i like the idea is that william does quietly enjoys going for long drives somewhere far outside of Utah. not the kind of person who just stays put for long periods. and i think, from my headcanon, william may have lived in several places before deciding to immigrate to Utah. i don't know what his choice intentionally was, if he ever actually did. but i'm guessing.
in the way certain birds keep turning their heads toward distant coastlines even after building a nest inland. william strikes me as the kind of man who becomes restless when the horizon sits still too long (there is something deeply un-Utah about him sometimes). mostly i've seen people often imagine him trapped inside laboratories, offices, dark back rooms with with machinery and paperworks. but i think he would go stale there. mold growing over gold leaf.
no, william needs movement.
while it's not exactly rare for him to travel, he occasionally wants to unwind and wander around. the long road at dusk. neon signs trembling in motel rain. strange little diners with cracked vinyl booths and jukeboxes singing old heartbreaks into the cigarette haze. he likes places with personality, kind of places that failed a little, places that tried too hard or some places full of blinking lights and theatrical nonsense—where he never ever seen/hj.
especially those old family entertainment restaurants from the 70s and 80s with animatronics that moved a little too slowly. he would stand there utterly fascinated, silver eyes bright as coins under fluorescent lighting, watching the mechanical jaw twitch. and he goes then:
“look at the servo timing on that thing.”
whenever he was away, he would always call henry or leave a letter. william insisted it was an "important" duty, though in reality it was just an excuse for his own amusement. henry knew this but still agreed, knowing where it would lead. henry absolutely receives phone calls from roadside payphones at absurd hours. not emergency calls either. william just wants an audience.
“henry, you’d hate this establishment.”
“the carpeting resembles a fungal outbreak...”
“they have a robotic bear that sings country music.”
“…william, why are you calling me.”
“to report vital information.”
or letters written on motel stationery in dramatic fountain-pen script—entire paragraphs about pancake syrup quality; tiny sketches of mascot designs in the margins; complaints about cheap speakers ruining perfectly good disco tracks—henry knows perfectly well these “updates” are just william entertaining himself across state lines. still, he keeps every letter tucked away somewhere. probably with the exhausted tenderness of a man who has accepted he befriended a peacock disguised as an engineer.
and with you beside him? (william would naturally drag you along without hesitation once you're in your free time).
that is where william softens into something unexpectedly warm.
because he stops performing perfection.
he becomes boyish in fragments.
dragging you by the wrist into obscure grocery stores because:
"wait, wait, they sell imported candies here!”
or suddenly steering off-road because he spotted a vintage record shop two towns back and has decided this is now the journey’s central quest. he talks constantly during drives once he feels comfortable enough. sometimes, there's something old-fashioned and warmth of some places that reminds him of nostalgia.. and his old home when he was little (not exactly lol). no more of polished speeches. only ... tangents. spirals. half-finished theories.
one moment he’s discussing animatronic joint articulation. the next he’s passionately explaining why diner coffee tastes better from chipped ceramic mugs. and somewhere during the night drive, with highway lights sliding across his face in strips of amber and blue, he starts talking about the company—the stress, investors, delays, employees and competition. the pressure sitting between his shoulder blades like invisible piano wire.
but the fascinating thing about william is how quickly he catches himself becoming too vulnerable.
you can almost see the internal curtain snap shut.
so suddenly he changes tone with theatrical smoothness:
“tell you something important...”
“would you still love me if i became a roadside magician?”
also he would point at an aggressively ugly mascot statue outside a gas station and says:
"henry would faint on sight.”
just to make you laugh again, just to shift the atmosphere before the heaviness settles too deeply. because i think william hates feeling as though he’s burdening people. even when exhausted, he turns discomfort into entertainment. anxiety into wit. he folds tension into jokes the way some people tuck notes into books.
and the silence between you two during those drives probably becomes sacred eventually where the radio hums softly. one hand of his rests lazily on the steering wheel. his scarf smells faintly of cedar cologne and cold night air. towns pass by like forgotten stage sets.
sometimes there is only the road unfurling endlessly ahead while william glances toward you with that small, private expression people rarely see from him. softer than his smile. almost thoughtful.
as though, for once, he enjoys arriving less than traveling.
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