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The kitchen is quiet and still, like the diner after hours: low lights and the lingering smell of leftovers long-since stored away, the muted sound of the dishwasher running its cycle, and Michael’s huffy sighs as he finishes his chores. He can hear ABBA from the den. Voulez-Vous Side 2, he knows, because he can hear “Does Your Mother Know” underneath his dad’s low, smooth voice singing along.
There’s that look in your eyes, I can see that your feelings are driving you wild…
Michael tolerates ABBA, but only because his dad loves them so much. He’d much prefer Bowie, better yet one of his new records, but right now he doesn’t think anything would sweeten the sour fucking mood he’s in. He tosses the damp rag into the bin beneath the sink as soon as he’s finished cleaning the counter, grabbing three-too-many paper towels off the roll to dry off the steel so it doesn’t get spots. Exhausted and cranky, he flops down in one of the island counter’s bar stools and drops his head into his hand, drumming on the counter with his other.
Well, I can dance with you honey, if you think it’s -
He hears the scratchy sound of the needle being lifted off the record, then the dull thunk of the amplifier as the stereo is shut off, and braces for impact. He hasn’t seen his dad since he left to put the kids to bed shortly after dinner and he has no idea what kind of mood he’s in as a result. He’s singing, which could go either way. His dad breezes into the kitchen a few seconds later and offers him a dazzling smile, pale cheeks only a little splotchy from the liquor. Michael scowls harder.
William’s humming to himself, either oblivious to or simply disinterested in his teenage son’s sulking, the woes of a fifteen-year-old far beneath him. Michael bets it’s the latter, because nothing escapes William’s notice, especially when it’s about him.
“Oh, you’re making yourself another drink?” Michael asks sullenly as he watches William remove the liquor from the bar fridge, eyes following him as he nudges the door closed with his hip. When he doesn’t get an immediate response he adds, “You drink too much, dad. Maybe if you’re so worried about getting old you shouldn’t drink the shit that dries out your insides.”
William sighs and sets the copper mug down on the counter before he can turn around and fling it at his son’s head. He makes a game of it - can he place it on the countertop with nary a sound? Can he release his grip on the handle slowly enough, calmly enough, that the irritation sending tremors into his hand doesn’t rattle the mug on the glossy granite?
“Why the belligerency, Michael?” William asks without turning around, denying Michael the luxury of his full attention and refusing to compromise on that. Michael huffs angrily. Unbothered, William continues, “I’ve tried to be patient today - honestly, more patient than you deserve at this point - but you seem intent on wearing that gift positively threadbare. You stabbed at your dinner like you were settling a personal vendetta and now this? What the hell has gotten into you?”
“You usually don’t mind,” Michael says acidly, a non-answer that is as charming as it is obnoxious. William can feel Michael’s eyes burning into his back, a prickle along his spine that only adds to the tension of the day still coiled in his neck and shoulders. He turns his head to steal a glance at the boy and is treated to the infuriating sight of Michael’s finger pushing down on the edge of the wooden fruit bowl so that it tips. It rattles to right itself, clattering from side to side as its contents bruise, adding insult to the injury of the sound in his ears. When he tires of that, he brings his hand to his mouth and gnaws at a hangnail on his middle finger as he mumbles, “I’m such a teenager, remember?”
Talking with his mouth full, wiping the spit-drenched fingertip on his pants leg when he’s done. He knows better; William knows he does. Poor manners set his teeth on edge. Perhaps it’s a remnant of his upbringing, perhaps it’s his desire to control. Either way, Michael knows not to talk with his mouth full. To mumble. To slouch.
And here he is with all three, a trifecta of grievances. With difficulty, William ignores the way that Michael lets his long-abandoned English accent slip in as he says ‘such a teenager,’ like he’s mocking him with it. Michael has taken every possible step to minimize his original inflection since they moved to the United States, his vowels shortening, sharpening as he’s grown until he sounds just like every other snot-nosed American teenager that William employs. For the sake of fitting in, Michael says, for the sake of individuality. Of separation. What he means is: for the sake of pushing William’s buttons.
“Too true,” William concedes, choosing to let Michael’s mockery and insubordinate tone slide. Picking his battles, for lack of a more refined term. Even if he cedes some territory in the skirmish, he’ll still win the war. He knows that with the same surety that he knows the sun will rise in the east and people will spend money on things they don’t need.
“Yeah,” Michael clips, moving now to his ring finger and biting at his nail, the sound of teeth on keratin like nails on a chalkboard to William’s ears. Michael wants to stop biting his nails, but he’s never been able to truly break himself of it, a bad habit that returns only when his mind is full of fog and franticness. An excuse to keep his mouth busy that drives his father slightly less mad than his gum-chewing.
“You like that,” he says as he rolls his eyes. His dad doesn't see, which is probably a good thing. He hates that, too.
Ice cubes clink into the mug, frosting over the dimpled copper. William smiles and concedes, “I do enjoy your oh-so-charming pubescent attitude when it’s rare and unexpected; it’s true… but I vastly prefer obedience. Compliance and compromise would do you a world of good, Michael.”
Michael returns his attention to the fruit bowl, privately pleased when the path of his fingertip around the bowl’s rim leaves a shiny trail of saliva that can’t be noticed. His dad won’t see it, but Michael will know it’s there, and William might even touch it if he reaches for an apple. It gives Michael the same thrill as when he used to spit in his dad’s coffee before he brought it to him steaming, a prank that had ended swiftly after he’d commented that the coffee tasted “odd.” Michael’s been too scared to do it again, but he’s thought about it every time since.
He knocks the bowl off balance, letting it clatter and not giving a shit. Polished wood on expensive granite, careless. He makes sure his voice is syrupy sweet as he says, “Gee, thanks for the advice, dad,” and follows it immediately with, “What’s that life lesson you’ve told me before? Shit, I think there’s actually a song about it or something too… ‘you can’t always get what you want?’”
William looks down at the bottle of Absolut in his hand. Christ, he wants to break it over Michael’s head. Or maybe fuck him with it. Either one would shut him up, though one would certainly be more fun.
Instead, he sets the bottle down as calmly as he can on the counter and uncaps it, lifting it once more to fill the larger side of the cocktail measure and pouring it over the ice. He thinks about it, then pours out another full one and a half-ounce measure to make it a double. Not that he needs to be drunk to deal with his son, but it does certainly temper his rage just a bit so he can go for longer without wanting to strangle him. He can nearly hear Michael’s face twist into a scowl and it sends a shiver down his spine, pleased that he’s grating his boy’s nerves as much as he’s grating his.
“Hilarious, Michael,” William drawls as he fits half a lime into the squeezer and compresses, watching the cloudy juice trickle into his drink and then squeezing the other half for good measure. “I’m sure the Stones would appreciate knowing that their song seems to be one of the only lessons that’s firmly taken root in that Teflon-coated head of yours.”
“My head’s not Teflon,” Michael protests, then unwittingly smoothes out all of the sharp edges away from his words by pouting, “It’s not a skillet.”
“Perhaps it would like to be acquainted with one, then?” William offers casually, tossing the suggestion over his shoulder as his eyes flick to the pot rack above the island. Michael’s mouth clamps suddenly shut, fearfully understanding of the threat. His dad’s never hit him with cookware before, but there’s a first time for everything.
The ridged metal top of the ginger beer cracks beneath the bottle opener in William’s hand with a crisp hiss. Admittedly, there’s very little room left in the mug but William fills it to the top nonetheless, watching the surface tension of the rim holding back a barrage of bubbles that could ruin his immaculate countertop. It gives him time to collect his thoughts; to regain composure. He’s certain that Michael can tell that he’s annoyed; the worst thing he could do now would be to let him know just how annoyed he is.
Everything in delicate balance. Like mixing a drink, or building a machine. The son he’s raised is simply the most advanced of his portfolio of creations.
Something isn’t right, though. That balance is disrupted, the equilibrium of their lives thrown off-course. Michael is never this disobedient. Sarcastic? Of course. Moody? Naturally! But this? The fidgeting, the picking at his father, attempting to get a rise out of him? This is combat for combat’s sake, with a man he very much cannot hold his own against. A man who is not to be played with. That is simply not Michael’s style.
Not with William, anyways. Not anymore. Not now. He’s learned.
Michael is too bright to risk his father’s ire by starting a fight he cannot finish, too conscious of his own strengths and limits to be even remotely combative with his father. He’s so much like William, in that way. He only rallies himself for the battles he can win.
So, he’s trying to accomplish something with this little charade. Something, perhaps, that he doesn’t even realize he needs. Something that only William can provide.
“You’ve gotten so skilled with jokes, Michael,” William mocks, walking to the refrigerator and tucking the half-empty ginger beer safely inside before moving to the island where Michael is sullenly pouting, leaning across the opposite side and taking a well-earned sip.
He adds, “A pity that many simply… don’t land.”
Michael scowls, shoving down the rim of the fruit bowl so harshly that it nearly flips. An apple escapes, rolling off the edge of the counter. Hits the floor, bruises.
“Maybe you just have no sense of humor,” he spits, looking at the apple before nudging it with his toe. He’ll have to clean the whole kitchen floor now, which fucking sucks. He already feels like he’s going to crawl out of his skin, like his whole nervous system will just up and give up and get the fuck out, and the idea of having to focus on coating all the hardwood with that stupid special polish makes him want to scream.
“Or maybe,” William grits through his teeth, “My son isn’t as funny as he thinks he is, nor as cute.”
It’s a test, and William watches the insult wash over Michael in real-time. It’s reflected on his face even though he tries to hide it, a voyeur’s dream peep-show through barely-tinted glass and oh, what a pretty series of expressions it is. Surprise, anger, hurt, like a betrayal. With one sentence, William has punished him with the one thing that stings like a slap and bites like the belt without ever requiring him to lift a finger: his disdain. He’s worked tirelessly to carefully cultivate this response since Michael was born, experimented with differing variables, a decade-long game of cause and effect to determine the best way to hurt his son. It’s always the disapproval, the disappointment, the rejection… it hurts him far more than the beatings ever could.
(Not that he doesn’t need those as well.)
It makes Michael dependent. It makes Michael weak.
Michael seethes as he watches William sip his drink nonchalantly, fighting down every urge in his body that screams with the impulse to reach across the island counter and smack it out of his stupid, self-righteous hand. Fuck him, what’s his fucking problem? Saying he isn’t funny is one thing, whatever, but saying he isn’t cute? When his dad already spends as much time as possible touching him, kissing him, fucking him? Clearly he thinks he’s pretty goddamn cute. Clearly his dad’s just being mean, that way he does where he reaches his bony fucking fingers into his soul and combs through the contents until he finds the one fucking weakness to exploit that will hurt the most in the moment.
Michael hates that it’s working. He hates how badly the insult hurts, and he hates how angry it makes him.
More than anything, he hates how badly he wants his dad to take it back. To tell him he’s cute, pretty, handsome, beautiful. My perfect boy, such a pretty doll in my hands. You look just like Daddy, so handsome.
Something. Anything. Michael used to spend all his time trying to fade into the wall paneling, hoping that if he stayed quiet and obedient his dad wouldn’t come into his room at night and touch all those places that made him feel so weird and achy and hollow even when his body was forced to be anything but.
Now, even though he’s mad at his dad, even though he’s trying to make his dad mad, he’d do anything to keep those ice-crystal eyes on him and his lips purring compliments instead of criticisms. Anything to remind him that William loves him, wants him, needs him. The idea of his dad’s tangerine velour shirt spattered with the remains of his pretentious drink is an appealing one, but Michael’s not quite ready to try that yet. It wouldn’t end well, so instead he settles on baiting, “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”
It’s better than letting himself be sad about what his dad said, what he might possibly think. He can already tell in his dad’s face that he’s already almost pushed too far, but it’s like he can’t stop. Like he’s fucking compelled to keep talking, saying all the things he knows his dad fucking hates. His mouth won’t listen to his brain, or maybe his mouth’s just listening to a part of his brain that he can’t control. Some part that his dad has reached inside and re-wired until it only listens to him, coded perfectly to respond the ways he wants.
“Maybe you should take a chill pill,” Michael suggests with dripping sarcasm. “Remove the stick from your ass or something. I’ve heard it’s pretty uncomfortable.”
William has half a mind to show Michael just how uncomfortable a stick in the ass can be. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d fucked that tender little hole, after all. Maybe if Michael sank to his knees and offered a proper apology, he’d even do it with his cock instead of whatever else he could find to discipline the boy. His anger has grown from a simmer beneath the skin to a veritable boil, heating his blood until his skin prickles with it. Michael is infuriating, and it takes all William has to remind himself that this is bait. This is Michael at his most disobedient, which means that it’s Michael at his most desperate.
“You know, you’ve always been a curious child,” William says after he silently counts to five, letting his anger level out as he walks around the shorter edge of the island to lean against it, closer to Michael than before. Close enough to hear his breath, smell his skin. He watches Michael’s brows furrow even as his eyes flick upwards, twinkling with an interest that even his sullen scowl cannot hide, then elaborates. “Loving you has — of course — been easy, but raising you? Raising you has been a series of difficulties. You’re so bright; you think you know everything. I know the feeling. I felt that way, too.”
Michael asks coldly, “Did you realize you didn’t know everything when your dad was beating you, too?”
It’s ugly and cruel. He doesn’t know why he says it.
Or maybe he does.
Maybe a mean, spiteful part of him wants to hurt William, just to prove that his dad can be hurt.
“Michael, Michael, Michael,” William sighs as he takes another sip, ice cubes beginning to clash against each other as the drink quickly empties. He isn’t angry, not truly, at least not at the insult. Any fear of and hatred towards the man who’d sired him died with him, lowered into a box and buried alongside the body. He’s no more than a collection of bones in a distant family plot far from the ancestral mausoleum, a dignity that William had taken great pleasure in denying him.
No, William isn’t angry at what Michael said. What does make him angry is that Michael thinks he can weaponize his father’s pain. That he can take that tiny bit of best-forgotten past that William had shared with him, sharpen it into a blade to be wielded, albeit by a clumsy hunter.
Perhaps what irritates him most is Michael’s misplaced belief that they in any way stand on equal footing. That this goes both ways.
It’s almost laughable.
“You can be such a cruel little boy sometimes.”
Michael brings his feet up to the edge of the bar stool the way he knows William hates, dirty shoe soles scraping the stitching. He hugs his knees to his chest and scowls out from beneath his mop of messy hair and spits, “And you’re what, fuckin’ Mother Theresa? Blow me.”
That’s what finally does it, oddly enough. All that he’s said, all that he’s done; every ugly scowl that’s crinkled his nose and twisted his mouth, every clumsy, cruel word, and what finally does it for William is ‘blow me.’
William transfers his nearly-empty mug to his left hand so as not to waste a drop, instead drinking in the way Michael eyes his hands warily. He’s always watching, his little fox – cunning and clever, not that it helps much – and yet William still finds a way to… ah, yes.
Surprise him.
The front-hand slap lands abruptly on Michael’s cheek, loud as a crack of lightning in the late-evening stillness of the kitchen. Open-palmed and solid against his skin, and William’s hand is nearly back at his side by the time Michael’s even begun processing the hit.
He tears up immediately, of course. He can try all he likes; his boy’s always been quick to cry.
The force of skin on skin burns like hell, but what stings the most is the shock. Michael wasn’t ready for it. He’s usually ready for it. He knows his dad’s movements by now; the progression, the patterns. Memorized his dad’s mannerisms down to the most miniscule of movements, every fleeting micro-expression that means he’s displeased him. Even if his dad’s irritation doesn’t turn physical, he always knows it’s there. A blessing and a curse.
Why wasn’t he ready for it?
Maybe, Michael thinks as he presses his own palm flat against his stinging cheek, he was ready for it. Maybe he just didn’t want to be ready for it. Maybe he saw what was coming, weighed his options, and chose to embrace it rather than escape.
Was he ready for it?
Maybe he wanted it to hurt. Craved the pain, even.
But that would be crazy, right…? Why would he want to be hit? He’s spent his entire life trying to avoid anything that might make his dad strike him, and now here he is now running through any and all other things that might provoke the same reaction. God, he thinks, he’s really fucked up.
The silence goes on too long. Awkward and overpowering, it hangs around them heavy, like smoke. His throat feels dry, thick with poison, and his eyes are burning with tears. Michael doesn’t speak, just holds his hand to his face, blinking up at William. His father doesn’t even look angry. There’s no lingering scowl, no irritated set of his jaw. He’s smiling, looking down at Michael like he’s a subject in an experiment and he’s observing every reaction to be studied later, catalogued before he’s dissected.
“Oh no, I’m quite vicious, pet,” William finally counters, so long that it takes Michael a moment to remember what he’d even said. William seems almost insulted by even the sarcastic implication that he’s in any way tenderhearted.
“The difference between us is that I own it. I use it. Carefully, constructively, like a weapon. Cruelty is a tool to be utilized cautiously, same as kindness. You, however, behave like an opportunistic little beast with a bone, gnawing at any weak spot and hoping you’ll get a treat for your bite.”
He leans forward and taps Michael’s nose once, twice, thrice as he says it, like he needs the physicality to really drive the words home.
(Maybe he does. Michael’s always responded best to that, doesn’t he?)
Like Michael really is a beast to be reprimanded, and any second now his dad’s going to shove his face in a mess on the carpet or smack him with a rolled-up newspaper. Maybe that’s why they aren’t allowed to have any pets. His dad already has one.
Michael sighs as he finally removes his hand from his face now that it’s stopped stinging. It’s only a faint ache, now, a dull heat that serves as a reminder, and yet still he pushes: “You are such a fucking asshole.’
William doesn’t respond right away, only sighs. He tips his head back and brings the mug to his lips, draining the last of his cocktail. Michael watches his throat move as he swallows, long and elegant. He should seem delicate, all long legs and thin frame as he is, but he’s not. He’s never been anything but stalwart and steady, and god damn he’s strong. That’s why Michael’s face hurts so much, and that hadn’t even been as hard as he knows his dad can hit.
“Language, Michael,” William chides as he sets the sweating mug on a cork-backed coaster he pulls from its holder.
“What the fuck?” Michael demands. “Why do you only get mad at me for cursing sometimes?”
William smiles, stepping forward so he’s practically pressed against Michael. His demeanor may be cold but he’s so warm. Hot, even, from the liquor and something deeper, something Michael knows is desire. Passion, lust. Call it whatever, but Michael knows what it is. Likes it that way.
“Because we’re having a nice conversation. There’s no need for cursing.”
Michael hazards a glance up at him, crossing his arms over his chest and sulking when he finds only that same smug, shit-eating grin on his handsome face. He quips, “Yeah, it’s a real fuckin’ heart to heart chat,” and in the space between the rapid thumps of his heart, his dad hits him again.
Michael doesn’t flinch, even though the slap is swift and strong, the pain blooming on the left side of his face to match the right. With William’s positioning the only way to deliver it is back-hand, and Michael’s glad for the high-backed stool so he doesn’t stumble.
“What is the matter with you today?” William demands as Michael glares up at him. “Do you enjoy my disappointment? Don’t lie. I know you don’t. Do you enjoy being hit; is that it?”
Does he..?
“No,” Michael rushes to say, holding his left cheek, now, as if the extra step of removing his son’s feeble attempts at self-preservation before he strikes him is any kind of deterrent to his dad. Never has been, never will be.
If anything, it’s a challenge, and William Afton hates challenges.
“Then what?” he demands. “Do you like to be a sullen little brat that no one wants to be around?”
Michael’s head is spinning, his vision swimming. It isn’t just the involuntary tears blurring his sight; it’s something else, some kind of fog that’s descended on him like a shroud. He hears his dad’s question, but he can’t answer it, can’t make the words even come into his mind, let alone push them out his lips.
“I don’t know,” he finally manages, that way he at least says something, because Dad despises being ignored. “I don’t care.”
“Liar,” William spits. “You do care. You like attention, same as Daddy. You thrive on it. It’s in your nature; you’re mine. You’d waste away into the walls if I ignored you.”
“Stop, I don’t know!” Michael repeats, his voice a reedy whine, cracking when he speaks. His throat feels like it’s closing up, thick with tears and things he wouldn’t even know how to say if he could speak. He slides off the bar stool opposite from where William’s standing, scraping the legs on the hardwood floor with an awful sound that makes them both cringe.
“I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t know!”
It’s funny, William thinks. How Michael started this – pushing, picking, like he’s peeling paper off the walls – and how it’s so swiftly turned on him. Now William is the one pushing, cutting through the barriers of skin and muscle and bone until he can spread Michael open and see exactly what lies in his heart. There’s something wrong with his boy, something inside that needs to come out and play. A monster of his mind’s own invention that bears William’s fingerprints the same way his son does.
“You’re in it, now,” William says as he reaches out to curl his fingers around Michael’s bicep. He can feel definition beneath the skin, the efforts of Michael’s sullen weightlifting alone in his room, but he’s not as strong as his father. He’ll never be as strong as his father.
“Do you think you can walk away, now? Don’t tell me there’s nothing there. I’ll ask again: what the hell is the matter?”
“Shut up about it!” Michael shouts, voice raising to a level that William cannot tolerate, not with the younger ones in bed. He’s wriggling in his grasp like a worm. William hits him again, splitting his lip open on his teeth. He immediately begins to wail, hands flying to his mouth, pale like frightened doves. The blood trickles down his chin and onto his chest – not nearly as flat as he likes it when he leaves the house, absent his double-layer of sports bras – and William is struck by a sudden, violent urge to lick it, to taste Michael’s blood, his pain.
All in due time.
“Michael, be quiet. You’re nearly hysterical. What is it?”
It’s one last chance. One final olive branch covering a double-edged sword. Michael sees it for what it is, because this is how it always goes. Michael denies that something is wrong, and denial of the truth, even without making an excuse, is lying. Dad hates lying, even if he does it all the time. To Michael, to Elizabeth, to Evan. To customers, even to fucking Henry if he needs to, because his dad’s version of reality is always exactly the way he wants it.
“I don’t know!” Michael lies.
William moves to slap him again, but Michael turns at the last minute, spinning in William’s grasp in an ill-considered escape attempt. His dad’s hand slams against his ear and it stings, hard, makes it ring like he’s listened to his music too loud in his headphones. Michael moves on instinct, primal and reactionary, and before he’s had time to consider the landing before he’s taken the leap he lashes out and hits William back. It’s an awkward punch, half-hearted, with his fist loose and lazy, and it lands on his dad’s temple and bumps the earpiece of his glasses. Honestly, it hurts Michael probably more than it hurts his dad, but William staggers backwards in surprise, his hold on Michael’s bicep loosening enough for him to twist out of his grasp.
Michael’s body somehow realizes that he’s made a big mistake before his mind catches on and then he’s off, rubber soles squeaking on the hardwood. He makes it about five feet before it feels like the floor is rushing up to meet him and he’s landing hard, breaking the fall with his hands and his wrists scream in protest as they’re trapped between his body and the floor. He dares a glance back and sees that one of his sneakers has slipped off his foot, untied shoelace trapped beneath the toe of his dad’s platform shoe and then he’s moving again, trying to run or at least crawl away, because now he’s really gone and fucking done it.
This time, Michael only makes it about two feet before he’s stopped, his dad’s foot firmly on the back of his knee as it bends. It’s a very clear threat – move, and I could break it – and Michael heaves out a sob as his chest compresses against the floor. He’s panting like a dog, running on adrenaline and fear, his ear still ringing. He hears his dad’s breaths behind him, hardly labored at all, like he’s barely breaking a sweat.
Michael feels the shoe lift from his knee, but he doesn’t move. He can’t, or maybe he’s just too scared to. He’s too scared to do anything but lay there shivering like he’s been locked out in the cold again. He hears the thud of one footstep to his right, heavy on the hardwood, then another to his left, then silence. Just before he’s about to turn over, or at least move to his side so he can see what his dad’s doing and how mad he seems to be, his dad’s crouched on top of him and there’s a hand in his hair. Tugging, pulling, dragging him up until his back is arched sharp and he’s practically being lifted off the ground. Michael rises to his knees to avoid hair being torn out of his scalp and William’s hand moves to his throat, curling around it as he leans in and sighs against his neck.
“That hurt, Michael,” he says lowly, levelly. There’s barely any emotion in his tone, more a statement of facts than anything else. “You hurt your father.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “Dad-” Michael begins, cut off abruptly as the hand around his throat tightens.
“Do I like being hurt?” William asks. That’s a loaded question – Michael knows full damn well what his dad and Henry get up to, sometimes – but there’s only one right answer here. There’s only ever one right answer with dad, and it’s the one that he’s going to provide.
“No,” Michael croaks.
William likes this response, but then again, he would have appreciated even another blow me or maybe bite me or fuck you, just for the sake of feeling the words in his throat. The way that Michael’s throat moves in William’s grip, the way he can feel him swallow nervous saliva before he speaks, is intoxicating. His hard-on has been building steadily since the moment Michael said blow me, the moment William had cracked him across the face. His fingers are tingling with the joy of it, the desire to do it again. In the position he’s in, crouched over his son, he can press against the curve of his ass and feel his heat, anger and fear and desire, too, on top of it all.
“Ah, so you do have some sense left,” William says. “Let me ask another question, then: was that wise, pet? To hurt me?”
Michael whimpers and squirms. “No, dad. It wasn’t. Fuck, I’m sorry, fuck. I wasn’t thinking, I just… moved. The same way I would’ve if someone else came at me. I didn’t realize — I would have — shit!”
“Are you proud?” William asks.
“No.”
“Did you enjoy having the upper hand for just one brief, fleeting moment? Answer honestly.”
It’s an honest question, and William isn’t even sure what he wants Michael to say. The truth, hopefully, because it will save them some time, but a lie would be just as fun. He's going to hurt him either way. He’s going to fuck him either way.
“Yes — no —“
William lifts and spins him so he’s sat back awkwardly on his bent legs, looking up at him in that way that’s always driven him half-mad with desire. Eyes wide, lips pouting, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. This way he can see Michael’s flushed face and the way his eyes are wide as saucers when William tightens his grip on his throat again, watching every emotion ripple over the tapestry of his boy’s face. He leans in until his face is inches from his son’s and says, “I hope you did, because I’m going to beat you bedridden.”
“Please,” Michael moans, his eyes sliding shut. There’s a click as his mouth opens to try and explain it away and then again as it shuts, and he squeezes his eyes so tightly shut it must be uncomfortable. All to avoid seeing his dad’s face, all to avoid seeing his own brutal honesty reflected in his dad’s smug smile.
Why had he fucking said that? Moaned like that? Why does the idea of his dad hitting him again make him squeeze his legs together? He’s already wet, that he knows. He can feel his briefs sticking to his cunt, hopes his shorts aren’t too fucked up so his dad can’t see how shiny he is with slick. He’s gotten so caught up in the shock and the struggle that he hadn’t realized the monster it had birthed, the hollow, aching desire.
He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He doesn’t want to see his dad’s face, because he thinks it might break him if he does. He keeps waiting for another hit — a slap, a punch, a grip so tight it bruises — but it doesn’t come. Instead there’s a click of heels on hardwood, dull thumps as William sinks to his knees in front of him.
“Is that what you want?” William asks, his voice soft and low, nearly inaudible. Like silk against skin, smooth and subtle. He’s softer now, less anger and sharp angles. “Is that what this whole charade is about? This tantrum?”
Michael opens his eyes, too scared to keep them closed any longer. To stay that vulnerable. Unwilling to miss the naked lust on his dad’s face as he looks down at him, because he loves the way it feels.
He nods, gnawing at his lip as he ducks his head in shame. The blood begins to flow again and he bites down harder, tastes copper. It feels kind of good knowing when the pain is coming, helps to give him something bright and hot when the sting in his cheeks has dulled to fleeting warmth. Maybe he does like this, sick as it seems.
William’s fingers move to Michael’s chin, tipping it upwards, dragging his eyes back to him before he speaks. His voice is higher, closer to the cadence he adopts for Spring Bonnie. Playful and sweet even as he says, “Oh, Mikey, my sweet… if you need to be brutalized, you simply need to ask.”
“I can’t ask for that!” Michael protests, wrenching his chin from William’s grip and turning away. He’s promptly pulled back, William’s grip light but firm, not to be ignored. Michael will not look away again.
“Oh, beloved, but you can,” William says, like it’s obvious. Easy. Normal. “It’s only to be expected that someday your sensitive little mind would confuse pain and pleasure, when I’ve given you one in tandem with the other.”
His dad isn’t… angry anymore? That Michael’s been a shit all evening, that he’s done nothing but pout and scowl and snipe? He talked about his age and dad’s dad and he’s… getting away with it? Maybe? Michael’s head is spinning. This is so against everything he knows about his dad – his dad, who does not forgive easily, if ever; his dad, who always gets his pound of flesh as payment when his rules haven’t been obeyed – and he can’t decide if that’s exciting or terrifying.
He can’t decide anything, really. He’s not sure he even wants to.
“Ask me to hurt you,” William asks. He doesn’t plead – nothing quite so uncouth, so desperate — but he wants it. He wants it the same way he’s wanted everything of Michael’s, with an all-consuming hunger that threatens to shake the world with the force of it. “Ask me to pull you out of that head of yours. I know you’re trapped in it right now, circuits overloaded. Pain will take it away. Ask me to take it all away.”
“I can’t.”
“You will,” William says as he tucks a strand of Michael’s shaggy hair behind his ear, and Michael knows he’s right.
William always gets what he wants, from the tile in the bathroom to the liquor on the shelf, the products the staff orders for the prize counters and who he wants, and when. His son is no different, and he wants him now. He wants him with an intensity that no one else has felt, in ways that normal humans are too weak to understand. He loves in ways others are simply too frightened to name, in ways that haven’t even been invented yet.
He wants to hurt Michael in ways that no one else could ever dream of, because that’s how much he loves him. It’s always been that way: pain and pleasure, agony and love. The idea of Michael — sweet, sensitive Michael, who’d start a fight with another boy on the same day he’d hold a funeral for a dead baby bird — turning to his father with his big blue-violet eyes swimming with tears and asking to be beaten, branded and bred makes William so hard he feels dizzy.
He wants it, needs it.
“Dad, I’m broken,” Michael sobs finally, his shame and apprehension losing against the force of nature that is his dad. There’s no point in denying it now, not after he’s made this much of a fuss and moaned like a whore when his dad had threatened to beat him fucking bedridden. He looks up at his dad and then tips forward against William’s chest, bringing a hand up to push William’s shirt aside and flatten a hand over his heart. Skin to skin, hair soft beneath his fingers, home.
“Why would you say that?” William asks, his hand cupping the back of Michael’s head as he tucks him in close. He can feel the heat of Michael’s flushed cheek against his chest, a warmth that excites him always as much as the searing heat of Michael’s cunt against the knee tucked between his thighs. He’s already wearing his daddy’s bruises and he’s already asking for more. His perfect painslut of a son.
William kisses the top of Michael’s head and croons, “You’re not broken, sweetheart… only malfunctioning, like any intricate machine. We’ll fix you up properly… Daddy will take out all of the bad thoughts and fill your mind up with only good things. Good thoughts, good dreams, and all you have to do is focus on me. Focus on the pain, then the pleasure.”
Michael nods, sniffling, mashing his runny nose directly into William’s velour shirt and William doesn’t even care. If anything, he clutches Michael tighter, hand smoothing down his messy hair. He pulls him off his chest only when the shaking in his shoulders has stopped, when he’s cried all he can for the moment. His neglected prick throbs at the way Michael looks up at him, lips bee-stung and bloody, face wet with tracks of snot and tears, in want of only some cum to make a perfect picture.
“I will, dad,” Michael says, and William brushes his hair back behind his ear again even though Michael hates it.
“When the problem is here,” he begins as he taps Michael’s temple, bending to place a hand between his legs before he finishes, “We’ll assess it from here.”
There’s something about it — so clinical, so detached and yet so gentle, so loving — that makes Michael ache from it. William doesn’t touch him yet, doesn’t skim a hand up his thigh to dip into his briefs, doesn’t rub the hardened swell of his dick through wet, sticky fabric, just… cups him. Holding him there, just the way he’s got his body in his arms, safe and secure. Possessive.
William drags his hand up Michael’s belly to place it flat over his chest, a mirror to the way his boy is holding onto him. Feeling for the rabbit-quick beat of his heart beneath the skin, so close he could reach out and touch it, hold his baby boy’s beating heart in his palm and feel it pulse.
“That will fix it… here.”
Michael looks down at William’s hand on his chest. He’s moving at half-speed, slow and sluggish, like he’s swimming through syrup, and he brings his free hand from his side to rest on his dad’s wrist. A silent plea: don’t stop. Press harder. Rip me open, pull out the bad stuff. Make me what you want.
He draws a circle on his dad’s chest, then a square, idle movements that mean nothing but an excuse to touch his skin. His hand dips inside his unbuttoned shirt to hold his pectoral, thumb grazing over his nipple as he looks up at him pleadingly. “Dad, can we go to your room? I… want you to make it stop. Hit me, whatever. Take it all away.”
William nearly comes right then and there.
He rises from his kneel, feet planted in a wide stance, just so Michael can see what he’s done to him. William is achingly hard, cock straining the seam of his trousers. Michael stares up at it, his dreamy, unfocused eyes fighting his stupor to focus on the prize before him, just one more thing that William might hurt him with this evening.
“Yes, love.”
Michael takes William’s hand when it’s offered, yelping when he’s yanked to his feet and it feels like his elbow’s going to pop out of its socket again. William tugs him against him again, his hard-on thick and undeniable against Michael’s hip. Michael moves slowly, tentatively, to cup his dad’s throbbing bulge in his hand, blinking up at him with innocence he doesn’t have as he asks, “Are you gonna hurt me… with this?”
“In due time.”
Michael can walk himself to William’s room, now. He often does, whether it’s of his own volition or under direction, but this time, William carries him.
A cradle carry, like he’s done countless times before when Michael was too soft and sleepy to toddle his own way there. A bridal carry, because they’ve been married since William first made love to him over a decade ago, even if Michael hadn’t understood all the pain had a purpose at the time.
Past the threshold of William’s doorway, it begins in earnest: Michael on William’s bed, legs tucked up beneath him, sitting up straighter than ever, a good boy waiting patiently for his medicine. William removes his jewelry — the long gold chain with the rabbit pendant that he’d gotten on his last birthday from Henry, the signet ring from Oxford, his gold-plated Omega wristwatch — and sets them on a tray, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs and rolling them up to his elbows.
There’s something ritualistic about it. Meditative. Watching his dad dress down like this, watching him take off the things that make him William and turn into simply Dad. Watching him remove the parts of him that would hurt Michael too much, watching the tension ripple through his forearms, veins thick and prominent beneath dark arm hair. He’s so wet he thinks he’s probably dripping onto the covers, the seam of his shorts a constant pressure against his cunt and cock.
William is just as turned on, dick leading the way as he stalks towards his son in the bed. He stops at the edge, canting his hips forward as his hands move to his belt. His fingers move over the edge of the elaborate buckle, nail tapping at the rounded corner of the ornament as he looks down at Michael shivering in his bed. Whether it’s from fear or cold, William doesn’t know, and doesn’t care to. His nipples are hard either way, visible through his thin t-shirt and begging to be pinched, sucked, bitten. William unclasps the buckle and slides it free of the trousers’ loops, folding it in half before leaning to set it on the bed beside Michael.
A threat, perhaps a tool. For later, of course. A belting now, as devastatingly erotic as it might be, would break Michael’s carefully-held calm, and William doesn’t want that. Michael looks from the belt to William’s face, no doubt trying to determine if William is still more turned on than he is angry, and swallows, removing his hands from where they’ve been absently stroking himself in his lap and reaching for William. It’s sweet.
William slaps him for it. A back-hand slap that cracks like a whip, jerking Michael’s head to the side until he whisks it back, that look of naive betrayal that drives William crazy coming across his face. No matter how many times he hits him, Michael always looks shocked, like it’s the first time and he can’t believe Willliam would dare. It's like he never learns, or maybe it’s just that he trusts too much.
“Sorry, dad,” Michael whispers as he holds his cheek. His fingers rub over the red bruise already blooming, looking up at him with eyes that just won’t focus.
“That’s quite alright,” William says, and it sounds like it’s coming somewhere far away. “Patience, pet. Would you like another?”
Michael nods. He can think of very few things he’d like more.
“Look at me.”
Michael obeys, locking his eyes with his father’s. William cups Michael’s cheek in his hand: palm flat, fingertips at his temple, tucking into a loose curl until it threads around his finger like a spring. His thumb rubs over Michael’s mouth, reverent like an artist with his masterpiece, envisioning the figure he’ll carve out of the clay. He croons, “Careful of your tongue,” and Michael has barely a moment to nod before William’s free hand strikes him hard on the opposite cheek.
Michael’s hand flies to his face, pressing hard on the hot, stinging skin like it’s been any help at all before now, and in that same moment William moves fluidly and removes the hand cupping Michael’s other cheek and strikes it instead, sending Michael’s head ricocheting into his father’s palm. It’s a pathetic sight, truly: his little boy’s doe eyes dripping tears until his lashes are dewy and clumped. William’s dick strains against his trousers, filling out even more when Michael whimpers, “Dad,” as he holds his cheek.
“Good boy,” William soothes. No shame in giving praise where it’s due, so long as he doesn’t let Michael grow spoiled and fat on it. “Taking it so well. You barely remember why you were so cross, do you?”
Michael can’t. He can barely remember what day it is. What month. Where they live.
His own name.
All he knows right now is the pain, increasing with each alternating slap that William delivers to his face. The low, steady throb of his cheeks as his heart beats blood to mend the broken vessels beneath his skin. The pain blooms white-hot and bright each time William’s hand connects, and Michael focuses on that. Single-minded. Obsessed.
“Daddy, why does it help?” Michael sobs when he’s taken about three or four on each cheek — thankfully, his dad isn’t making him count — and he’s so hard and slick and horny that he’s rocking in place, rubbing against his own foot tucked beneath him for even a fraction of stimulation.
William has an answer, like he does for everything. “Because pain is absolute. Immutable. It demands your attention, and leaves room for nothing else. If something is hurting you, your mind cannot worry about all of those silly little catastrophes that you love to invent. Pain is real. It is happening.”
Michael lets his dad’s words wash over him. He guesses it’s like when he’d used to cut himself, first on his wrists and then on his thighs. How the bite of the blade into the skin had hurt in a way that felt productive; how he’d focused on the skin severing and blood flowing, imagined the bad thoughts and pain bleeding out with it. How that had made him feel better. Something he could expect, something he could control. A pain he brought on himself, a pain that grounded him.
(Back then, he’d thought that William might not see the cuts in the dark, in the moment. How foolish he’d been. As if William fucking Afton would fail to notice any marks on his baby boy that he hadn’t personally made.)
“But you hitting me? Why the fuck does that help? God, there really is something wrong with me, I think I’m sick in the head,” Michael wails, still humping against his foot even as he laments his sorry state. His hands are dragging along William’s belly and lower still, until he can untuck his dad’s shirt and start up the line of buttons, satisfied only when he’s bared his dad’s torso to his trembling hands.
William knows why it helps. It’s because he’s been beating Michael and then fucking him for over a decade, and somewhere along the way the perfect parallel lines of coding he’d programmed into his boy had developed a mind of their own and wrapped together, crossed over and coiled, inexorably linked. Michael never stood a chance. It’s no wonder that being beaten now makes his dirty little cunt wet.
It isn’t an unwelcome reaction. In truth, as much as William hates to admit when something wasn’t specifically planned, it’s better than he could have ever anticipated. He’s always wanted his son with a single-minded hunger — and he’s never denied himself a taste — but the way that their relationship has evolved is beyond perfect. Michael’s eagerness to please, the sheer need for William’s approval that’s awoken in him, the one that yearns for his father just as much as William wants him… these things are some of William’s greatest accomplishments. His son as he lives and breathes is his greatest invention.
Michael scrabbles for his dad’s cock, moving on sheer instinct. His mind feels too fuzzy to call it anything else; he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. His dad looks like he’s about to bust out of his emerald green trousers, a dot of dark fabric on his thigh where the tip of his prick has leaked when he tucked it down the leg. William watches him with mild amusement, enjoying the way that Michael’s eyes fight to focus, the way his fingers curl clumsily around the tip, like when he was younger and hadn’t a clue what to do.
It’s a pretty sight. He’s after a prettier one.
“Patience,” William repeats as he swats Michael’s hand away, even though all he wants to do is push Michael back on the bed and hoist his legs up over his shoulders and fuck his cunt until he cries. Until he bleeds, if need be, until William gets his fill.
The look on Michael’s face when he swats his hand – a wince of pain, a bright burst of shock, a kicked puppy-pout that screams betrayal – is delicious. It reminds him that Michael’s feelings are still his. William wants to photograph it. To memorialize it in bronze, or maybe marble, because yet another Polaroid of Michael’s degradation just isn’t enough.
“You asked a question. Listen to the answer.”
Michael nods. His dad sounds like he’s talking from far away, like a record spinning two rooms over. He knows the sound of the music, but he can’t make out the words. He feels like he’s floating, but he tries so, so hard to listen to Dad. Dad doesn’t like when Michael doesn’t listen, even if it’s his fault that he’s struggling to understand what he’s hearing.
“A mind like yours is unique,” William prefaces. “No one understands you the way I do. Your attempts with the razor blade, modifying – damaging, even — my work were unsuccessful, because even as you’re doing it, your mind is fighting you. For clarity, for understanding, begging to find reasons: why you cut your skin, why it helps. How could you ever possibly let go? You need guidance.”
Michael nods again. William has been telling him that since he was a child. He needs guidance, instruction, and lots of it. He’s helpless on his own, dad says. It’s why they’ll always be together. It’s why he needs to be handled roughly, sometimes.
Like he’s read Michael’s mind, William asks, “Why do you think I’ve always told you that you require a heavy hand? It’s always been for your own good, sweetness.”
It’s a half-truth. William tells Michael a lot of those, all to keep him safe. Dependent. Pliant. The only reality that matters is William’s, and William will remind Michael of that reality at any time and enjoy the process. No matter how many times he has to bury it deep in the fertile ground of Michael’s mind, no matter how many times he has to beat it into his body until it sticks.
“Do you understand, love?”
Michael doesn’t answer, just stares up at William, eyes blissfully unfocused. There’s a sweet, empty cast to his expression: fucked-out, unaware. He’s perfectly innocent when he’s under in this way, and William wants to devour him.
He blinks up at him earnestly, looking so sincere, and William brings his hand to Michael’s cheek harder than he needs to. It’s not quite a slap, just enough to make him startle. Michael barely registers it as pain anymore, nuzzling against it, his skin smooth and warm against William’s palm. William imagines he can feel the blood in his veins beneath the skin, rushing there, fever hot. Michael blinks up at him and nods, kissing the tip of William’s thumb as it rubs over his lips.
“There’s my good boy.”
William smooths Michael’s hair back from his brow and bends to kiss the bridge of his nose before he speaks. “You’ve taken quite a few. Your face is going to bruise.”
“It’s okay,” Michael says quietly, hand coming up to feel his other cheek. He pets it, fingers over the bruise high on his cheek as his mouth gapes in a moan. He whimpers something that might be dad before it’s swallowed up in an aborted moan, and William laughs.
“Oh, we seem to have a misunderstanding… I wasn't apologizing, merely stating a fact.”
“Oh,” Michael says, and this time, the flush on his face isn’t only a bruise. “I like it.”
William’s cock throbs impatiently, filling out — somehow, still, when he’s already so hard he could punch through a fucking wall — under his son’s touch. He doesn’t usually hit Michael's face, at least not this much, this consistently. Part of it is sentimentality, and part of it is pure and simple narcissism. A face that pretty — his own face, effectively, after all — doesn’t deserve to be beaten like a common whore’s; bruised and battered by heavy hands. A slap to the back of his head or a swift smack on his rear are far more effective, anyway.
Another part is, perhaps, practicality — the world is full of busybodies, after all — and that he doesn’t need Michael raising questions at the diner. It isn’t a lack of trust in Michael, not when he’s taught him to lie quickly and convincingly, more so that he doesn’t want the annoyance of someone even thinking that they can question his parenting.
They don’t know what Michael needs. They don’t know how difficult it can be to have a sullen brat of a son whose cunt is a perfect fit for his father’s cock.
“Dad…” Michael begins. “I don’t wanna think anymore. Please, please fix me.”
William flattens his palm over Michael’s chest, just above his heart. He’d expect a quicker beat like before, a veritable pounding against his ribcage but it’s steady beneath his palm, calmer than it’s ever felt because William has him so under his thrall. Michael shifts just so, and before he can start up again with rubbing his cunt against anything he can get between his legs, William presses his hand harder against his chest and pushes him backwards.
It isn’t much, really. Just the slightest increase in pressure and Michael folds like wet newsprint on a papier-mâché skeleton. His legs spread as he falls back onto the pillows, shorts twisted and pulled to the side and he’s so wet that William can feel the heat of him before he even gets a hand halfway up his thigh. A swipe of his finger over the seam of Michael’s shorts spreads his slick lips beneath the fabric, guiding the press of William’s thumb to his hole in a wicked tease.
“You’re positively dripping,” William says as he strokes Michael through his shorts, his voice thick with lust. Michael ducks his head and lets his hips rock into the touch, slow and steady, so his dad doesn’t think he’s trying to fight. He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing. He doesn't know anything.
Anything except want.
William breathes a sigh of relief as he pops the button on his trousers and pulls them down enough to make do, eyes never leaving his son, who’s staring up at him begging to be defiled. William could hit him again, right now. It would be so easy: he could pinch his little boy tits until his puffy nipples bled, sucker-punch his belly and make him curl into himself as he cried out. He could beat Michael until he’s black and blue and bleeding and the boy would say thank you and then ask for more.
His dad is crawling over him before he can ask for it, blocking out the warm yellow light of his bedside table lamp like an eclipse. Michael basks in William’s shadow, because the moon only glows when the sun gives it light. His trousers are unzipped and his prick is out of his bunched-up briefs and Michael sighs before he sniffles, “Daddy, please…”
“Yes, lovely boy, Daddy hears you,” William soothes. There might be more to Michael’s plea, specifics that don’t matter anyway. Break me, fix me, hurt me, fuck me, own me, it doesn’t matter which.
The result will be the same.
Michael, with his shirt pushed up under his armpits and his pretty boy tits spilling out, all freckled skin and puffy nipples to be slapped and bitten. William’s fingers at the seam of him, shoving in deep until his fingertips are stroking over that deep, forbidden opening and Michael’s whining is alternating between ‘Hurts,’ and ‘More.’
William, above him with his dripping onto Michael’s thigh, precum snaking down a half-dozen parallel lines. Old wounds from discarded razor blades, healed and scarred for months, blurred beneath milky-clear fluid.
Michael, with his shorts and briefs tugged down mid-thigh, toned calves over William’s shoulders and the boy’s wrists clutched in one hand, pressed above his head like a pinned insect as William lines up his cock against a cunt that should not be able to take it.
Michael, breached after just enough work to begin opening him up, because they both like it when William has to force inside. Pain and friction, a feeling that lasts. William’s been patient enough, after all, and Michael wants to be pulled out of his own head. His boy’s on the work bench being picked apart, and William’s cock is simply a connector to the diagnostics panel deep inside, a conduit to carry nothing but good things, good thoughts.