woke, the clock on her nightstand read 9:27 am. That was late enough, probably. On school mornings they had to get up at 6:00. And if Father heard her in the kitchen and got upset, she could say... she could say that she was really hungry, and was going right back to bed. With an excuse pre-planned, she crept down the stairs, skipping over the tattletale step and onto the cool linoleum. She paused, held her breath, and listened.
Silence. No, not quite. She could hear Father snoring.
Safe.
She crept to the kitchen.
No one had been in since last night, it seemed. The scooper was still out on the counter, and a few drops of spilled ice cream had coalesced on the marble below it. All four bowls were stacked next to the sink.
Even if you opened it very slowly, the sound of the fridge door couldn't be masked. Liz stared at it, debating whether milk in her cereal was worth the risk.
There were papers pinned to it. A calendar and a few notes Father had written himself near the top, out of reach of his children. The middle and bottom were plastered with Liz's aced assignments and some of Michael's drawings. There was one of Evan's, a coloring sheet of Fredbear with half the crayon outside the lines. Evan didn't color very much, though. And he was only in kindergarten, babies like him didn't have to take tests.
Liz decided that milk was worth the risk. It wasn't very likely she'd get in trouble if Father found her out here. She had her little excuse ready, and Father had probably taken all his frustration out on Michael last night.
When she returned upstairs, neither of her brothers were awake yet-- or at least, they hadn't gotten up. The sanctuary of her room awaited her. With the door safely pulled as far shut as was allowed, Liz knelt on the carpet among her toys, frozen in the midst of their adventure.
Her Mix-and-Match Toy Foxy was always the main character in her games. She imagined that the other animatronics might tease the Mangle the way Michael teased Liz. He wasn’t any better than her just because he was a boy, or because she liked wearing skirts.
Michael was bigger and stronger and meaner than her. There wasn't much she could do to him. But Mangle had big sharp teeth and she could bite Foxy as much as she wanted and never, ever get in trouble.
Mangle could rule the seven seas as she saw fit. Her crew was mostly the other Toys, but Liz's own Fredbear was there too. He never really did much in games, but Liz included him anyway. Because if she ever became a pirate, and she could run away from home with her best friends, she would bring Evan with her too.
Springbonnie could walk the plank.