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William Afton can, without a doubt, wholeheartedly say that there is no one in the entire world he hates more than Henry Emily and not tell a single lie — though that isn’t to say he couldn't lie about it; he’s a fantastic liar after all.
Henry didn’t do anything wrong per se, but he also didn’t not do anything wrong, which is honestly enough if you really think about it. Henry Emily is smart, unbelievably so, almost to the same degree that William is, just without the added bonus of losing his fucking mind over it, which is really just so terribly unfair because no one should ever have any reason to be that good at math without paying the price for it in, one, the ability to function as a normal human being, and, two, their god-blessed sanity. Henry Emily also seems to have an intimate understanding of just William’s flavor of crazy, which is infuriating because William prides himself on appearing normal and put together, save for the way his eye twitches when faced with the slightest, most insignificant inconvenience.
Another thing – Henry Emily is a damn fool, and also a bloody fucking pothead. There’s something inherently undesirable and grotesque to William about getting high off your ass. Maybe it’s the way he was raised, maybe he’s just a little bit jealous that every deviant and stoner he’s met thus far has seemed a hell of a lot better adjusted than him, or maybe he doesn’t give a fuck because it’s his opinion and what he thinks goes when he’s in his own bloody head. All he knows is that Henry Emily is a deviant, and a low-life, and he absolutely hates him. Another thing while he’s on the topic – and oh, could he be on this topic for hours, days even, more – Henry Emily is nice and well liked, and it irks William to his very core. He’d think that he’d be more positively inclined to everyone’s favorite fucking gift from god, but it drives him crazy. Who gives a fuck that Henry shares his notes, and helps people study, and always knows when something is wrong, and can make even William smile, and always knows what William is thinking before he says it, because William fucking hates him, which leads him to the most important point he’s made in all his twenty years of life.
He’s gonna go fucking crazy if he has to see Henry Emily’s stupid face one more time.
He storms into the apartment and throws his keys across the room, absolutely fuming, fresh from his afternoon class in the shop. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t decompress, just storms directly to his room, seething in silent, distilled fury. As soon as the door to his room is closed behind him, he heaves and throws all his textbooks hard against the wall, watching his notebook flutter open, loose papers cascading down in a small explosion of sorts similar to what William is going to do if he doesn't get a fucking grip soon.
He watches the books hit the floor, and his eye twitches once. And then again. His jaw clenches hard and his eye twitches for a third time, and his hands suddenly need to be around someone’s neck, subconsciously squeezing hard around air, nails digging into his own palms. He, unfortunately, does not have the privilege of a throat to wrap his hands around at the moment though, so he settles for whipping around like a doll on a hairpin trigger and slamming his fist into the door like it’s responsible for this. His knuckles sting, and fuck, that’s good, because he’s already managed to split some of them. He brings his fist to the mouth and licks at the thin cracks in his skin, blood just beneath the surface, and if that isn’t the soft pulsing of energy that he really needed to fuel his hatred. It’s the same energy that blooms low in his core when Henry nags at him, or cracks his facade, or challenges him; a warmth that seeps through his very bones and settles in the back of his throat and the ache in his soul.
His harsh grey eyes harden and he jerks himself back around, looking at his room once more instead of at the door, throwing his weight around carelessly. He’s not new to lashing out, he’s been losing his shit since he was ten years old, but now he’s big and strong, and has fists to actually do something about it. He goes for his desk first, and he does just as his body craves, sweeping his arms across the surface and clearing it of everything that had previously been there, sighing softly in relief as his belongings crash to the floor, glasses shattering, papers scattering across the floor, miscellaneous desk objects and his lamp smashing against the ground, like the tension leaving his shoulders. It feels good, it feels like release, it feels like a scream that builds itself in the back of your throat being released.
Oh, and doesn’t that sound fucking incredible, so he does just that, opening his mouth and screaming like it’s all he’s ever needed. It’s loud, and it’s raw, and it’s fucking incredible, easing the words that had been choking him for the past few hours, days, weeks, fucking months now. It’s a noise complaint he can deal with at another time. His hands fist at his sides and dig into his thighs until he loses control of them and they slam down onto the now clear surface of his desk, and he keeps screaming and screaming until he can’t anymore, and then he's standing there, in his dark room, with his head held low. A bead of sweat drips down his forehead, and his breath comes in sharp pants as he catches it through gritted and bared teeth, absolutely boiling with emotions – stupid, bloody, buggering emotions. His leg starts to bounce subconsciously as he tries to collect himself, to keep the hatred that scalds his insides and coils itself low in his stomach from screaming out of him in every direction, his heel tapping hard and fast against the ground.
He just can’t be expected to contain himself, spending all his time around the likes of Henry Emily, the man he hates the most in all the world. In a fit, he storms back across the room and kicks his trashcan, hard, sending it slamming against the wall and spilling its contents – in large part, an amount of crumpled notes ripped from William’s journal – across the floor. Unsatisfied, he turns back to the mess on his floor that had once been the inhabitants of his desktop and stomps it, crushing already broken glass under his heel, slamming his foot down and grinding each shard into dust, picturing Henry’s sweet, sweet throat under his heel instead. He staggers back and to the other side of his room, and at some point he’s started smiling again, and his hands find the wall, covered in pinned-up blueprints and plans for projects he’s set ahead of himself. His nails dig in and shred long tears down the pristine articles, shredding their fine details and meticulous notes. It’s okay, this isn’t the first time – he has copies.
He laughs breathlessly, exhausted, infuriated, enraged at the heat in his gut that simply refuses to abate. He leans back and combs his fingers through his hair, his bitten-down nails catching knots and tangles and ripping right through them, and squeezes his eyes shut trying to think of anything, anything other than that look on Henry’s face.
It’s pointless though, all he can see is Henry’s face, the way his eyebrows would furrow when he caught William staring, the stubble on his chin, the creases of his beautiful hazel eyes, that bollocksed little frown he’d put on when William would tell him to go to hell. The day's events play out in his mind, William wiping the sweat from his brow as he studied his plans and agonized over his inability to make sense of his own notes. Henry had sauntered up behind him, leaning over and resting his chin on William’s shoulder, reading William’s plans over William’s shoulder like it was the most normal thing. And he had made it make sense, and William hadn’t felt so genuinely helped by anything in a long damn time, but Henry Emily had been the one to help, and Henry Emily’s breath was ghosting over his neck as he panted for breath in the sweltering machine shop, and Henry Emily knew him better than he knew himself sometimes. And then, like it always did, that soft heat had bloomed in his stomach and raged there until it became an inferno that swallowed William in hate.
The kind of hate that puts words – words you can’t force yourself to grit out bitterly in the way that you can a ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’ – in the back of his throat. The kind of hate that makes him tell Henry to fuck off before he looks away and has to cover his mouth when he suddenly finds himself short of breath. The kind of hate that makes his cheeks flash with hot, bitter humiliation when Henry teases him in the slightest, when they get too close and instead of discomfort William feels okay, because he’s not meant to feel okay. It’s the kind of hate that makes him look for Henry in everything he sees and everything he feels. It’s the kind of hate that makes him hyperfocus on how Henry’s hair falls in soft waves, combed to perfection save for the same six or so strands that fall loose and the hair at the nape of his neck that winds itself in soft curls. It’s the kind of hate that makes itself known when William catches himself slipping into a raucous laugh, or a soft smirk, or a grin at something Henry says, and Henry sees it, and his eyes soften, and he smiles right back while he watches William like he can’t fucking stand to not see the way the warmth bleeds from him before he shuts himself off again. The hate that makes itself known late at night when they’re both pissed and laying out on whatever roof they’ve climbed up to, talking about their dreams and their plans for the future.
And fuck, it’s too much, it’s all too fucking much, and the hate is slowly melting into ache and fuck – has he been this hard the whole time? It doesn’t really matter because he’s hard now, and absolutely fucking aching for it, his cock throbbing with a sharp, incessant need. He kicks off his shoes and scrabbles at his belt, open-mouthed panting now, eyes narrowed hard at his bed as he staggers towards it, shaking hands prying at his buckle. He drags himself up onto his bed, frantically pulling down his zipper, not bothering to strip or even just push his underwear down around his thighs, settling for the bare minimum to free his aching length from its confines. His hair feels hot against the back of his neck, and he crawls on his knees over his bed, lunging for a hair tie to get his fucking hair out of his fucking face before he overheats. He never should have grown it out, it was fucking stupid, but not stupid like Henry – the first thing that comes to mind when Williams thinks of the word stupid – stupid like letting himself feel this way, all hot and achy and fucking insane. Once his hair is off the back of his neck, he’s on his hands and knees, or, more accurately, on his knees with one hand holding him up while the other flies to his cock to stroke himself with a tight grip.
His hand is agony around his length when what he really wants is more. He wants tightness, he wants to feel someone squeezing around him, he wants to hear someone sobbing while he fucks them, he wants to pour his hate into someone and feel them clench around him as it fills them up. He slows down his strokes, changing his pace to be slower, harder, gripping himself tighter, just how he likes. Bitterly, he wonders how Henry likes it, but that’s a fucking gateway drug, and suddenly he’s picturing Henry in bed with him, laid out beneath him, his hand wrapped around his own dick, and oh, would Henry have a pretty fucking dick, and William wants to lick it, hold it, fucking bite it. He pictures Henry’s hand working up and down, soft and slow, all gentle and shit like the flowery tosser he is. He hates Henry, he wants to spit on his face and step on his throat, but maybe while he’s at it he’d also like to step on his cock, and put just the right amount of pressure on that pretty dick until Henry was aching for it. Maybe while he’s hating, he can also be worshipping Henry’s thighs and pressing his face into the pillows and making him beg for it.
His cock twitches weakly in agreement, because no matter how much he tries to convince it, his body can’t seem to get the memo that what he feels for Henry is hate, that Henry Emily is the worst thing that has ever happened to William Afton, that Henry Emily is his natural antithesis, that they despise each other. They must despise each other because William Afton is not wrong. William Afton is as close to God as most men come these days, and so fuck Henry, and fuck his body for taking that sentiment to heart and flesh.
The soft heat of his hatred breathes a new wave of warmth through William that makes him shudder before it sinks lower in his stomach, and lower still, tightening his core as pre-cum beads at his tip, sticky like blood and salty like tears. Like the angry tears that are pricking his eyes while he grits his teeth to keep from moaning, trapping the pressure, the build up, and the need that’s eating at him all inside, just for him. A bead of sweat drips from his brow and rolls down the side of his face, his face, which is flushed hotly with a lust that may never be misinterpreted as anything other than seething rage. His vision is hazy, and his eyes want to close, but he won’t let himself surrender like that, won’t let himself admit his fool pleasure, so he forces them open and forces himself to look down at his hand clenching the sheets as he holds himself up.
His hand from this position isn’t enough; the pleasure isn’t enough for him to sink into yet, and it’s only serving to make the ache worse. He can’t fucking take it – it’s madness. He shifts to lay face down, holding his hips up above the bed, one hand still on his cock while the other grabs a pillow and pulls it up under him so he can bury his face and sink his nails into it. When he’s comfortable, he angles his hips downward awkwardly, arching just right so the sensitive head of his cock can drag against his comforter, smearing precum over the soft black fabric. After adjusting his grip so it’s just tight enough, he pushes his hips up and drops them again, keeping his hand stationary so he can fuck into his own fist properly. And fuck, if that isn’t as close to heaven as he’s bound to make it, except for maybe the heaven between Henry’s thighs if there was even the slightest chance that God is kind and Henry is just as much of a fag as William – impossible, mind you.
He bounces his hips like that again, and drinks in the slide of his cock through his rough palm encircling it, the drag made softer by the copious amounts of pre he’s leaking in his desperation for release. He needs to do this more often, fucking his own hands, because honestly, for fuck’s sake, if he had been taking full advantage of how much a good orgasm does for the soul this whole time, he wouldn’t be nearly as fucked in the head as he is. He can feel the heat growing in his core like this, much faster given that he can use that fantastic imagination of his to pretend it’s Henry’s tightness he’s thrusting into and not his hand. The build up of soft whimpers and needy whines that he’s kept locked in his throat all this time push at his lips and threaten to escape from where they belong, kept safely within him. He lifts his head up to breathe, eyes nearly going cross from how fucking good he feels, face red and sweaty, stray strands of his hair sticking to his face as his whole expression trembles and threatens to collapse. He will not give in; he cannot give in; he can not admit the defeat that comes with fucking your fist to the thought of the man you hate more than anything.
Like all things though, he can’t control his voice, and a single soft groan manages to weasel its way out of his throat and take his breath with it, threatening his control over his body and this whole fucking situation. Panicking, he presses his face into his pillow and screams, screams his frustration, screams his anger, screams his desperation, screams everything he can’t fucking whimper into the otherwise silence of his room. His teeth grit together again, grinding in a way that grates at his brain in all the wrong ways, and everything is suddenly too loud and too bright and his skin is too warm, sweat soaking into his clothes that are suddenly far too fucking tight, and oh, oh fuck, he’s close, unbearably so, his hips stuttering and cock throbbing as he continues driving into his fist. He bites down onto his pillow, jaw clamping down hard around the soft fabric like how he imagines he’d bite Henry if he was ever given the opportunity to eat him whole, and swallow his sweetness, and melt their souls together, and how disgustingly fucking queer is that.
He starts actively stroking himself once more, his hips just sort of doing their own thing, lost from rationality like so many other things in William’s life that he’s been forced to accept. He’s already far beyond the point of no return, and oh shit, this is really happening, and his length is throbbing like he can feel his heartbeat in his cock. His thumb finds his frenulum, the tip of his thumb teasing over the sensitive area and then dragging upwards to ghost over the head of his cock and trace a circle around his slit, and that's all it fucking takes for the heat in his core to tighten and snap, the inferno blazing through his body so hot it sends cool shivers up his spine and leaves him trembling.
Maybe this is why he doesn’t jerk off, so when he does, even the bare minimum of orgasms hit like a heavy iron fire poker slamming into the bridge of his nose.
He feels good, he feels euphoric, every muscle tightening and then releasing in this cool wave of surrender, the only kind of surrender he’ll allow himself, and only every so once in a while. A chorus of soft ‘No, no, oh no, fuck, please, no’s are muffled into his pillow as he fights, fights with everything he has to not fucking let go. It’s far beyond that though, and the release hits him all at once, eyes rolling back, stomach muscles jumping and flexing. His cock twitches once in his rapidly tightening grip, and then, as the bliss reaches its crescendo, cum starts to drool from his tip, slow at first, oozing over his fingertips, and then all at once it’s spilling out of him, rope after rope of cum pumping out as he strokes himself through it, his release pooling in his sheets.
It feels too good, it feels like fucking madness, and it feels wrong. The post-orgasm haze fading and leaving him feeling empty. It’s not enough. It’s still not enough. William seethes as he releases his pillow from his harsh bite, panting in a mixture of afterglow and sheer rage. Nothing is ever fucking enough; nothing could ever quell the thrumming of hatred in William’s bones like the man who put it there. He’s still hard. Oversensitive as hell, but still hard.
Angrily, he pushes himself up and crawls to the other side of his bed, not bothering to pull up his pants or fix his appearance, dragging himself to the side of the bed closest to the door. He slips off the bed as gracefully as he can manage and stands up on weak legs, staggering at first as he tries to remember how to walk. As soon as he’s managed to stand on his own two legs and catch his breath though, he's right back to losing his shit again. He grabs a glass off his nightstand and hurls it across the room, watching with dark eyes as it smashes against the wall, breaking into a million little pieces. He sighs softly, deflating marginally as his urge to break shit is sated for the moment being. He turns around to face the wall behind him, which is perfectly empty, just for him to make a mess of. He stumbles closer and leans forward against the wall, his forearm braced against the smooth surface for him to bury his face into while his free hand finds his cock for the second time.
His knees almost buckle from the first contact, and he has to bite into his own arm to keep from groaning. He feels insatiable, he feels feral, he feels like a fucking animal getting all worked up over Henry of all people; and to this degree, this level of pure and utter need. He’s so sensitive it hurts, but he’s a masochist, and he always has been, so he squeezes tight and strokes himself hard and fast. Experimentally, he tries pinching his tip hard between two fingers, and he very nearly sobs at that, biting down into his arm so hard that his canine draws blood, the iron sweet on his tongue. This is what he needs, this is what he’s needed for so long, to have something, anything, at his mercy. If it had to come down to it being his own body, then so fucking be it; it’s better than losing his mind and convincing himself he’s god again, like he’s not just any other dirty fag with a bad childhood. Then again, could any other fag end up roommates with a sweet, soft, infuriating man like Henry Emily? Could any other fag build machines quite as impressive as his? Is any other fag anywhere near his level of genius? He thinks not.
He suddenly is struck with the only thing that could make this whole ordeal better, and suddenly he’s pushing himself off the wall and stumbling across the room to his desk once more, crashing into it, and frantically ripping open his drawers and digging through them, one hand never leaving his cock, the pleasure building relentlessly, too sweet and too hot and harsh in all the right ways. Finally his hand finds purchase on its prize, his journal, and then he’s hunched over the desk, curling in on himself, legs weak with overstimulation as he frantically flips through the pages until he finds his prize. A printed photograph of Henry in the shop, staring at nothing in particular, lips pulled into a lazy grin. The very existence of such a photo makes William boil over with hatred like he wasn’t the one who took it.
He rips the photo out of the book and carries it with him as he staggers back over to the wall, slamming the photo against the wall. William’s mind produces images of Henry at his mercy, the larger man pressed against the wall by his throat where William stands, replacing the photo held up by one shaking hand. He imagines that Henry would be looking at him with those big fucking whore eyes, can practically picture his stupid fucking glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. “Fuck,” Willian hisses, finally letting something other than a single groan escape his clenched jaw, his composure rapidly dwindling.
He can’t help it anymore, he can’t be fucking helped, he needs this, he needs like no one had ever needed anything before. He’s close again, already, and it fucking hurts. His cock is protesting more than his ego now, which is really saying something, and – fuck him – he’s going to be sore tomorrow. He can already imagine his own quiet discomfort at spending the day in his shop coveralls, the coarse material of the garments rubbing against all the wrong places for hours, and poor sweet Henry asking what’s wrong like William hasn’t just spent the evening rubbing himself raw to the thought of making him cry, and the mere thought is almost enough to send him over the edge.
He leans in closer, pressing his nose against the photo as he glares at it to keep it up against the wall, using his now-free hand to, very productively, punch the wall again. His knees are buckling slowly beneath him, wobbling as he sinks lower and lower into indignity and complete and total indignation. “Fuck,” he cries out for a second time, like it’s going to do anything. He feels dirty, and broken, and ruined by his own fist and his steady refusal to admit that what he really means when he says he fucking hates Henry Emily is that he does in fact hate Henry Emily, it’s just that he also wants Henry Emily to hold him, and kiss him on the mouth, and make him whine and cum into his hand like the pent up fucking teenager he basically is.
His vision goes distant and hazy as he imagines it, Henry holding his face, telling him that he’s allowed to be as fucking crazy as he wants, cooing softly to him in that patronizing tone William absolutely hates while William cums into his rugged palm. That’s nice, that’s really nice, and the only thing that would be even nicer would be if Henry did William the favor of bending himself over so William could fuck him like an animal. Or maybe it would be nicer if Henry kissed him on the mouth after all – that’s always nice.
The fantasy his mind settles on is so much more torturous though; a scene of humiliation and suffering, of William being laid down and stripped bare and tortured in the way it hurts most. The image his mind provides is, of course, that of him and Henry tangled up in the sheets late at night, pressed together, touching each other with soft hands and speaking casually, and sweetly, like they care about each other, and oh if that isn’t hell, because William Afton must not know love, must not know weakness, and he fucking hates it. The warmth doesn’t hate it though, and neither does a soft, small part of him that has never wanted more than that.
That fantasy is all it takes to put him over the edge, the combination of sharp overstimulation and sweet, sweet release tangling themselves together in his throat. He tries to fight it at first, gritting his teeth and banging his head against the wall, letting the photo fall and float away elsewhere, and then he has to brace his forearm against the wall to keep from slumping forward. In the half-second moment on the edge, many small things happen. A bead of sweat drips from William’s jaw, his eyes finally reveal his soul in that the steely glare he had forced them into breaks, and they roll back in his head, his legs stop being able to take it and he slumps forward, and he finally releases the breath he didn't know he had been holding in favor of panting wantonly, and then he fucking shatters like the glass he threw against the wall.
His orgasm overtakes him swiftly, and he’s melting forward against the wall, his cock drooling cum that splatters on the wall and floor. Henry’s name is on his tongue as he cries out, finally releasing the soft words he had sought to lock away, a weight lifting from him as it all happens in split-second succession. It's too much, it’s all too much, and it’s all too sore and achy, and it’s all too swift and sweet and all-consuming, and then he’s too weak to stand too, and he’s sinking to the floor and landing on his knees hard, panting in the afterglow, his stomach muscles twitching and jumping as he tries to regain control of them.
After that there is silence, and the world holding its breath, just the faint hums and clicks of appliances in a room that’s so still you’d think time itself had frozen, mingled with William’s soft pants and gasps. And then the world comes back to life again all at once. There’s a soft creak of wood to his side, that of weight shifting, and William’s eyes open slowly at first, pupils still dilated with lust. That changes the moment he turns his head and blinks the world back into focus though, because there is Henry himself, kneeling down to pick up the photo that William had let fall in his desperation, and then standing again to look around at the carnage that is William’s room.
Any lingering blossom of warmth is almost immediately snuffed from existence and replaced with choking horror. He wants to stand, and compose himself, and play it off like he always does, and tell Henry to fuck off, but his legs don’t work and his mouth doesn't know how to form the words he wants. Henry’s eyes rest on the photo for a moment and then fall on William again, and they are impossible to read, and William is surged with panic because no one is impossible to read and everything he’s built is crumbling around him.
Henry in the low light is still just as beautiful as in William’s fantasies, though, and oh god how he hates it, hates the way Henry considers him, the way Henry shifts his weight from foot to foot, hates Henry – except no he doesn’t and this is the only time he’s ever in a state to admit it – for being the only one who can break through his carefully crafted act and dig his fingers into the soft flesh it exposes.
Henry just nods to himself like he’s formed some thought process and offers William a hand up, and when William won’t swallow his pride and take it, Henry leans down and bodily helps him up, forcing him to stand and then helping him to sit on the edge of the bed.
“You should get some rest,” Henry says softly, reaching behind William and undoing his hair tie carefully. He’s frowning softly, not quite in a bad way, but in the way that someone with nothing left to say does when there are things they very much need to say. “We’ll get this all cleaned up tomorrow, yeah?” He murmurs, voice low and like silk over jagged iron to William, who is still cracked open and oh, so raw. With that, Henry turns and walks out, closing the door behind him, and William is left in his silence, stewing in the ruins of his own mistakes. He buries his face into his hands and, for not the first time tonight, screams like he’s been fractured clean open, his voice hoarse and raw, and does not stop until the hatred finally gives way to sobbing.