A/N: This story is an AU of an AU: my imaginings based on the incredibly intriguing concept by Rebellovesrobots on Tumbler of William Afton turning into a were-rabbit.

In this version, William and Henry are living in a blended family and in the same house. William's wife left him with the three kids, and Henry and his wife split when Sammy died. Charlie chose to stay with her father. William hasn't killed any children (yet? He's got it in him, but it hasn't come out).

I hope you enjoy and thanks to Rebel for the awesome AU!

Note: If you read my last fic, this is a completely different imagining of William and Henry.

1. The Day Before

On warm, slow June afternoons at Fazbear's, it was nearly impossible to get William to do any work.

He didn't help Henry iron the wrinkles out of Foxy's walk cycle or jot down song lists or song ideas for future stage shows. If Henry made him sit in the chair at his desk like the overgrown toddler he was, William spent the day making paper crafts or staring at him over the back of his chair. If Henry let him roam free, he went to the costume room behind the stage, put on the terrifying fleece and latex rabbit suit he had made for himself and wandered the shadowy halls like a cryptid.

Just when Henry had gotten into the groove of his latest project and accepted that he'd be working alone that day, William appeared in the doorway to their office wearing the rabbit costume.

"Heya, Henry!" he said in the goofy voice he used when wearing that abomination, interrupting an experiment that Henry probably should have been performing at home in the lab rather than at the restaurant. He held a plate of pizza in each hand and cocked his head to the side, exaggerating the suit's unsettling smile. "Come take a break with me!"

Henry pulled the petri dish of glowing liquid closer for safety. "We shouldn't be touching this substance with our bare hands, much less be eating next to it."

William tossed the plates onto Henry's desk with a sigh and took off his sweaty mask. "You're never any fun," he said. He sat on the edge of the desk and Henry irritably moved his tools out of the way. William took a bite of his own pizza, not bothering to take off his gloves. "I don't know why you're still looking at that stuff," he continued. "It's just sludge that oozed out of Bonnie. Who cares if it's glowing? I'd bet my life it's nothing but oil and battery acid."

Henry scooted the plate away from the petri dish. "It changed the speaking patterns of every animatronic it came into contact with," he protested.

"We can do that without the magic muck, Dr. Frankenstein." William poked at the dish and a bit of it sloshed over the side onto his glove. "Dammit—"

"Careful!" Henry put the lid on the dish so they wouldn't lose any more of the sample to William's boredom. "Would you please get this pizza and yourself off my desk? I'm trying to work."

"Whatever you say." William slid to his feet and gathered the plates. "I try to do something nice—"

"And after you wash that glove, I'd love it if you'd put together the set list like you promised."

"Fine—"

"And for the love of god, don't eat that pizza. It's contaminated."

"I'm not an idiot, Henry, believe it or not." William took the plates out of the room, muttering about how if he had wanted to work with his mother, he would have stayed in England.

Henry examined the petri dish to make sure it hadn't been damaged. There was a greasy smear on one side of the plastic, but otherwise it looked undisturbed. The glowing substance had come from the Bonnie animatronic, just as William had said, though they still didn't know what it was or what had caused it. One day, during a stage show, Bonnie had been behaving strangely and then, from the eyes, ears, and mouth had dripped the odd liquid. It was thick and slimy like algae and it stained anything it came into contact with. By the time Henry had noticed the dripping suit and taken it offstage, it had leaked a shallow puddle that had seeped into the faux fur feet of Freddy and Chica.

William had spent the rest of the afternoon in the back room, crouched on the floor with his sleeves rolled up, scrubbing the suit with turpentine, trying to get the slime out of the fur. As he did, Henry took a few samples from the stage and mopped up the rest. William said that, when he opened up the suit, he couldn't find the source of the leak. He said he believed it was some kind of electrical discharge from the battery or wiring mixed with oil from the joints. Henry believed him until the next day when the animatronics began to sing off script.

Getting the performance rights to music was difficult and expensive, so the stage animatronics had a severely limited number of songs programmed into them. Most were playful ditties written and recorded by Henry and Will to save money, but they also had a couple of popular tunes that they had splurged on such as "Yankee Doodle" and "Happy Birthday"—"Happy Birthday" in particular had cost a fortune. William was better with logistics and contracts, so Henry had left the purchasing and negotiations to him.

It was surprising, then, when Freddy began singing a song up on stage that they hadn't purchased or written and more surprising still was that Chica sang backup vocals and Bonnie played the right chords on his guitar. Henry thought at first that William had secretly programmed them with a new song but when he turned to thank him, William was staring up at the stage in shock, fear even. Something else had caused them to make up their own song and Henry couldn't shake the idea that the substance was to blame. And if it could do something that unbelievable, Henry wondered what else it could do.

After another hour, William returned to the office dressed back into his short-sleeve button up shirt and slim fit jeans, ready to go home. He leaned exasperatedly in the doorway as though Henry was the one keeping them.

"How much longer?" William asked, crossing his arms.

Henry continued writing his notes without looking up. "If you'd make the set lists, we could go home quicker."

William stayed in the doorway for another long moment, as though he expected Henry might relent and go home early. In fact, if they hadn't carpooled to work, William probably would have gone home hours ago, but even Will wasn't heartless enough to leave Henry stranded at Freddy's. And for all William's melodramatic impatience, he cared about the restaurant just as much as Henry.

With a heavy sigh, William pushed up from the doorframe and dragged himself to his desk. He wiped his mouth as he walked by.

"You didn't eat that pizza, did you?" Henry asked. Seriously, sometimes he felt like William was one of his children.

William grumbled a "no" in reply. He sat down on his squeaky desk chair, the one they had gotten for free on the side of the road, and began unhappily scribbling out the set lists for the week.

Henry decided to let it go. He removed his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose, then got back to work. He thought about buying William a cold beer at a gas station on the way home as a thank you for helping, but William hadn't done much and he really wasn't supposed to be drinking anyway. Henry had done almost all the work that day so maybe he'd buy one for himself, instead.

Finally, as the sun was setting, Henry and William locked up and went home. William didn't talk at all, which was unusual. He just stared out the passenger window with his long legs curled up on the seat, his knees resting against the dashboard. Maybe he was angry or tired or ill; he did look a little green around the gills but that might have just been the lighting. They didn't stop for a beer, but they did grab supplies for spaghetti: the easiest and least expensive dinner to make for a household of six.

Elizabeth burst through the door and onto the porch in her school t-shirt and pajama bottoms to welcome them home and inform them, before they heard differently, that there was a food coloring stain on the carpet, but it wasn't her fault, it was Michael's.

"Why the hell wasn't he doing that in the kitchen?" William demanded, leaning heavily on the painted white support beam. He mopped the sweat from his forehead with his arm, too tired, hungry, or sick, to see through Elizabeth's antics.

But it wasn't a battle Henry was willing to fight, so he hiked the bag of groceries higher on his hip and guided both Aftons inside, talking about spaghetti and asking Elizabeth how school was.

"It was okay," she answered. She followed Henry into the kitchen while Will flopped face down on the couch. "But you need to make Charlie play kickball with me."

Henry chuckled to himself as he set a pot of water on the stovetop to boil. When he looked over his shoulder to answer, Elizabeth had gone into the living room to pester William. She loved her father more than anyone loved him in the whole world; more than the wife who had left him, more than Mike, a teenager with enough to worry about at school without having to worry about his erratic father, or Nicholas, too young yet to know anything except that his father was loud and sometimes angry; Elizabeth loved him even more than Henry did and her love was bottomless, boundless. And Henry worried that, if Will wasn't careful, he was going to lose it.

"What, Lizzie? What?" William snapped into the pillow.

"I said, what runs but never walks and burps but never talks?" she demanded, the couch squeaking under her pink socks as she jumped, playing hopscotch around her father's legs.

"It's 'mouth,' Lizzie," William whined like it was painful to say. "'mouth but never talks.' And then something about a bed."

"No!" Elizabeth stomped on the cushion. "Answer the riddle, Daddy. What is it?"

William sighed into the armrest. "I don't know," he complained. "I don't remember."

Henry leaned against the doorframe to the kitchen, watching the fiasco. He watched William sinking defeatedly into the couch and Elizabeth, the heir of all his manic energy, holding onto the worn back cushions and hopping around his legs in an elaborate pattern. One foot forward, then two in between, then one back close to the edge. It was only a matter of time before she stepped on one of his legs.

"Can I take a guess?" Henry asked.

"No," Elizabeth said again.

"Henry," William moaned, "take her with you please."

Henry thought about protesting, but William really didn't look well. Part of this was probably an act, the result of a long and excruciatingly boring day according to William, but some of it might not be, and if William had caught some kind of flu, it was best for Elizabeth to keep her distance.

"Liz," said Henry, "Can you go up and tell everyone dinner's almost ready?"

Elizabeth kept bouncing. "Not until Daddy answers my riddle."

"What if he thinks about it and tells you after dinner?" asked Henry. "Would that be all right?"

Elizabeth stopped bouncing and looked down at William. She got solemnly off the couch and walked dejectedly to the stairs. "Fine," she said as she passed.

When Henry was sure she had gone upstairs, when he started hearing her opening doors and getting yelled at because doesn't she know how to knock, Henry approached the couch.

"Want me to get you some cold medicine?" Henry asked quietly so the kids wouldn't hear.

William lifted his head from the couch, the imprint of the fabric red on his cheek. He looked up at Henry but his eyes had trouble focusing and he turned his head sideways hoping to get a better view.

"7-Up?" he asked.

"I'll check the fridge, but I don't think we have any," replied Henry.

William swore under his breath and let his face flatten the arm of the couch once again. "Never mind then," he said almost inaudibly. He began to shiver.

"Do you want to go to bed?"

"No."

"Do you want a blanket?"

"Just turn the lights off," William mumbled in reply.

Henry switched off the lamp and went back into the kitchen to check the pasta. William was asleep by the time he poured it into the strainer and not even the stampede of hungry kids tumbling down the stairs woke him up.

The kids, William's three and Henry's daughter, ate fast and Henry heard all about what had happened during school. The younger ones told him in great detail what they had had for lunch and the funny things that had happened in class and the crazy things that had happened during recess and what they were going to do during summer vacation, but Mike and Charlie, high schoolers now and interested in bands and boys and girls and what was and wasn't embarrassing, only gave short, vague replies in response to direct questions from Henry.

Henry didn't mind too much; he had never been "cool," but he understood. He looked back at the dark living room and thought back to when he and Will were younger and in college; their "cool" years had never been particularly cool. They'd been fun though, and as annoying and needy as William was sometimes, Henry still believed that running a pizzeria with his best friend was the good life. And to live together besides, blending their houses together when broken families and loneliness and death threatened to separate and swallow them, that was part of the good life, as well.

When the kids were getting ready for bed, Henry covered William with a blanket and set a large mixing bowl on the floor where he could grab it in a hurry, just in case. He wrote "river" on a sticky note and stuck it to the underside of the bowl, then went to the basement to get a little more robotics work done before finally turning in, himself.

A/N: William only ate the pizza because he was pissed at Henry for scolding him. "I'll eat it and nothing will happen to me. That'll show him!" William says as he stuffs his face and cries.

Next chapter coming soon. Thank you for reading, and if you have a chance, please let me know what you thought of it!